The Saga of the Witcher

Blood of Elves

Time of Contempt

Baptism of Fire

The Tower of the Swallow

The Lady of the Lake

Andrzej Sapkowski

Blood of Elves translated by Danusia Stok

The Time of Contempt, Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, The Lady of the Lake translated by David French

Contents

Title Page

Blood of Elves

Time of Contempt

Baptism of Fire

The Tower of the Swallow

The Lady of the Lake

Extract from Season of Storms

Copyright

Blood of Elves

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf’s blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of the Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but will burst into flame.

Ess’tuath esse! Thus it shall be! Watch for the signs! What signs these shall be, I say unto you: first the earth will flow with the blood of Aen Seidhe, the Blood of Elves ...

Aen Ithlinnespeath, Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien’s prophecy

CHAPTER ONE

The town was in flames.

The narrow streets leading to the moat and the first terrace belched smoke and embers, flames devouring the densely clustered thatched houses and licking at the castle walls. From the west, from the harbour gate, the screams and clamour of vicious battle and the dull blows of a battering ram smashing against the walls grew ever louder.

Their attackers had surrounded them unexpectedly, shattering the barricades which had been held by no more than a few soldiers, a handful of townsmen carrying halberds and some crossbowmen from the guild. Their horses, decked out in flowing black caparisons, flew over the barricades like spectres, their riders’ bright, glistening blades sowing death amongst the fleeing defenders.

Ciri felt the knight who carried her before him on his saddle abruptly spur his horse. She heard his cry. ‘Hold on,’ he shouted. ‘Hold on!’

Other knights wearing the colours of Cintra overtook them, sparring, even in full flight, with the Nilfgaardians. Ciri caught a glimpse of the skirmish from the corner of her eye – the crazed swirl of blue-gold and black cloaks amidst the clash of steel, the clatter of blades against shields, the neighing of horses—

Shouts. No, not shouts. Screams.

‘Hold on!’

Fear. With every jolt, every jerk, every leap of the horse pain shot through her hands as she clutched at the reins. Her legs contracted painfully, unable to find support, her eyes watered from the smoke. The arm around her suffocated her, choking her, the force compressing her ribs. All around her screaming such as she had never before heard grew louder. What must one do to a man to make him scream so?

Fear. Overpowering, paralysing, choking fear.

Again the clash of iron, the grunts and snorts of the horses. The houses whirled around her and suddenly she could see windows belching fire where a moment before there’d been nothing but a muddy little street strewn with corpses and cluttered with the abandoned possessions of the fleeing population. All at once the knight at her back was wracked by a strange wheezing cough. Blood spurted over the hands grasping the reins. More screams. Arrows whistled past.

A fall, a shock, painful bruising against armour. Hooves pounded past her, a horse’s belly and a frayed girth flashing by above her head, then another horse’s belly and a flowing black caparison. Grunts of exertion, like a lumberjack’s when chopping wood. But this isn’t wood; it’s iron against iron. A shout, muffled and dull, and something huge and black collapsed into the mud next to her with a splash, spurting blood. An armoured foot quivered, thrashed, goring the earth with an enormous spur.

A jerk. Some force plucked her up, pulled her onto another saddle. Hold on! Again the bone-shaking speed, the mad gallop. Arms and legs desperately searching for support. The horse rears. Hold on! . . . There is no support. There is no . . . There is no . . . There is blood. The horse falls. It’s impossible to jump aside, no way to break free, to escape the tight embrace of these chainmail-clad arms. There is no way to avoid the blood pouring onto her head and over her shoulders.

A jolt, the squelch of mud, a violent collision with the ground, horrifically still after the furious ride. The horse’s harrowing wheezes and squeals as it tries to regain its feet. The pounding of horseshoes, fetlocks and hooves flashing past. Black caparisons and cloaks. Shouting.

The street is on fire, a roaring red wall of flame. Silhouetted before it, a rider towers over the flaming roofs, enormous. His black-caparisoned horse prances, tosses its head, neighs.

The rider stares down at her. Ciri sees his eyes gleaming through the slit in his huge helmet, framed by a bird of prey’s wings. She sees the fire reflected in the broad blade of the sword held in his lowered hand.

The rider looks at her. Ciri is unable to move. The dead man’s motionless arms wrapped around her waist hold her down. She is locked in place by something heavy and wet with blood, something which is lying across her thigh, pinning her to the ground.

And she is frozen in fear: a terrible fear which turns her entrails inside out, which deafens Ciri to the screams of the wounded horse, the roar of the blaze, the cries of dying people and the pounding drums. The only thing which exists, which counts, which still has any meaning, is fear. Fear embodied in the figure of a black knight wearing a helmet decorated with feathers frozen against the wall of raging, red flames.

The rider spurs his horse, the wings on his helmet fluttering as the bird of prey takes to flight, launching itself to attack its helpless victim, paralysed with fear. The bird – or maybe the knight – screeches terrifyingly, cruelly, triumphantly. A black horse, black armour, a black flowing cloak, and behind this – flames. A sea of flames.

Fear.

The bird shrieks. The wings beat, feathers slap against her face. Fear!

Help! Why doesn’t anyone help me? Alone, weak, helpless – I can’t move, can’t force a sound from my constricted throat. Why does no one come to help me?

I’m terrified!

Eyes blaze through the slit in the huge winged helmet. The black cloak veils everything—

‘Ciri !’

She woke, numb and drenched in sweat, with her scream – the scream which had woken her – still hanging in the air, still vibrating somewhere within her, beneath her breast-bone and burning against her parched throat. Her hands ached, clenched around the blanket; her back ached . . .

‘Ciri. Calm down.’

The night was dark and windy, the crowns of the surrounding pine trees rustling steadily and melodiously, their limbs and trunks creaking in the wind. There was no malevolent fire, no screams, only this gentle lullaby. Beside her the campfire flickered with light and warmth, its reflected flames glowing from harness buckles, gleaming red in the leather-wrapped and iron-banded hilt of a sword leaning against a saddle on the ground. There was no other fire and no other iron. The hand against her cheek smelled of leather and ashes. Not of blood.

‘Geralt—’

‘It was just a dream. A bad dream.’

Ciri shuddered violently, curling her arms and legs up tight.

A dream. Just a dream.

The campfire had already died down; the birch logs were red and luminous, occasionally crackling, giving off tiny spurts of blue flame which illuminated the white hair and sharp profile of the man wrapping a blanket and sheepskin around her.

‘Geralt, I—’

‘I’m right here. Sleep, Ciri. You have to rest. We’ve still a long way ahead of us.’

I can hear music, she thought suddenly. Amidst the rustling of the trees . . . there’s music. Lute music. And voices. The Princess of Cintra . . . A child of destiny . . . A child of Elder Blood, the blood of elves. Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, and his destiny. No, no, that’s a legend. A poet’s invention. The princess is dead. She was killed in the town streets while trying to escape . . .

Hold on . . . ! Hold . . .

‘Geralt?’

‘What, Ciri?’

‘What did he do to me? What happened? What did he . . . do to me?’

‘Who?’

‘The knight . . . The black knight with feathers on his helmet . . . I can’t remember anything. He shouted . . . and looked at me. I can’t remember what happened. Only that I was frightened . . . I was so frightened . . .’

The man leaned over her, the flame of the campfire sparkling in his eyes. They were strange eyes. Very strange. Ciri had been frightened of them, she hadn’t liked meeting his gaze. But that had been a long time ago. A very long time ago.

‘I can’t remember anything,’ she whispered, searching for his hand, as tough and coarse as raw wood. ‘The black knight—’

‘It was a dream. Sleep peacefully. It won’t come back.’

Ciri had heard such reassurances in the past. They had been repeated to her endlessly; many, many times she had been offered comforting words when her screams had woken her during the night. But this time it was different. Now she believed it. Because it was Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, the Witcher, who said it. The man who was her destiny. The one for whom she was destined. Geralt the Witcher, who had found her surrounded by war, death and despair, who had taken her with him and promised they would never part.

She fell asleep holding tight to his hand.

The bard finished the song. Tilting his head a little he repeated the ballad’s refrain on his lute, delicately, softly, a single tone higher than the apprentice accompanying him.

No one said a word. Nothing but the subsiding music and the whispering leaves and squeaking boughs of the enormous oak could be heard. Then, all of a sudden, a goat tethered to one of the carts which circled the ancient tree bleated lengthily. At that moment, as if given a signal, one of the men seated in the large semi-circular audience stood up. Throwing his cobalt blue cloak with gold braid trim back over his shoulder, he gave a stiff, dignified bow.

‘Thank you, Master Dandilion,’ he said, his voice resonant without being loud. ‘Allow me, Radcliffe of Oxenfurt, Master of the Arcana, to express what I am sure is the opinion of everyone here present and utter words of gratitude and appreciation for your fine art and skill.’

The wizard ran his gaze over those assembled – an audience of well over a hundred people – seated on the ground, on carts, or standing in a tight semi-circle facing the foot of the oak. They nodded and whispered amongst themselves. Several people began to applaud while others greeted the singer with upraised hands. Women, touched by the music, sniffed and wiped their eyes on whatever came to hand, which differed according to their standing, profession and wealth: peasant women used their forearms or the backs of their hands, merchants’ wives dabbed their eyes with linen handkerchiefs while elves and noblewomen used kerchiefs of the finest tight-woven cotton, and Baron Vilibert’s three daughters, who had, along with the rest of his retinue, halted their falcon hunt to attend the famous troubadour’s performance, blew their noses loudly and sonorously into elegant mould-green cashmere scarves.

‘It would not be an exaggeration to say,’ continued the wizard, ‘that you have moved us deeply, Master Dandilion. You have prompted us to reflection and thought; you have stirred our hearts. Allow me to express our gratitude, and our respect.’

The troubadour stood and took a bow, sweeping the heron feather pinned to his fashionable hat across his knees. His apprentice broke off his playing, grinned and bowed too, until Dandilion glared at him sternly and snapped something under his breath. The boy lowered his head and returned to softly strumming his lute strings.

The assembly stirred to life. The merchants travelling in the caravan whispered amongst themselves and then rolled a sizable cask of beer out to the foot of the oak tree. Wizard Radcliffe lost himself in quiet conversation with Baron Vilibert. Having blown their noses, the baron’s daughters gazed at Dandilion in adoration – which went entirely unnoticed by the bard, engrossed as he was in smiling, winking and flashing his teeth at a haughty, silent group of roving elves, and at one of them in particular: a dark-haired, large-eyed beauty sporting a tiny ermine cap. Dandilion had rivals for her attention – the elf, with her huge eyes and beautiful torque hat, had caught his audience’s interest as well, and a number of knights, students and goliards were paying court to her with their eyes. The elf clearly enjoyed the attention, picking at the lace cuffs of her chemise and fluttering her eyelashes, but the group of elves with her surrounded her on all sides, not bothering to hide their antipathy towards her admirers.

The glade beneath Bleobheris, the great oak, was a place of frequent rallies, a well-known travellers’ resting place and meeting ground for wanderers, and was famous for its tolerance and openness. The druids protecting the ancient tree called it the Seat of Friendship and willingly welcomed all comers. But even during an event as exceptional as the world-famous troubadour’s just-concluded performance the travellers kept to themselves, remaining in clearly delineated groups. Elves stayed with elves. Dwarfish craftsmen gathered with their kin, who were often hired to protect the merchant caravans and were armed to the teeth. Their groups tolerated at best the gnome miners and halfling farmers who camped beside them. All non-humans were uniformly distant towards humans. The humans repaid in kind, but were not seen to mix amongst themselves either. Nobility looked down on the merchants and travelling salesmen with open scorn, while soldiers and mercenaries distanced themselves from shepherds and their reeking sheepskins. The few wizards and their disciples kept themselves entirely apart from the others, and bestowed their arrogance on everyone in equal parts. A tight-knit, dark and silent group of peasants lurked in the background. Resembling a forest with their rakes, pitchforks and flails poking above their heads, they were ignored by all and sundry.

The exception, as ever, was the children. Freed from the constraints of silence which had been enforced during the bard’s performance, the children dashed into the woods with wild cries, and enthusiastically immersed themselves in a game whose rules were incomprehensible to all those who had bidden farewell to the happy years of childhood. Children of elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-elves, quarter-elves and toddlers of mysterious provenance neither knew nor recognised racial or social divisions. At least, not yet.

‘Indeed!’ shouted one of the knights present in the glade, who was as thin as a beanpole and wearing a red and black tunic emblazoned with three lions passant. ‘The wizard speaks the truth! The ballads were beautiful. Upon my word, honourable Dandilion, if you ever pass near Baldhorn, my lord’s castle, stop by without a moment’s hesitation. You will be welcomed like a prince – what am I saying? Welcomed like King Vizimir himself! I swear on my sword, I have heard many a minstrel, but none even came close to being your equal, master. Accept the respect and tributes those of us born to knighthood, and those of us appointed to the position, pay to your skills!’

Flawlessly sensing the opportune moment, the troubadour winked at his apprentice. The boy set his lute aside and picked up a little casket which served as a collection box for the audience’s more measurable expressions of appreciation. He hesitated, ran his eyes over the crowd, then replaced the little casket and grabbed a large bucket standing nearby. Master Dandilion bestowed an approving smile on the young man for his prudence.

‘Master!’ shouted a sizeable woman sitting on a cart, the sides of which were painted with a sign for ‘Vera Loewenhaupt and Sons’, and which was full of wickerwork. Her sons, nowhere to be seen, were no doubt busy wasting away their mother’s hard-earned fortune. ‘Master Dandilion, what is this? Are you going to leave us in suspense? That can’t be the end of your ballad? Sing to us of what happened next!’

‘Songs and ballads’ – the musician bowed – ‘never end, dear lady, because poetry is eternal and immortal, it knows no beginning, it knows no end—’

‘But what happened next?’ The tradeswoman didn’t give up, generously rattling coins into the bucket Dandilion’s apprentice held out to her. ‘At least tell us about it, even if you have no wish to sing of it. Your songs mention no names, but we know the witcher you sing of is no other than the famous Geralt of Rivia, and the enchantress for whom he burns with love is the equally famous Yennefer. And the Child Surprise, destined for the witcher and sworn to him from birth, is Cirilla, the unfortunate Princess of Cintra, the town destroyed by the Invaders. Am I right?’

Dandilion smiled, remaining enigmatic and aloof. ‘I sing of universal matters, my dear, generous lady,’ he stated. ‘Of emotions which anyone can experience. Not about specific people.’

‘Oh, come on!’ yelled a voice from the crowd. ‘Everyone knows those songs are about Geralt the Witcher!’

‘Yes, yes!’ squealed Baron Vilibert’s daughters in chorus, drying their sodden scarves. ‘Sing on, Master Dandilion! What happened next? Did the witcher and Yennefer the Enchantress find each other in the end? And did they love each other? Were they happy? We want to know!’

‘Enough!’ roared the dwarf leader with a growl in his throat, shaking his mighty waist-length, red beard. ‘It’s crap – all these princesses, sorceresses, destiny, love and women’s fanciful tales. If you’ll pardon the expression, great poet, it’s all lies, just a poetic invention to make the story prettier and more touching. But of the deeds of war – the massacre and plunder of Cintra, the battles of Marnadal and Sodden – you did sing that mightily, Dandilion! There’s no regrets in parting with silver for such a song, a joy to a warrior’s heart! And I, Sheldon Skaggs, declare there’s not an ounce of lies in what you say – and I can tell the lies from the truth because I was there at Sodden. I stood against the Nilfgaard invaders with an axe in my hand . . .’

‘I, Donimir of Troy,’ shouted the thin knight with three lions passant blazoned across his tunic, ‘was at both battles of Sodden! But I did not see you there, sir dwarf!’

‘No doubt because you were looking after the supply train!’ Sheldon Skaggs retorted. ‘While I was in the front line where things got hot!’

‘Mind your tongue, beardy!’ said Donimir of Troy flushing, hitching up his sword belt. ‘And who you’re speaking to!’

‘Have a care yourself!’ The dwarf whacked his palm against the axe wedged in his belt, turned to his companions and grinned. ‘Did you see him there? Frigging knight! See his coat of arms? Ha! Three lions on a shield? Two shitting and the third snarling!’

‘Peace, peace!’ A grey-haired druid in a white cloak averted trouble with a sharp, authoritative voice. ‘This is not fitting, gentlemen! Not here, under Bleobheris’ crown, an oak older than all the disputes and quarrels of the world! And not in Poet Dandilion’s presence, from whose ballads we ought to learn of love, not contention.’

‘Quite so!’ a short, fat priest with a face glistening with sweat seconded the druid. ‘You look but have no eyes, you listen but have deaf ears. Because divine love is not in you, you are like empty barrels—’

‘Speaking of barrels,’ squeaked a long-nosed gnome from his cart, painted with a sign for ‘Iron hardware, manufacture and sale’, ‘roll another out, guildsmen! Poet Dandilion’s throat is surely dry – and ours too, from all these emotions!’

‘—Verily, like empty barrels, I tell ye!’ The priest, determined not to be put off, drowned out the ironware gnome. ‘You have understood nothing of Master Dandilion’s ballad, you have learned nothing! You did not see that these ballads speak of man’s fate, that we are no more than toys in the hands of the gods, our lands no more than their playground. The ballads about destiny portrayed the destinies of us all, and the legend of Geralt the Witcher and Princess Cirilla – although it is set against the true background of that war – is, after all, a mere metaphor, the creation of a poet’s imagination designed to help us—’

‘You’re talking rubbish, holy man!’ hollered Vera Loewenhaupt from the heights of her cart. ‘What legend ? What imaginative creation? You may not know him, but I know Geralt of Rivia. I saw him with my own eyes in Wyzima, when he broke the spell on King Foltest’s daughter. And I met him again later on the Merchants’ Trail, where, at Gildia’s request, he slew a ferocious griffin which was preying on the caravans and thus saved the lives of many good people. No. This is no legend or fairy-tale. It is the truth, the sincere truth, which Master Dandilion sang for us.’

‘I second that,’ said a slender female warrior with her black hair smoothly brushed back and plaited into a thick braid. ‘I, Rayla of Lyria, also know Geralt the White Wolf, the famous slayer of monsters. And I’ve met the enchantress, Lady Yennefer, on several occasions – I used to visit Aedirn and her home town of Vengerberg. I don’t know anything about their being in love, though.’

‘But it has to be true,’ the attractive elf in the ermine toque suddenly said in a melodious voice. ‘Such a beautiful ballad of love could not but be true.’

‘It could not!’ Baron Vilibert’s daughters supported the elf and, as if on command, wiped their eyes on their scarves. ‘Not by any measure!’

‘Honourable wizard !’ Vera Loewenhaupt turned to Radcliffe. ‘Were they in love or not? Surely you know what truly happened to them, Yennefer and the witcher. Disclose the secret!’

‘If the song says they were in love,’ replied the wizard, ‘then that’s what happened, and their love will endure down the ages. Such is the power of poetry.’

‘It is said,’ interrupted Baron Vilibert all of a sudden, ‘that Yennefer of Vengerberg was killed on Sodden Hill. Several enchantresses were killed there—’

‘That’s not true,’ said Donimir of Troy. ‘Her name is not on the monument. I am from those parts and have often climbed Sodden Hill and read the names engraved on the monument. Three enchantresses died there: Triss Merigold, Lytta Neyd, known as Coral . . . hmm . . . and the name of the third has slipped my mind . . .’

The knight glanced at Wizard Radcliffe, who smiled wordlessly.

‘And this witcher,’ Sheldon Skaggs suddenly called out, ‘this Geralt who loved Yennefer, has also bitten the dust, apparently. I heard he was killed somewhere in Transriver. He slew and slew monsters until he met his match. That’s how it goes: he who fights with the sword dies by the sword. Everyone comes across someone who will better them eventually, and is made to taste cold hard iron.’

‘I don’t believe it.’ The slender warrior contorted her pale lips, spat vehemently on the ground and crossed her chainmail-clad arms with a crunch. ‘I don’t believe there is anyone to best Geralt of Rivia. I have seen this witcher handle a sword. His speed is simply inhuman—’

‘Well said,’ threw in Wizard Radcliffe. ‘Inhuman. Witchers are mutated, so their reactions—’

‘I don’t understand you, magician.’ The warrior twisted her lips even more nastily. ‘Your words are too learned. I know one thing: no swordsman I have ever seen can match Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf. And so I will not accept that he was defeated in battle as the dwarf claims.’

‘Every swordsman’s an arse when the enemy’s not sparse,’ remarked Sheldon Skaggs sententiously. ‘As the elves say.’

‘Elves,’ stated a tall, fair-haired representative of the Elder Race coldly, from his place beside the elf with the beautiful toque, ‘are not in the habit of using such vulgar language.’

‘No! No!’ squealed Baron Vilibert’s daughters from behind their green scarves. ‘Geralt the Witcher can’t have been killed ! The witcher found Ciri, the child destined for him, and then the Enchantress Yennefer, and all three lived happily ever after! Isn’t that true, Master Dandilion?’

‘’Twas a ballad, my noble young ladies,’ said the beer-parched gnome, manufacturer of ironwares, with a yawn. ‘Why look for truth in a ballad ? Truth is one thing, poetry another. Let’s take this – what was her name? – Ciri ? The famous Child Surprise. Master Dandilion trumped that up for sure. I’ve been to Cintra many a time and the king and queen lived in a childless home, with no daughter, no son—’

‘Liar!’ shouted a red-haired man in a sealskin jacket, a checked kerchief bound around his forehead. ‘Queen Calanthe, the Lionness of Cintra, had a daughter called Pavetta. She died, together with her husband, in a tempest which struck out at sea, and the depths swallowed them both.’

‘So you see for yourselves I’m not making this up!’ The ironware gnome called everyone to be his witnesses. ‘The Princess of Cintra was called Pavetta, not Ciri.’

‘Cirilla, known as Ciri, was the daughter of this drowned Pavetta,’ explained the red-haired man. ‘Calanthe’s granddaughter. She was not the princess herself, but the daughter of the Princess of Cintra. She was the Child Surprise destined for the witcher, the man to whom – even before she was born – the queen had sworn to hand her granddaughter over to, just as Master Dandilion has sung. But the witcher could neither find her nor collect her. And here our poet has missed the truth.’

‘Oh yes, he’s missed the truth indeed,’ butted in a sinewy young man who, judging by his clothes, was a journeyman on his travels prior to crafting his masterpiece and passing his master’s exams. ‘The witcher’s destiny bypassed him: Cirilla was killed during the siege of Cintra. Before throwing herself from the tower, Queen Calanthe killed the princess’s daughter with her own hand, to prevent her from falling into the Nilfgaardians’ claws alive.’

‘It wasn’t like that. Not like that at all!’ objected the red-haired man. ‘The princess’s daughter was killed during the massacre while trying to escape from the town.’

‘One way or another,’ shouted Ironware, ‘the witcher didn’t find Cirilla! The poet lied!’

‘But lied beautifully,’ said the elf in the toque, snuggling up to the tall, fair-haired elf.

‘It’s not a question of poetry but of facts!’ shouted the journeyman. ‘I tell you, the princess’s daughter died by her grandmother’s hand. Anyone who’s been to Cintra can confirm that!’

‘And I say she was killed in the streets trying to escape,’ declared the red-haired man. ‘I know because although I’m not from Cintra I served in the Earl of Skellige’s troop supporting Cintra during the war. As everyone knows, Eist Tuirseach, the King of Cintra, comes from the Skellige Isles. He was the earl’s uncle. I fought in the earl’s troop at Marnadal and Cintra and later, after the defeat, at Sodden—’

‘Yet another veteran,’ Sheldon Skaggs snarled to the dwarves crowded around him. ‘All heroes and warriors. Hey, folks! Is there at least one of you out there who didn’t fight at Marnadal or Sodden?’

‘That dig is out of place, Skaggs,’ the tall elf reproached him, putting his arm around the beauty wearing the toque in a way intended to dispel any lingering doubts amongst her admirers. ‘Don’t imagine you were the only one to fight at Sodden. I took part in the battle as well.’

‘On whose side, I wonder,’ Baron Vilibert said to Radcliffe in a highly audible whisper which the elf ignored entirely.

‘As everyone knows,’ he continued, sparing neither the baron nor the wizard so much as a glance, ‘over a hundred thousand warriors stood on the field during the second battle of Sodden Hill, and of those at least thirty thousand were maimed or killed. Master Dandilion should be thanked for immortalising this famous, terrible battle in one of his ballads. In both the lyrics and melody of his work I heard not an exaltation but a warning. So I repeat: offer praise and everlasting renown to this poet for his ballad, which may, perhaps, prevent a tragedy as horrific as this cruel and unnecessary war from occurring in the future.’

‘Indeed,’ said Baron Vilibert, looking defiantly at the elf. ‘You have read some very interesting things into this ballad, honoured sir. An unnecessary war, you say? You’d like to avoid such a tragedy in the future, would you? Are we to understand that if the Nilfgaardians were to attack us again you would advise that we capitulate? Humbly accept the Nilfgaardian yoke?’

‘Life is a priceless gift and should be protected,’ the elf replied coldly. ‘Nothing justifies wide-scale slaughter and sacrifice of life, which is what the battles at Sodden were – both the battle lost and the battle won. Both of them cost the humans thousands of lives. And with them, you lost unimaginable potential—’

‘Elven prattle!’ snarled Sheldon Skaggs. ‘Dim-witted rubbish! It was the price that had to be paid to allow others to live decently, in peace, instead of being chained, blinded, whipped and forced to work in salt and sulphur mines. Those who died a heroic death, those who will now, thanks to Dandilion, live on forever in our memories, taught us to defend our own homes. Sing your ballads, Dandilion, sing them to everyone. Your lesson won’t go to waste, and it’ll come in handy, you’ll see! Because, mark my words, Nilfgaard will attack us again. If not today, then tomorrow! They’re licking their wounds now, recovering, but the day when we’ll see their black cloaks and feathered helmets again is growing ever nearer !’

‘What do they want from us?’ yelled Vera Loewenhaupt. ‘Why are they bent on persecuting us? Why don’t they leave us in peace, leave us to our lives and work? What do the Nilfgaardians want?’

‘They want our blood!’ howled Baron Vilibert.

‘And our land!’ someone cried from the crowd of peasants.

‘And our women!’ chimed in Sheldon Skaggs, with a ferocious glower.

Several people started to laugh – as quietly and furtively as they could. Even though the idea that anyone other than another dwarf would desire one of the exceptionally unattractive dwarf-women was highly amusing, it was not a safe subject for teasing or jests – especially not in the presence of the short, stocky, bearded individuals whose axes and short-swords had an ugly habit of leaping from their belts and into their hands at incredible speed. And the dwarves, for some unknown reason, were entirely convinced that the rest of the world was lecherously lying in wait for their wives and daughters, and were extremely touchy about it.

‘This had to happen at some point,’ the grey-haired druid declared suddenly. ‘This had to happen. We forgot that we are not the only ones in this world, that the whole of creation does not revolve around us. Like stupid, fat, lazy minnows in a slimy pond we chose not to accept the existence of pike. We allowed our world, like the pond, to become slimy, boggy and sluggish. Look around you – there is crime and sin everywhere, greed, the pursuit of profit, quarrels and disagreements are rife. Our traditions are disappearing, respect for our values is fading. Instead of living according to Nature we have begun to destroy it. And what have we got for it? The air is poisoned by the stink of smelting furnaces, the rivers and brooks are tainted by slaughter houses and tanneries, forests are being cut down without a thought . . . Ha – just look! – even on the living bark of sacred Bleobheris, there just above the poet’s head, there’s a foul phrase carved out with a knife – and it’s misspelled at that – by a stupid, illiterate vandal. Why are you surprised? It had to end badly—’

‘Yes, yes!’ the fat priest joined in. ‘Come to your senses, you sinners, while there is still time, because the anger and vengeance of the gods hangs over you! Remember Ithlin’s oracle, the prophetic words describing the punishment of the gods reserved for a tribe poisoned by crime! “The Time of Contempt will come, when the tree will lose its leaves, the bud will wither, the fruit will rot, the seed turn bitter and the river valleys will run with ice instead of water. The White Chill will come, and after it the White Light, and the world will perish beneath blizzards.” Thus spoke Seeress Ithlin! And before this comes to pass there will be visible signs, plagues will ravish the earth – Remember! – the Nilfgaard are our punishment from the gods! They are the whip with which the Immortals will lash you sinners, so that you may—’

‘Shut up, you sanctimonious old man!’ roared Sheldon Skaggs, stamping his heavy boots. ‘Your superstitious rot make me sick! My guts are churning—’

‘Careful, Sheldon.’ The tall elf cut him short with a smile. ‘Don’t mock another’s religion. It is not pleasant, polite or . . . safe.’

‘I’m not mocking anything,’ protested the dwarf. ‘I don’t doubt the existence of the gods, but it annoys me when someone drags them into earthly matters and tries to pull the wool over my eyes using the prophecies of some crazy elf. The Nilfgaardians are the instrument of the gods? Rubbish! Search back through your memories to the past, to the days of Dezmod, Radowid and Sambuk, to the days of Abrad, the Old Oak! You may not remember them, because your lives are so very short – you’re like Mayflies – but I remember, and I’ll tell you what it was like in these lands just after you climbed from your boats on the Yaruga Estuary and the Pontar Delta onto the beach. Three kingdoms sprang from the four ships which beached on those shores; the stronger groups absorbed the weaker and so grew, strengthening their positions. They invaded others territories, conquered them, and their kingdoms expanded, becoming ever larger and more powerful. And now the Nilfgaardians are doing the same, because theirs is strong and united, disciplined and tightly knit country. And unless you close ranks in the same way, Nilfgaard will swallow you as a pike does a minnow – just as this wise druid said!’

‘Let them just try!’ Donimir of Troy puffed out his lion-emblazoned chest and shook his sword in its scabbard. ‘We beat them hollow on Sodden Hill, and we can do it again!’

‘You’re very cocksure,’ snarled Sheldon Skaggs. ‘You’ve evidently forgotten, sir knight, that before the battle of Sodden Hill, the Nilfgaard had advanced across your lands like an iron roller, strewing the land between Marnadal and Transriver with the corpses of many a gallant fellow like yourself. And it wasn’t loud-mouthed smart-arses like you who stopped the Nilfgaardians, but the united strengths of Temeria, Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen. Concord and unity, that’s what stopped them!’

‘Not just that,’ remarked Radcliffe in a cold, resonant voice. ‘Not just that, Master Skaggs.’

The dwarf hawked loudly, blew his nose, shuffled his feet then bowed a little to the wizard.

‘No one is denying the contribution of your fellowship,’ he said. ‘Shame on he who does not acknowledge the heroism of the brotherhood of wizards on Sodden Hill. They stood their ground bravely, shed blood for the common cause, and contributed most eminently to our victory. Dandilion did not forget them in his ballad, and nor shall we. But note that these wizards stood united and loyal on the Hill, and accepted the leadership of Vilgefortz of Roggeveen just as we, the warriors of the Four Kingdoms, acknowledged the command of Vizimir of Redania. It’s just a pity this solidarity and concord only lasted for the duration of the war, because, with peace, here we are divided again. Vizimir and Foltest are choking each other with customs taxes and trading laws, Demawend of Aedirn is bickering with Henselt over the Northern Marches while the League of Hengfors and the Thyssenids of Kovir don’t give a toss. And I hear that looking for the old concord amongst the wizards is useless, too. We are not closely knit, we have no discipline and no unity. But Nilfgaard does!’

‘Nilfgaard is ruled by Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, a tyrant and autocrat who enforces obedience with whip, noose and axe!’ thundered Baron Vilibert. ‘What are you proposing, sir dwarf? How are we supposed to close ranks? With similar tyranny? And which king, which kingdom, in your opinion, should subordinate the others? In whose hands would you like to see the sceptre and knout?’

‘What do I care?’ replied Skaggs with a shrug. ‘That’s a human affair. Whoever you chose to be king wouldn’t be a dwarf anyway.’

‘Or an elf, or even half-elf,’ added the tall representative of the Elder Race, his arm still wrapped around the toque-wearing beauty. ‘You even consider quarter-elves inferior—’

‘That’s where it stings,’ laughed Vilibert. ‘You’re blowing the same horn as Nilfgaard because Nilfgaard is also shouting about equality, promising you a return to the old order as soon as we’ve been conquered and they’ve scythed us off these lands. That’s the sort of unity, the sort of equality you’re dreaming of, the sort you’re talking about and trumpeting! Nilfgaard pays you gold to do it! And it’s hardly surprising you love each other so much, the Nilfgaardians being an elven race—’

‘Nonsense,’ the elf said coldly. ‘You talk rubbish, sir knight. You’re clearly blinded by racism. The Nilfgaardians are human, just like you.’

‘That’s an outright lie! They’re descended from the Black Seidhe and everyone knows it! Elven blood flows through their veins! The blood of elves!’

‘And what flows through yours?’ The elf smiled derisively. ‘We’ve been combining our blood for generations, for centuries, your race and mine, and doing so quite successfully – fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t know. You started persecuting mixed relationships less than a quarter of a century ago and, incidentally, not very successfully. So show me a human now who hasn’t a dash of Seidhe Ichaer, the blood of the Elder Race.’

Vilibert visibly turned red. Vera Loewenhaupt also flushed. Wizard Radcliffe bowed his head and coughed. And, most interestingly, the beautiful elf in the ermine toque blushed too.

‘We are all children of Mother Earth.’ The grey-haired druid’s voice resounded in the silence. ‘We are children of Mother Nature. And though we do not respect our mother, though we often worry her and cause her pain, though we break her heart, she loves us. Loves us all. Let us remember that, we who are assembled here in this Seat of Friendship. And let us not bicker over which of us was here first: Acorn was the first to be thrown up by the waves and from Acorn sprouted the Great Bleobheris, the oldest of oaks. Standing beneath its crown, amongst its primordial roots, let us not forget our own brotherly roots, the earth from which these roots grow. Let us remember the words of Poet Dandilion’s song—’

‘Exactly!’ exclaimed Vera Loewenhaupt. ‘And where is he?’

‘He’s fled,’ ascertained Sheldon Skaggs, gazing at the empty place under the oak. ‘Taken the money and fled without saying goodbye. Very elf-like!’

‘Dwarf-like!’ squealed Ironware.

‘Human-like,’ corrected the tall elf, and the beauty in the toque rested her head against his shoulder.

‘Hey, minstrel,’ said Mama Lantieri, striding into the room without knocking, the scents of hycinths, sweat, beer and smoked bacon wafting before her. ‘You’ve got a guest. Enter, noble gentleman.’

Dandilion smoothed his hair and sat up in the enormous carved armchair. The two girls sitting on his lap quickly jumped up, covering their charms and pulling down their disordered clothes. The modesty of harlots, thought the poet, was not at all a bad title for a ballad. He got to his feet, fastened his belt and pulled on his doublet, all the while looking at the nobleman standing at the threshold.

‘Indeed,’ he remarked, ‘you know how to find me anywhere, though you rarely pick an opportune moment. You’re lucky I’d not yet decided which of these two beauties I prefer. And at your prices, Lantieri, I cannot afford them both.’

Mama Lantieri smiled in sympathy and clapped her hands. Both girls – a fair-skinned, freckled islander and a dark-haired half-elf – swiftly left the room. The man at the door removed his cloak and handed it to Mama along with a small but well-filled money-bag.

‘Forgive me, master,’ he said, approaching the table and making himself comfortable. ‘I know this is not a good time to disturb you. But you disappeared out from beneath the oak so quickly . . . I did not catch you on the High Road as I had intended and did not immediately come across your tracks in this little town. I’ll not take much of your time, believe me—’

‘They always say that, and it’s always a lie,’ the bard interrupted. ‘Leave us alone, Lantieri, and see to it that we’re not disturbed. I’m listening, sir.’

The man scrutinised him. He had dark, damp, almost tearful eyes, a pointed nose and ugly, narrow lips.

‘I’ll come to the point without wasting your time,’ he declared, waiting for the door to close behind Mama. ‘Your ballads interest me, master. To be more specific, certain characters of which you sang interest me. I am concerned with the true fate of your ballad’s heroes. If I am not mistaken, the true destinies of real people inspired the beautiful work I heard beneath the oak tree? I have in mind . . . Little Cirilla of Cintra. Queen Calanthe’s granddaughter.’

Dandilion gazed at the ceiling, drumming his fingers on the table.

‘Honoured sir,’ he said dryly, ‘you are interested in strange matters. You ask strange questions. Something tells me you are not the person I took you to be.’

‘And who did you take me to be, if I may ask?’

‘I’m not sure you may. It depends if you are about to convey greetings to me from any mutual friends. You should have done so initially, but somehow you have forgotten.’

‘I did not forget at all.’ The man reached into the breast pocket of his sepia-coloured velvet tunic and pulled out a money-bag somewhat larger than the one he had handed the procuress but just as well-filled, which clinked as it touched the table. ‘We simply have no mutual friends, Dandilion. But might this purse not suffice to mitigate the lack?’

‘And what do you intend to buy with this meagre purse?’ The troubadour pouted. ‘Mama Lantieri’s entire brothel and all the land surrounding it?’

‘Let us say that I intend to support the arts. And an artist. In order to chat with the artist about his work.’

‘You love art so much, do you, dear sir? Is it so vital for you to talk to an artist that you press money on him before you’ve even introduced yourself and, in doing so, break the most elementary rules of courtesy?’

‘At the beginning of our conversation’ – the stranger’s dark eyes narrowed imperceptibly – ‘my anonymity did not bother you.’

‘And now it is starting to.’

‘I am not ashamed of my name,’ said the man, a faint smile appearing on his narrow lips. ‘I am called Rience. You do not know me, Master Dandilion, and that is no surprise. You are too famous and well known to know all of your admirers. Yet everyone who admires your talents feels he knows you, knows you so well that a certain degree of familiarity is permissible. This applies to me, too. I know it is a misconception, so please graciously forgive me.’

‘I graciously forgive you.’

‘Then I can count on you agreeing to answer a few questions—’

‘No! No you cannot,’ interrupted the poet, putting on airs. ‘Now, if you will graciously forgive me, I am not willing to discuss the subjects of my work, its inspiration or its characters, fictitious or otherwise. To do so would deprive poetry of its poetic veneer and lead to triteness.’

‘Is that so?’

‘It certainly is. For example, if, having sung the ballad about the miller’s merry wife, I were to announce it’s really about Zvirka, Miller Loach’s wife, and I included an announcement that Zvirka can most easily be bedded every Thursday because on Thursdays the miller goes to market, it would no longer be poetry. It would be either rhyming couplets, or foul slander.’

‘I understand, I understand,’ Rience said quickly. ‘But perhaps that is a bad example. I am not, after all, interested in anyone’s peccadilloes or sins. You will not slander anyone by answering my questions. All I need is one small piece of information: what really happened to Cirilla, the Queen of Cintra’s granddaughter? Many people claim she was killed during the siege of the town; there are even eye-witnesses to support the claim. From your ballad, however, it would appear that the child survived. I am truly interested to know if this is your imagination at work, or the truth? True or false?’

‘I’m extremely pleased you’re so interested.’ Dandilion smiled broadly. ‘You may laugh, Master whatever-your-name-is, but that was precisely what I intended when I composed the ballad. I wished to excite my listeners and arouse their curiosity.’

‘True or false?’ repeated Rience coldly.

‘If I were to give that away I would destroy the impact of my work. Goodbye, my friend. You have used up all the time I can spare you. And two of my many inspirations are waiting out there, wondering which of them I will choose.’

Rience remained silent for a long while, making no move to leave. He stared at the poet with his unfriendly, moist eyes, and the poet felt a growing unease. A merry din came from the bawdy-house’s main room, punctuated from time to time by high-pitched feminine giggles. Dandilion turned his head away, pretending to show derisive haughtiness but, in fact, he was judging the distance to the corner of the room and the tapestry showing a nymph sprinkling her breasts with water poured from a jug.

‘Dandilion,’ Rience finally spoke, slipping his hand back into the pocket of his sepia-coloured tunic, ‘answer my questions. Please. I have to know the answer. It’s incredibly important to me. To you, too, believe me, because if you answer of your own free will then—’

‘Then what?’

A hideous grimace crept over Rience’s narrow lips.

‘Then I won’t have to force you to speak.’

‘Now listen, you scoundrel.’ Dandilion stood up and pretended to pull a threatening face. ‘I loathe violence and force, but I’m going to call Mama Lantieri in a minute and she will call a certain Gruzila who fulfils the honourable and responsible role of bouncer in this establishment. He is a true artist in his field. He’ll kick your arse so hard you’ll soar over the town roofs with such magnificence that the few people passing by at this hour will take you for a Pegasus.’

Rience made an abrupt gesture and something glistened in his hand.

‘Are you sure,’ he asked, ‘you’ll have time to call her?’

Dandilion had no intention of checking if he would have time. Nor did he intend to wait. Before the stiletto had locked in Rience’s hand Dandilion had taken a long leap to the corner of the room, dived under the nymph tapestry, kicked open a secret door and rushed headlong down the winding stairs, nimbly steering himself with the aid of the well-worn banisters. Rience darted after him, but the poet was sure of himself – he knew the secret passage like the back of his hand, having used it numerous times to flee creditors, jealous husbands and furious rivals from whom he had, from time to time, stolen rhymes and tunes. He knew that after the third turning he would be able to grope for a revolving door, behind which there was a ladder leading down to the cellar. He was sure that his persecutor would be unable to stop in time, would run on and step on a trapdoor through which he would fall and land in the pigsty. He was equally sure that – bruised, covered in shit and mauled by the pigs – his persecutor would give up the chase.

Dandilion was mistaken, as was usually the case whenever he was too confident. Something flashed a sudden blue behind his back and the poet felt his limbs grow numb, lifeless and stiff. He couldn’t slow down for the revolving door, his legs wouldn’t obey him. He yelled and rolled down the stairs, bumping against the walls of the little corridor. The trapdoor opened beneath him with a dry crack and the troubadour tumbled down into the darkness and stench. Before thumping his head on the dirt floor and losing consciousness, he remembered Mama Lantieri saying something about the pigsty being repaired.

The pain in his constricted wrists and shoulders, cruelly twisted in their joints, brought him back to his senses. He wanted to scream but couldn’t; it felt as though his mouth had been stuck up with clay. He was kneeling on the dirt floor with a creaking rope hauling him up by his wrists. He tried to stand, wanting to ease the pressure on his shoulders, but his legs, too, were tied together. Choking and suffocating he somehow struggled to his feet, helped considerably by the rope which tugged mercilessly at him.

Rience was standing in front of him and his evil eyes glinted in the light of a lantern held aloft by an unshaven ruffian who stood over six feet tall. Another ruffian, probably no shorter, stood behind him. Dandilion could hear his breathing and caught a whiff of stale sweat. It was the reeking man who tugged on the rope looped over a roof beam and fastened to the poet’s wrists.

Dandilion’s feet tore off the dirt floor. The poet whistled through his nose, unable to do anything more.

‘Enough,’ Rience snapped at last – he spoke almost immediately, yet it had seemed an age to Dandilion. The bard’s feet touched the ground but, despite his most heart-felt desire, he could not kneel again – the tight drawn rope was still holding him as taut as a string.

Rience came closer. There was not even a trace of emotion on his face; the damp eyes had not changed their expression in the least. His tone of voice, too, remained calm, quiet, even a little bored.

‘You nasty rhymester. You runt. You scum. You arrogant nobody. You tried to run from me? No one has escaped me yet. We haven’t finished our conversation, you clown, you sheep’s head. I asked you a question under much pleasanter circumstances than these. Now you are going to answer all my questions, and in far less pleasant circumstances. Am I right?’

Dandilion nodded eagerly. Only now did Rience smile and make a sign. The bard squealed helplessly, feeling the rope tighten and his arms, twisted backwards, cracking in their joints.

‘You can’t talk,’ Rience confirmed, still smiling loathsomely, ‘and it hurts, doesn’t it? For the moment, you should know I’m having you strung up like this for my own pleasure – just because I love watching people suffer. Go on, just a little higher.’

Dandilion was wheezing so hard he almost choked.

‘Enough,’ Rience finally ordered, then approached the poet and grabbed him by his shirt ruffles. ‘Listen to me, you little cock. I’m going to lift the spell so you can talk. But if you try to raise your charming voice any louder than necessary, you’ll be sorry.’

He made a gesture with his hand, touched the poet’s cheek with his ring and Dandilion felt sensation return to his jaw, tongue and palate.

‘Now,’ Rience continued quietly, ‘I am going to ask you a few questions and you are going to answer them quickly, fluently and comprehensively. And if you stammer or hesitate even for a moment, if you give me the slightest reason to doubt the truth of your words, then . . . Look down.’

Dandilion obeyed. He discovered to his horror that a short rope had been tied to the knots around his ankles, with a bucket full of lime attached to the other end.

‘If I have you pulled any higher,’ Rience smiled cruelly, ‘and this bucket lifts with you, then you will probably never regain the feeling in your hands. After that, I doubt you will be capable of playing anything on a lute. I really doubt it. So I think you’ll talk to me. Am I right?’

Dandilion didn’t agree because he couldn’t move his head or find his voice out of sheer fright. But Rience did not seem to require confirmation.

‘It is to be understood,’ he stated, ‘that I will know immediately if you are telling the truth, if you try to trick me I will realise straight away, and I won’t be fooled by any poetic ploys or vague erudition. This is a trifle for me – just as paralysing you on the stairs was a trifle. So I advise you to weigh each word with care, you piece of scum. So, let’s get on with it and stop wasting time. As you know, I’m interested in the heroine of one of your beautiful ballads, Queen Calanthe of Cintra’s granddaughter, Princess Cirilla, endearingly known as Ciri. According to eye-witnesses this little person died during the siege of the town, two years ago. Whereas in your ballad you so vividly and touchingly described her meeting a strange, almost legendary individual, the . . . witcher . . . Geralt, or Gerald. Leaving the poetic drivel about destiny and the decrees of fate aside, from the rest of the ballad it seems the child survived the Battle of Cintra in one piece. Is that true?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ moaned Dandilion. ‘By all the gods, I’m only a poet! I’ve heard this and that, and the rest . . .’

‘Well ?’

‘The rest I invented. Made it up! I don’t know anything!’ The bard howled on seeing Rience give a sign to the reeking man and feeling the rope tighten. ‘I’m not lying!’

‘True.’ Rience nodded. ‘You’re not lying outright, I would have sensed it. But you are beating about the bush. You wouldn’t have thought the ballad up just like that, not without reason. And you do know the witcher, after all. You have often been seen in his company. So talk, Dandilion, if you treasure your joints. Everything you know.’

‘This Ciri,’ panted the poet, ‘was destined for the witcher. She’s a so-called Child Surprise . . . You must have heard it, the story’s well known. Her parents swore to hand her over to the witcher—’

‘Her parents are supposed to have handed the child over to that crazed mutant? That murderous mercenary? You’re lying, rhymester. Keep such tales for women.’

‘That’s what happened, I swear on my mother’s soul,’ sobbed Dandilion. ‘I have it from a reliable source . . . The witcher—’

‘Talk about the girl. For the moment I’m not interested in the witcher.’

‘I don’t know anything about the girl! I only know that the witcher was going to fetch her from Cintra when the war broke out. I met him at the time. He heard about the massacre, about Calanthe’s death, from me . . . He asked me about the child, the queen’s granddaughter . . . But I knew everyone in Cintra was killed, not a single soul in the last bastion survived—’

‘Go on. Fewer metaphors, more hard facts!’

‘When the witcher learned of the massacre and fall of Cintra he forsook his journey. We both escaped north. We parted ways in Hengfors and I haven’t seen him since . . . But because he talked, on the way, a bit about this . . . Ciri, or whatever-her-name-is . . . and about destiny . . . Well, I made up this ballad. I don’t know any more, I swear!’

Rience scowled at him.

‘And where is this witcher now?’ he asked. ‘This hired monster murderer, this poetic butcher who likes to discuss destiny?’

‘I told you, the last time I saw him—’

‘I know what you said,’ Rience interrupted. ‘I listened carefully to what you said. And now you’re going to listen carefully to me. Answer my questions precisely. The question is: if no one has seen Geralt, or Gerald, the Witcher for over a year, where is he hiding? Where does he usually hide?’

‘I don’t know where it is,’ the troubadour said quickly. ‘I’m not lying. I really don’t know—’

‘Too quick, Dandilion, too quick.’ Rience smiled ominously. ‘Too eager. You are cunning but not careful enough. You don’t know where it is, you say. But I warrant you know what it is.’

Dandilion clenched his teeth with anger and despair.

‘Well?’ Rience made a sign to the reeking man. ‘Where is the witcher hiding? What is the place called?’

The poet remained silent. The rope tightened, twisting his hands painfully, and his feet left the ground. Dandilion let out a howl, brief and broken because Rience’s wizardly ring immediately gagged him.

‘Higher, higher.’ Rience rested his hands on his hips. ‘You know, Dandilion, I could use magic to sound out your mind, but it’s exhausting. Besides, I like seeing people’s eyes pop out of their sockets from pain. And you’re going to tell me anyway.’

Dandilion knew he would. The rope secured to his ankles grew taut, the bucket of lime scraped along the ground.

‘Sir,’ said the first ruffian suddenly, covering the lantern with his cloak and peering through the gap in the pigsty door, ‘someone’s coming. A lass, I think.’

‘You know what to do,’ Rience hissed. ‘Put the lantern out.’

The reeking man released the rope and Dandilion tumbled inertly to the ground, falling in such a way that he could see the man with the lantern standing at the door and the reeking man, a long knife in his hand, lying in wait on the other side. Light broke in from the bawdy-house through gaps in the planks, and the poet heard the singing and hubbub.

The door to the pigsty creaked open revealing a short figure wrapped in a cloak and wearing a round, tightly fitting cap. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman crossed the threshold. The reeking man threw himself at her, slashing forcefully with his knife, and tumbled to his knees as the knife met with no resistance, passing through the figure’s throat as though through a cloud of smoke. Because the figure really was a cloud of smoke – one which was already starting to disperse. But before it completely vanished another figure burst into the pigsty, indistinct, dark and nimble as a weasel. Dandilion saw it throw a cloak at the lantern man, jump over the reeking one, saw something glisten in its hand, and heard the reeking man wheeze and choke savagely. The lantern man disentangled himself from the cloak, jumped, took a swing with his knife. A fiery lightning bolt shot from the dark figure with a hiss, slapped over the tough’s face and chest with a crack and spread over him like flaming oil. The ruffian screamed piercingly and the grim reek of burning meat filled the pigsty.

Then Rience attacked. The spell he cast illuminated the darkness with a bluish flash in which Dandilion saw a slender woman wearing man’s clothes gesticulating strangely with both hands. He only glimpsed her for a second before the blue glow disappeared with a bang and a blinding flash. Rience fell back with a roar of fury and collapsed onto the wooden pigsty walls, breaking them with a crash. The woman dressed in man’s clothing leapt after him, a stiletto flashing in her hand. The pigsty filled with brightness again – this time golden – beaming from a bright oval which suddenly appeared in the air. Dandilion saw Rience spring up from the dusty floor, leap into the oval and immediately disappear. The oval dimmed but, before it went out entirely, the woman ran up to it shouting incomprehensively, stretching out her hand. Something crackled and rustled and the dying oval boiled with roaring flames for a moment. A muffled sound, as if coming from a great distance, reached Dandilion’s ears – a sound very much like a scream of pain. The oval went out completely and darkness engulfed the pigsty again. The poet felt the power which gagged him disappear.

‘Help!’ he howled. ‘Help!’

‘Stop yelling, Dandilion,’ said the woman, kneeling next to him and slicing through the knots with Rience’s stiletto.

‘Yennefer? Is that you?’

‘Surely you’re not going to say you don’t remember how I look. And I’m sure my voice is not unfamiliar to your musical ear. Can you get up? They didn’t break any bones, did they?’

Dandilion stood with difficulty, groaned and stretched his aching shoulders.

‘What’s with them?’ He indicated the bodies lying on the ground.

‘We’ll check.’ The enchantress snicked the stiletto shut. ‘One of them should still be alive. I’ve a few questions for him.’

‘This one,’ the troubadour stood over the reeking man, ‘probably still lives.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Yennefer indifferently. ‘I severed his windpipe and carotid artery. There might still be a little murmur in him but not for long.’

Dandilion shuddered.

‘You slashed his throat?’

‘If, out of inborn caution, I hadn’t sent an illusion in first, I would be the one lying there now. Let’s look at the other one . . . Bloody hell. Such a sturdy fellow and he still couldn’t take it. Pity, pity—’

‘He’s dead, too?’

‘He couldn’t take the shock. Hmm . . . I fried him a little too hard . . . See, even his teeth are charred—What’s the matter with you, Dandilion? Are you going to be sick?’

‘I am,’ the poet replied indistinctly, bending over and leaning his forehead against the pigsty wall.

‘That’s everything?’ The enchantress put her tumbler down and reached for the skewer of roast chickens. ‘You haven’t lied about anything? Haven’t forgotten anything?’

‘Nothing. Apart from “thank you”. Thank you, Yennefer.’

She looked him in the eyes and nodded her head lightly, making her glistening, black curls writhe and cascade down to her shoulders. She slipped the roast chicken onto a trencher and began dividing it skilfully. She used a knife and fork. Dandilion had only known one person, up until then, who could eat a chicken with a knife and fork as skilfully. Now he knew how, and from whom, Geralt had learnt the knack. Well, he thought, no wonder. After all, he did live with her for a year in Vengerberg and before he left her, she had instilled a number of strange things into him. He pulled the other chicken from the skewer and, without a second thought, ripped off a thigh and began eating it, pointedly holding it with both hands.

‘How did you know?’ he asked. ‘How did you arrive with help on time?’

‘I was beneath Bleobheris during your performance.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

‘I didn’t want to be seen. Then I followed you into town. I waited here, in the tavern – it wasn’t fitting, after all, for me to follow you in to that haven of dubious delight and certain gonorrhoea. But I eventually became impatient and was wandering around the yard when I thought I heard voices coming from the pigsty. I sharpened my hearing and it turned out it wasn’t, as I’d first thought, some sodomite but you. Hey, innkeeper! More wine, if you please!’

‘At your command, honoured lady! Quick as a flash!’

‘The same as before, please, but this time without the water. I can only tolerate water in a bath, in wine I find it quite loathsome.’

‘At your service, at your service!’

Yennefer pushed her plate aside. There was still enough meat on the chicken, Dandilion noticed, to feed the innkeeper and his family for breakfast. A knife and fork were certainly elegant and refined, but they weren’t very effective.

‘Thank you,’ he repeated, ‘for rescuing me. That cursed Rience wouldn’t have spared my life. He’d have squeezed everything from me and then butchered me like a sheep.’

‘Yes, I think he would.’ She poured herself and the bard some wine then raised her tumbler. ‘So let’s drink to your rescue and health, Dandilion.’

‘And to yours, Yennefer,’ he toasted her in return. ‘To health for which – as of today – I shall pray whenever the occasion arises. I’m indebted to you, beautiful lady, and I shall repay the debt in my songs. I shall explode the myth which claims wizards are insensitive to the pain of others, that they are rarely eager to help poor, unfortunate, unfamiliar mortals.’

‘What to do.’ She smiled, half-shutting her beautiful violet eyes. ‘The myth has some justification; it did not spring from nowhere. But you’re not a stranger, Dandilion. I know you and like you.’

‘Really?’ The poet smiled too. ‘You have been good at concealing it up until now. I’ve even heard the rumour that you can’t stand me, I quote, any more than the plague.’

‘It was the case once.’ The enchantress suddenly grew serious. ‘Later my opinion changed. Later, I was grateful to you.’

‘What for, if I may ask?’

‘Never mind,’ she said, toying with the empty tumbler. ‘Let us get back to more important questions. Those you were asked in the pigsty while your arms were being twisted out of their sockets. What really happened, Dandilion? Have you really not seen Geralt since you fled the banks of the Yaruga? Did you really not know he returned south after the war? That he was seriously wounded – so seriously there were even rumours of his death? Didn’t you know anything?’

‘No. I didn’t. I stayed in Pont Vanis for a long time, in Esterad Thyssen’s court. And then at Niedamir’s in Hengfors—’

‘You didn’t know.’ The enchantress nodded and unfastened her tunic. A black velvet ribbon wound around her neck, an obsidian star set with diamonds hanging from it. ‘You didn’t know that when his wounds healed Geralt went to Transriver ? You can’t guess who he was looking for?’

‘That I can. But I don’t know if he found her.’

‘You don’t know,’ she repeated. ‘You, who usually know everything, and then sing about everything. Even such intimate matters as someone else’s feelings. I listened to your ballads beneath Bleobheris, Dandilion. You dedicated a good few verses to me.’

‘Poetry,’ he muttered, staring at the chicken, ‘has its rights. No one should be offended—’

‘“Hair like a raven’s wing, as a storm in the night . . .”’ quoted Yennefer with exaggerated emphasis, ‘“. . . and in the violet eyes sleep lightning bolts . . .” Isn’t that how it went?’

‘That’s how I remembered you.’ The poet smiled faintly. ‘May the first who wishes to claim the description is untrue throw the first stone.’

‘Only I don’t know,’ the Enchantress pinched her lips together, ‘who gave you permission to describe my internal organs. How did it go? “Her heart, as though a jewel, adorned her neck. Hard as if of diamond made, and as a diamond so unfeeling, sharper than obsidian, cutting—” Did you make that up yourself? Or perhaps . . .?’

Her lips quivered, twisted.

‘. . . or perhaps you listened to someone’s confidences and grievances?’

‘Hmm . . .’ Dandilion cleared his throat and veered away from the dangerous subject. ‘Tell me, Yennefer, when did you last see Geralt?’

‘A long time ago.’

‘After the war?’

‘After the war . . .’ Yennefer’s voice changed a little. ‘No, I never saw him after the war. For a long time . . . I didn’t see anybody. Well, back to the point, Poet. I am a little surprised to discover that you do not know anything, you have not heard anything and that, in spite of this, someone searching for information picked you out to stretch over a beam. Doesn’t that worry you?’

‘It does.’

‘Listen to me,’ she said sharply, banging her tumbler against the table. ‘Listen carefully. Strike that ballad from your repertoire. Do not sing it again.’

‘Are you talking about—’

‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Sing about the war against Nilfgaard. Sing about Geralt and me, you’ll neither harm nor help anyone in the process, you’ll make nothing any better or worse. But do not sing about the Lion Cub of Cintra.’

She glanced around to check if any of the few customers at this hour were eavesdropping, and waited until the lass clearing up had returned to the kitchen.

‘And do try to avoid one-to-one meetings with people you don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘People who “forget” to introduce themselves by conveying greetings from a mutual acquaintance. Understand ?’

He looked at her surprised. Yennefer smiled.

‘Greetings from Dijkstra, Dandilion.’

Now the bard glanced around timidly. His astonishment must have been evident and his expression amusing because the sorceress allowed herself a quite derisive grimace.

‘While we are on the subject,’ she whispered, leaning across the table, ‘Dijkstra is asking for a report. You’re on your way back from Verden and he’s interested in hearing what’s being said at King Ervyll’s court. He asked me to convey that this time your report should be to the point, detailed and under no circumstances in verse. Prose, Dandilion. Prose.’

The poet swallowed and nodded. He remained silent, pondering the question.

But the enchantress anticipated him. ‘Difficult times are approaching, ’ she said quietly. ‘Difficult and dangerous. A time of change is coming. It would be a shame to grow old with the uncomfortable conviction that one had done nothing to ensure that these changes are for the better. Don’t you agree?’

He agreed with a nod and cleared his throat. ‘Yennefer?’

‘I’m listening, Poet.’

‘Those men in the pigsty . . . I would like to know who they were, what they wanted, who sent them. You killed them both, but rumour has it that you can draw information even from the dead.’

‘And doesn’t rumour also have it that necromancy is forbidden, by edict of the Chapter? Let it go, Dandilion. Those thugs probably didn’t know much anyway. The one who escaped . . . Hmm . . . He’s another matter.’

‘Rience. He was a wizard, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes. But not a very proficient one.’

‘Yet he managed to escape from you. I saw how he did it – he teleported, didn’t he? Doesn’t that prove anything?’

‘Indeed it does. That someone helped him. Rience had neither the time nor the strength to open an oval portal suspended in the air. A portal like that is no joke. It’s clear that someone else opened it. Someone far more powerful. That’s why I was afraid to chase him, not knowing where I would land. But I sent some pretty hot stuff after him. He’s going to need a lot of spells and some effective burn elixirs, and will remain marked for some time.’

‘Maybe you will be interested to hear that he was a Nilfgaardian.’

‘You think so?’ Yennefer sat up and with a swift movement pulled the stiletto from her pocket and turned it in her palm. ‘A lot of people carry Nilfgaardian knives now. They’re comfortable and handy – they can even be hidden in a cleavage—’

‘It’s not the knife. When he was questioning me he used the term “battle for Cintra”, “conquest of the town” or something along those lines. I’ve never heard anyone describe those events like that. For us, it has always been a massacre. The Massacre of Cintra. No one refers to it by any other name.’

The magician raised her hand, scrutinised her nails. ‘Clever, Dandilion. You have a sensitive ear.’

‘It’s a professional hazard.’

‘I wonder which profession you have in mind?’ She smiled coquettishly. ‘But thank you for the information. It was valuable.’

‘Let it be,’ he replied with a smile, ‘my contribution to making changes for the better. Tell me, Yennefer, why is Nilfgaard so interested in Geralt and the girl from Cintra?’

‘Don’t stick your nose into that business.’ She suddenly turned serious. ‘I said you were to forget you ever heard of Calanthe’s granddaughter.’

‘Indeed, you did. But I’m not searching for a subject for a ballad.’

‘What the hell are you searching for then? Trouble?’

‘Let’s take it,’ he said quietly, resting his chin on his clasped hands and looking the enchantress in the eye. ‘Let’s take it that Geralt did, in fact, find and rescue the child. Let’s take it that he finally came to believe in the power of destiny, and took the child with him. Where to? Rience tried to force it out of me with torture. But you know, Yennefer. You know where the witcher is hiding.’

‘I do.’

‘And you know how to get there.’

‘I know that too.’

‘Don’t you think he should be warned? Warned that the likes of Rience are looking for him and the little girl? I would go, but I honestly don’t know where it is . . . That place whose name I prefer not to say . . .’

‘Get to the point, Dandilion.’

‘If you know where Geralt is, you ought to go and warn him. You owe him that, Yennefer. There was, after all, something between you.’

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged coldly. ‘There was something between us. That’s why I know him a bit. He does not like having help imposed on him. And if he was in need of it he would seek it from those he could trust. A year has gone by since those events and I . . . I’ve not had any news from him. And as for our debt, I owe him exactly as much as he owes me. No more and no less.’

‘So I’ll go then.’ He raised his head high. ‘Tell me—’

‘I won’t,’ she interrupted. ‘Your cover’s blown, Dandilion. They might come after you again; the less you know the better. Vanish from here. Go to Redania, to Dijkstra and Filippa Eilhart, stick to Vizimir’s court. And I warn you once more: forget the Lion Cub of Cintra. Forget about Ciri. Pretend you have never heard the name. Do as I ask. I wouldn’t like anything bad to happen to you. I like you too much, owe you too much—’

‘You’ve said that already. What do you owe me, Yennefer?’

The sorceress turned her head away, did not say anything for a while.

‘You travelled with him,’ she said finally. ‘Thanks to you he was not alone. You were a friend to him. You were with him.’

The bard lowered his eyes.

‘He didn’t get much from it,’ he muttered. ‘He didn’t get much from our friendship. He had little but trouble because of me. He constantly had to get me out of some scrape . . . help me . . .’

She leaned across the table, put her hand on his and squeezed it hard without saying anything. Her eyes held regret.

‘Go to Redania,’ she repeated after a moment. ‘To Tretogor. Stay in Dijkstra’s and Filippa’s care. Don’t play at being a hero. You have got yourself mixed up in a dangerous affair, Dandilion.’

‘I’ve noticed.’ He grimaced and rubbed his aching shoulder. ‘And that is precisely why I believe Geralt should be warned. You are the only one who knows where to look for him. You know the way. I guess you used to be . . . a guest there . . . ?’

Yennefer turned away. Dandilion saw her lips pinch, the muscles in her cheek quiver.

‘Yes, in the past,’ she said and there was something elusive and strange in her voice. ‘I used to be a guest there, sometimes. But never uninvited.’

The wind howled savagely, rippling through the grasses growing over the ruins, rustling in the hawthorn bushes and tall nettles. Clouds sped across the sphere of the moon, momentarily illuminating the great castle, drenching the moat and few remaining walls in a pale glow undulating with shadows, and revealing mounds of skulls baring their broken teeth and staring into nothingness through the black holes of their eye-sockets. Ciri squealed sharply and hid her face in the witcher’s cloak.

The mare, prodded on by the witcher’s heels, carefully stepped over a pile of bricks and passed through the broken arcade. Her horseshoes, ringing against the flagstones, awoke weird echoes between the walls, muffled by the howling gale. Ciri trembled, digging her hands into the horse’s mane.

‘I’m frightened,’ she whispered.

‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ replied the witcher, laying his hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s hard to find a safer place in the whole world. This is Kaer Morhen, the Witchers’ Keep. There used to be a beautiful castle here. A long time ago.’

She did not reply, bowing her head low. The witcher’s mare, called Roach, snorted quietly, as if she too wanted to reassure the girl.

They immersed themselves in a dark abyss, in a long, unending black tunnel dotted with columns and arcades. Roach stepped confidently and willingly, ignoring the impenetrable darkness, and her horseshoes rang brightly against the floor.

In front of them, at the end of the tunnel, a straight, vertical line suddenly flared with a red light. Growing taller and wider it became a door beyond which was a faint glow, the flickering brightness of torches stuck in iron mounts on the walls. A black figure stood framed in the door, blurred by the brightness.

‘Who comes?’ Ciri heard a menacing, metallic voice which sounded like a dog’s bark. ‘Geralt?’

‘Yes, Eskel. It’s me.’

‘Come in.’

The witcher dismounted, took Ciri from the saddle, stood her on the ground and pressed a bundle into her little hands which she grabbed tightly, only regretting that it was too small for her to hide behind completely.

‘Wait here with Eskel,’ he said. ‘I’ll take Roach to the stables.’

‘Come into the light, laddie,’ growled the man called Eskel. ‘Don’t lurk in the dark.’

Ciri looked up into his face and barely restrained her frightened scream. He wasn’t human. Although he stood on two legs, although he smelled of sweat and smoke, although he wore ordinary human clothes, he was not human. No human can have a face like that, she thought.

‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ repeated Eskel.

She didn’t move. In the darkness she heard the clatter of Roach’s horseshoes grow fainter. Something soft and squeaking ran over her foot. She jumped.

‘Don’t loiter in the dark, or the rats will eat your boots.’

Still clinging to her bundle Ciri moved briskly towards the light. The rats bolted out from beneath her feet with a squeak. Eskel leaned over, took the package from her and pulled back her hood.

‘A plague on it,’ he muttered. ‘A girl. That’s all we need.’

She glanced at him, frightened. Eskel was smiling. She saw that he was human after all, that he had an entirely human face, deformed by a long, ugly, semi-circular scar running from the corner of his mouth across the length of his cheek up to the ear.

‘Since you’re here, welcome to Kaer Morhen,’ he said. ‘What do they call you?’

‘Ciri,’ Geralt replied for her, silently emerging from the darkness. Eskel turned around. Suddenly, quickly, wordlessly, the witchers fell into each other’s arms and wound their shoulders around each other tight and hard. For one brief moment.

‘Wolf, you’re alive.’

‘I am.’

‘All right.’ Eskel took a torch from its bracket. ‘Come on. I’m closing the inner gates to stop the heat escaping.’

They walked along the corridor. There were rats here, too; they flitted under the walls, squeaked from the dark abyss, from the branching passages, and skittered before the swaying circle of light thrown by the torch. Ciri walked quickly, trying to keep up with the men.

‘Who’s wintering here, Eskel? Apart from Vesemir?’

‘Lambert and Coën.’

They descended a steep and slippery flight of stairs. A gleam was visible below them. Ciri heard voices, detected the smell of smoke.

The hall was enormous, and flooded with light from a huge hearth roaring with flames which were being sucked up into the heart of the chimney. The centre of the hall was taken up by an enormous, heavy table. At least ten people could sit around that table. There were three. Three humans. Three witchers, Ciri corrected herself. She saw nothing but their silhouettes against the fire in the hearth.

‘Greetings, Wolf. We’ve been waiting for you.’

‘Greetings, Vesemir. Greetings, lads. It’s good to be home again.’

‘Who have you brought us?’

Geralt was silent for a moment, then put his hand on Ciri’s shoulder and lightly pushed her forward. She walked awkwardly, hesitantly, huddled up and hunched, her head lowered. I’m frightened , she thought. I’m very frightened. When Geralt found me, when he took me with him, I thought the fear wouldn’t come back. I thought it had passed . . . And now, instead of being at home, I’m in this terrible, dark, ruined old castle full of rats and dreadful echoes . . . I’m standing in front of a red wall of fire again. I see sinister black figures, I see dreadful, menacing, glistening eyes staring at me—

‘Who is this child, Wolf? Who is this girl?’

‘She’s my . . .’ Geralt suddenly stammered. She felt his strong, hard hands on her shoulders. And suddenly the fear disappeared, vanished without a trace. The roaring red fire gave out warmth. Only warmth. The black silhouettes were the silhouettes of friends. Carers. Their glistening eyes expressed curiosity. Concern. And unease . . .

Geralt’s hands clenched over her shoulders.

‘She’s our destiny.’

Verily, there is nothing so hideous as the monsters, so contrary to nature, known as witchers for they are the offspring of foul sorcery and devilry. They are rogues without virtue, conscience or scruple, true diabolic creations, fit only for killing. There is no place amidst honest men for such as they.

And Kaer Morhen, where these infamous beings nestle, where they perform their foul practices, must be wiped from the surface of this earth, and all trace of it strewn with salt and saltpetre.

Anonymous, Monstrum, or Description of the Witcher

Intolerance and superstition has always been the domain of the more stupid amongst the common folk and, I conjecture, will never be uprooted, for they are as eternal as stupidity itself. There, where mountains tower today, one day there will be seas; there where today seas surge, will one day be deserts. But stupidity will remain stupidity.

Nicodemus de Boot, Meditations on life, Happiness and Prosperity

CHAPTER TWO

Triss Merigold blew into her frozen hands, wriggled her fingers and murmured a magic formula. Her horse, a gelding, immediately reacted to the spell, snorting and turning its head, looking at the enchantress with eyes made watery by the cold and wind.

‘You’ve got two options, old thing,’ said Triss, pulling on her gloves. ‘Either you get used to magic or I sell you to some peasants to pull a plough.’

The gelding pricked up its ears, snorted vapour through its nostrils and obediently started down the wooded mountainside. The magician leaned over in the saddle, avoiding being lashed by the frosty branches.

The magic worked quickly; she stopped feeling the sting of cold in her elbows and on her neck and the unpleasant sensation of cold which had made her hunch her shoulders and draw her head in disappeared. The spell, warming her, also muffled the hunger which had been eating at her for several hours. Triss cheered up, made herself comfortable in the saddle and, with greater attention than before, started to take stock of her surroundings.

Ever since she had left the beaten track, she had been guided by the greyish-white wall of mountains and their snow-capped summits which glistened gold in those rare moments when the sun pierced the clouds – usually in the morning or just before sunset. Now that she was closer to the mountain chain she had to take greater care. The land around Kaer Morhen was famous for its wildness and inaccessibility, and the gap in the granite wall that was a vital landmark was not easy for an inexperienced eye to find. It was enough to turn down one of the numerous gullies and gorges to lose sight of it. And even she who knew the land, knew the way and knew where to look for the pass, could not allow herself to lose her concentration for an instant.

The forest came to an end. A wide valley opened before the enchantress, strewn with boulders which ran across the valley to the sheer mountain-slope on the other side. The Gwenllech, the River of White Stones, flowed down the heart of the valley, foam seething between the boulders and logs washed along by the current. Here, in its upper reaches, the Gwenllech was no more than a wide but shallow stream. Up here it could be crossed without any difficulty. Lower down, in Kaedwen, in its middle reaches, the river was an insurmountable obstacle, rushing and breaking against the beds of its deep chasms.

The gelding, driven into the water, hastened its step, clearly wanting to reach the opposite bank as quickly as possible. Triss held it back lightly – the stream was shallow, reaching just above the horse’s fetlocks but the pebbles covering the bed were slippery and the current was sharp and quick. The water churned and foamed around her mount’s legs.

The magician looked up at the sky. The growing cold and increasing wind here, in the mountains, could herald a blizzard and she did not find the prospect of spending yet another night in a grotto or rocky nook too attractive. She could, if she had to, continue her journey even through a blizzard; she could locate the path using telepathy, she could – using magic – make herself insensitive to the cold. She could, if she had to. But she preferred not to have to.

Luckily, Kaer Morhen was already close. Triss urged the gelding on to flat scree, over an enormous heap of stones washed down by glaciers and streams, and rode into a narrow pass between rocky outcrops. The gorge walls rose vertically and seemed to meet high above her, only divided by a narrow line of sky. It grew warmer, the wind howling above the rocks could no longer reach to lash and sting at her.

The pass broadened, leading through a ravine and then into the valley, opening onto a huge depression, covered by forest, which stretched out amidst jagged boulders. The magician ignored the gentle, accessible depression rim and rode down towards the forest, into the thick backwoods. Dry branches cracked under the gelding’s hooves. Forced to step over fallen tree trunks, the horse snorted, danced and stamped. Triss pulled at the reins, tugged at her mount’s shaggy ear and scolded it harshly with spiteful allusions to its lameness. The steed, looking for all the world as though it were ashamed of itself, walked with a more even and sprightly gait and picked its way through the thicket.

Before long they emerged onto clearer land, riding along the trough of a stream which barely trickled along the ravine bed. The magician looked around carefully, finally finding what she was looking for. Over the gully, supported horizontally by enormous boulders, lay a mighty tree trunk, dark, bare and turning green with moss. Triss rode closer, wanting to make sure this was, indeed, the Trail and not a tree accidentally felled in a gale. But she spied a narrow, indistinct pathway disappearing into the woods. She could not be mistaken – this was definitely the Trail, a path encircling the old castle of Kaer Morhen and beset with obstacles, where witchers trained to improve their running speeds and controlled breathing. The path was known as the Trail, but Triss knew young witchers had given it their own name: The Killer.

She clung to the horse’s neck and slowly rode under the trunk. At that moment, she heard stones grating. And the fast, light footsteps of someone running.

She turned in her saddle, pulled on the reins and waited for the witcher to run out onto the log.

A witcher did run out onto the log, flitted along it like an arrow without slowing down, without even using his arms to aid his balance – running nimbly, fluently, with incredible grace. He flashed by, approaching and disappearing amongst the trees without disturbing a single branch. Triss sighed loudly, shaking her head in disbelief.

Because the witcher, judging by his height and build, was only about twelve.

The magician eased the reins, nudged the horse with her heels and trotted upstream. She knew the Trail cut across the ravine once more, at a spot known as the Gullet. She wanted to catch a glimpse of the little witcher once again – children had not been trained in Kaer Morhen for near to a quarter of a century.

She was not in a great hurry. The narrow Killer path meandered and looped its way through the forest and, in order to master it, the little witcher would take far longer than she would, following the shortcut. However, she could not loiter either. Beyond the Gullet, the Trail turned into the woods and led straight to the fortress. If she did not catch the boy at the precipice, she might not see him at all. She had already visited Kaer Morhen a few times, and knew she saw only what the witchers wanted her to see. Triss was not so naïve as to be unaware that they wanted to show her only a tiny fraction of the things to be seen in Kaer Morhen.

After a few minutes riding along the stony trough of the stream she caught sight of the Gullet – a leap over the gully created by two huge mossy rocks, overgrown with gnarled, stunted trees. She released the reins. The horse snorted and lowered its head towards the water trickling between pebbles.

She did not have to wait long. The witcher’s silhouette appeared on the rock and the boy jumped, not slowing his pace. The magician heard the soft smack of his landing and a moment later a rattle of stones, the dull thud of a fall and a quiet cry. Or rather, a squeal.

Triss instantly leaped from her saddle, threw the fur off her shoulders and dashed across the mountainside, pulling herself up using tree branches and roots. Momentum aided her climb until she slipped on the conifer needles and fell to her knees next to a figure huddled on the stones. The youngster, on seeing her, jumped up like a spring, backed away in a flash and nimbly grabbed the sword slung across his back – then tripped and collapsed between the junipers and pines. The magician did not rise from her knees; she stared at the boy and opened her mouth in surprise.

Because it was not a boy.

From beneath an ash-blonde fringe, poorly and unevenly cut, enormous emerald eyes – the predominant features in a small face with a narrow chin and upturned nose – stared out at her. There was fear in the eyes.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Triss said tentatively.

The girl opened her eyes even wider. She was hardly out of breath and did not appear to be sweating. It was clear she had already run the Killer more than once.

‘Nothing’s happened to you?’

The girl did not reply; instead she sprang up, hissed with pain, shifted her weight to her left leg, bent over and rubbed her knee. She was dressed in a sort of leather suit sewn together – or rather stuck together – in a way which would make any tailor who took pride in his craft howl in horror and despair. The only pieces of her equipment which seemed to be relatively new, and fitted her, were her knee-high boots, her belts and her sword. More precisely, her little sword.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ repeated Triss, still not rising from her knees. ‘I heard your fall and was scared, that’s why I rushed here—’

‘I slipped,’ murmured the girl.

‘Have you hurt yourself?’

‘No. You?’

The enchantress laughed, tried to get up, winced and swore at the pain in her ankle. She sat down and carefully straightened her foot, swearing once more.

‘Come here, little one, help me get up.’

‘I’m not little.’

‘If you say so. In that case, what are you?’

‘A witcher!’

‘Ha! So, come here and help me get up, witcher.’

The girl did not move from the spot. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, and her hands, in their fingerless, woollen gloves, toyed with her sword belt as she glanced suspiciously at Triss.

‘Have no fear,’ said the enchantress with a smile. ‘I’m not a bandit or outsider. I’m called Triss Merigold and I’m going to Kaer Morhen. The witchers know me. Don’t gape at me. I respect your suspicion, but be reasonable. Would I have got this far if I hadn’t known the way? Have you ever met a human on the Trail?’

The girl overcame her hesitation, approached and stretched out her hand. Triss stood with only a little assistance. Because she was not concerned with having help. She wanted a closer look at the girl. And to touch her.

The green eyes of the little witcher-girl betrayed no signs of mutation, and the touch of her little hand did not produce the slight, pleasant tingling sensation so characteristic of witchers. Although she ran the Killer path with a sword slung across her back, the ashen-haired girl had not been subjected to the Trial of Grasses or to Changes. Of that, Triss was certain.

‘Show me your knee, little one.’

‘I’m not little.’

‘Sorry. But surely you have a name?’

‘I do. I’m . . . Ciri.’

‘It’s a pleasure. A bit closer if you please, Ciri.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘I want to see what “nothing” looks like. Ah, that’s what I thought. “Nothing” looks remarkably like torn trousers and skin grazed down to raw flesh. Stand still and don’t be scared.’

‘I’m not scared . . . Awww!’

The magician laughed and rubbed her palm, itching from casting the spell, against her hip. The girl bent over and gazed at her knee.

‘Oooh,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t hurt any more! And there’s no hole . . . Was that magic?’

‘You’ve guessed it.’

‘Are you a witch?’

‘Guessed again. Although I prefer to be called an enchantress. To avoid getting it wrong you can call me by my name, Triss. Just Triss. Come on, Ciri. My horse is waiting at the bottom. We’ll go to Kaer Morhen together.’

‘I ought to run.’ Ciri shook her head. ‘It’s not good to stop running because you get milk in your muscles. Geralt says—’

‘Geralt is at the keep?’

Ciri frowned, pinched her lips together and shot a glance at the enchantress from beneath her ashen fringe. Triss chuckled again.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I won’t ask. A secret’s a secret, and you’re right not to disclose it to someone you hardly know. Come on. When we get there we’ll see who’s at the castle and who isn’t. And don’t worry about your muscles – I know what to do about lactic acid. Ah, here’s my mount. I’ll help you . . .’

She stretched out her hand, but Ciri didn’t need any help. She jumped agilely into the saddle, lightly, almost without taking off. The gelding started, surprised, and stamped, but the girl quickly took up the reins and reassured it.

‘You know how to handle a horse, I see.’

‘I can handle anything.’

‘Move up towards the pommel.’ Triss slipped her foot into the stirrup and caught hold of the mane. ‘Make a bit of room for me. And don’t poke my eye out with that sword.’

The gelding, spurred on by her heels, moved off along the stream bed at a walking pace. They rode across another gully and climbed the rounded mountainside. From there they could see the ruins of Kaer Morhen huddled against the stone precipices – the partially demolished trapezium of the defensive wall, the remains of the barbican and gate, the thick, blunt column of the donjon.

The gelding snorted and jerked its head, crossing what remained of the bridge over the moat. Triss tugged at the reins. The decaying skulls and skeletons strewn across the river bed made no impression on her. She had seen them before.

‘I don’t like this,’ the girl suddenly remarked. ‘It’s not as it should be. The dead should to be buried in the ground. Under a barrow. Shouldn’t they?’

‘They should,’ the magician agreed calmly. ‘I think so, too. But the witchers treat this graveyard as a . . . reminder.’

‘Reminder of what?’

‘Kaer Morhen,’ Triss said as she guided the horse towards the shattered arcades, ‘was assaulted. There was a bloody battle here in which almost all the witchers died. Only those who weren’t in the keep at the time survived.’

‘Who attacked them? And why?’

‘I don’t know,’ she lied. ‘It was a terribly long time ago, Ciri. Ask the witchers about it.’

‘I have,’ grunted the girl. ‘But they didn’t want to tell me.’

I can understand that, thought the magician. A child trained to be a witcher, a girl, at that, who has not undergone the mutations, should not be told such things. A child like that should not hear about the massacre. A child like that should not be terrified by the prospect that they too may one day hear words describing it like those which were screamed by the fanatics who marched on Kaer Morhen long ago. Mutant. Monster. Freak. Damned by the gods, a creature contrary to nature. No, I do not blame the witchers for not telling you about it, little Ciri. And I shan’t tell you either. I have even more reason to be silent. Because I am a wizard, and without the aid of wizards those fanatics would never have conquered the castle. And that hideous lampoon, that widely distributed Monstrum which stirred the fanatics up and drove them to such wickedness was also, apparently, some wizard’s anonymous work. But I, little Ciri, do not recognise collective responsibility, I do not feel the need to expiate the events which took place half a century before my birth. And the skeletons which are meant to serve as an eternal reminder will ultimately rot away completely, disintegrate into dust and be forgotten, will disappear with the wind which constantly whips the mountainside . . .

‘They don’t want to lie like that,’ said Ciri suddenly. ‘They don’t want to be a symbol, a bad conscience or a warning. But neither do they want their dust to be swept away by the wind.’

Triss raised her head, hearing a change in the girl’s voice. Immediately she sensed a magical aura, a pulsating and a rush of blood in her temples. She grew tense but did not utter a word, afraid of breaking into or disrupting what was happening.

‘An ordinary barrow.’ Ciri’s voice was becoming more and more unnatural, metallic, cold and menacing. ‘A mound of earth which will be overgrown with nettles. Death has cold blue eyes, and the height of the obelisk does not matter, nor does the writing engraved on it matter. Who can know that better than you, Triss Merigold, the Fourteenth One of the Hill?’

The enchantress froze. She saw the girl’s hands clench the horse’s mane.

‘You died on the Hill, Triss Merigold.’ The strange, evil voice spoke again. ‘Why have you come here? Go back, go back at once and take this child, the Child of Elder Blood, with you. Return her to those to whom she belongs. Do this, Fourteenth One. Because if you do not you will die once more. The day will come when the Hill will claim you. The mass grave, and the obelisk on which your name is engraved, will claim you.’

The gelding neighed loudly, tossing its head. Ciri jerked suddenly, shuddered.

‘What happened?’ asked Triss, trying to control her voice.

Ciri coughed, passed both hands through her hair and rubbed her face.

‘Nn . . . nothing . . .’ she muttered hesitantly. ‘I’m tired, that’s why . . . That’s why I fell asleep. I ought to run . . .’

The magical aura disappeared. Triss experienced a sudden cold wave sweep through her entire body. She tried to convince herself it was the effect of the defensive spell dying away, but she knew that wasn’t true. She glanced up at the stone blocks of the castle, the black, empty eye-sockets of its ruined loop-holes gaping at her. A shudder ran through her.

The horse’s shoes rang against the slabs in the courtyard. The magician quickly leaped from the saddle and held out her hand to Ciri. Taking advantage of the touch of their hands she carefully emitted a magical impulse. And was astounded. Because she didn’t feel anything. No reaction, no reply. And no resistance. In the girl who had, just a moment ago, manifested an exceptionally strong aura there was not a trace of magic. She was now an ordinary, badly dressed child whose hair had been incompetently cut.

But a moment ago, this child had been no ordinary child.

Triss did not have time to ponder the strange event. The grate of an iron-clad door reached her, coming from the dark void of the corridor which gaped behind the battered portal. She slipped the fur cape from her shoulders, removed her fox-fur hat and, with a swift movement of the head, tousled her hair – long, full locks the colour of fresh chestnuts, with a sheen of gold, her pride and identifying characteristic.

Ciri sighed with admiration. Triss smiled, pleased by the effect she’d had. Beautiful, long, loose hair was a rarity, an indication of a woman’s position, her status, the sign of a free woman, a woman who belonged to herself. The sign of an unusual woman – because ‘normal’ maidens wore their hair in plaits, ‘normal’ married women hid theirs beneath a caul or a coif. Women of high birth, including queens, curled their hair and styled it. Warriors cut it short. Only druids and magicians – and whores – wore their hair naturally so as to emphasise their independence and freedom.

The witchers appeared unexpectedly and silently, as usual, and, also as usual, from nowhere. They stood before her, tall, slim, their arms crossed, the weight of their bodies on their left legs – a position from which, she knew, they could attack in a split second. Ciri stood next to them, in an identical position. In her ludicrous clothes, she looked very funny.

‘Welcome to Kaer Morhern, Triss.’

‘Greetings, Geralt.’

He had changed. He gave the impression of having aged. Triss knew that, biologically, this was impossible – witchers aged, certainly, but too slowly for an ordinary mortal, or a magician as young as her, to notice the changes. But one glance was enough for her to realise that although mutation could hold back the physical process of ageing, it did not alter the mental. Geralt’s face, slashed by wrinkles, was the best evidence of this. With a sense of deep sorrow Triss tore her gaze away from the white-haired witcher’s eyes. Eyes which had evidently seen too much. What’s more, she saw nothing of what she had expected in those eyes.

‘Welcome,’ he repeated. ‘We are glad you’ve come.’

Eskel stood next to Geralt, resembling the Wolf like a brother apart from the colour of his hair and the long scar which disfigured his cheek. And the youngest of the Kaer Morhen witchers, Lambert, was there with his usual ugly, mocking expression. Vesemir was not there.

‘Welcome and come in,’ said Eskel. ‘It is as cold and blustery as if someone has hung themselves. Ciri, where are you off to? The invitation does not apply to you. The sun is still high, even if it is obscured. You can still train.’

‘Hey.’ The Enchantress tossed her hair. ‘Politeness comes cheap in Witchers’ Keep now, I see. Ciri was the first to greet me, and brought me to the castle. She ought to keep me company—’

‘She is undergoing training here, Merigold.’ Lambert grimaced in a parody of a smile. He always called her that: ‘Merigold’, without giving her a title or a name. Triss hated it. ‘She is a student, not a major domo. Welcoming guests, even such pleasant ones as yourself, is not one of her duties. We’re off, Ciri.’

Triss gave a little shrug, pretending not to see Geralt and Eskel’s embarrassed expressions. She did not say anything, not wanting to embarrass them further. And, above all, she did not want them to see how very intrigued and fascinated she was by the girl.

‘I’ll take your horse,’ offered Geralt, reaching for the reins. Triss surreptitiously shifted her hand and their palms joined. So did their eyes.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said naturally. ‘There are a few little things in the saddle-bags which I’ll need.’

‘You gave me a very disagreeable experience not so long ago,’ he muttered as soon as they had entered the stable. ‘I studied your impressive tombstone with my own eyes. The obelisk in memory of your heroic death at the battle of Sodden. The news that it was a mistake only reached me recently. I can’t understand how anyone could mistake anyone else for you, Triss.’

‘It’s a long story,’ she answered. ‘I’ll tell you some time. And please forgive me for the disagreeable moment.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive. I’ve not had many reasons to be happy of late and the feelings I experienced on hearing that you lived cannot compare to any other. Except perhaps what I feel now when I look at you.’

Triss felt something explode inside her. Her fear of meeting the white-haired witcher, which had accompanied her throughout her journey, had struggled within her with her hope of having such a meeting. Followed by the sight of that tired, jaded face, those sick eyes which saw everything, cold and calculating, which were unnaturally calm but yet so infused with emotion . . .

She threw her arms around his neck, instantly, without thinking. She caught hold of his hand, abruptly placed it on the nape of her neck, under her hair. A tingling ran down her back, penetrated her with such rapture she almost cried out. In order to muffle and restrain the cry her lips found his lips and stuck to them. She trembled, pressing hard against him, her excitement building and increasing, forgetting herself more and more.

Geralt did not forget himself.

‘Triss . . . Please.’

‘Oh, Geralt . . . So much . . .’

‘Triss.’ He moved her away delicately. ‘We’re not alone . . . They’re coming.’

She glanced at the entrance and saw the shadows of the approaching witchers only after some time, heard their steps even later. Oh well, her hearing, which she considered very sensitive, could not compete with that of a witcher.

‘Triss, my child!’

‘Vesemir !’

Vesemir was really very old. Who knows, he could be even older than Kaer Morhen. But he walked towards her with a brisk, energetic and sprightly step; his grip was vigorous and his hands strong.

‘I am happy to see you again, Grandfather.’

‘Give me a kiss. No, not on the hand, little sorceress. You can kiss my hand when I’m resting on my bier. Which will, no doubt, be soon. Oh, Triss, it is a good thing you have come . . . Who can cure me if not you?’

‘Cure, you? Of what? Of behaving like a child, surely! Take your hand from my backside, old man, or I’ll set fire to that grey beard of yours!’

‘Forgive me. I keep forgetting you are grown up, and I can no longer put you on my knee and pat you. As to my health . . . Oh, Triss, old age is no joke. My bones ache so I want to howl. Will you help an old man, child?’

‘I will.’ The enchantress freed herself from his bear-like embrace and cast her eye over the witcher accompanying Vesemir. He was young, apparently the same age as Lambert, and wore a short, black beard which did not hide the severe disfigurement left behind by smallpox. This was unusual; witchers were generally highly immune to infectious diseases.

‘Triss Merigold, Coën.’ Geralt introduced them to each other. ‘This is Coën’s first winter with us. He comes from the north, from Poviss.’

The young witcher bowed. He had unusually pale, yellow-green irises and the whites of his eyes, riddled with red threads, indicated difficult and troublesome processes during his mutation.

‘Let us go, child,’ uttered Vesemir, taking her by the arm. ‘A stable is no place to welcome a guest, but I couldn’t wait to see you.’

In the courtyard, in a recess in the wall sheltered from the wind, Ciri was training under Lambert’s instructions. Deftly balancing on a beam hanging on chains, she was attacking – with her sword – a leather sack bound with straps to make it resemble a human torso. Triss stopped to watch.

‘Wrong!’ yelled Lambert. ‘You’re getting too close! Don’t hack blindly at it! I told you, the very tip of the sword, at the carotid artery! Where does a humanoid have its carotid artery? On top of its head? What’s happening? Concentrate, Princess!’

Ha, thought Triss. So it is truth, not a legend. She is the one. I guessed correctly.

She decided to attack without delay, not allowing the witchers to try any ruses.

‘The famous Child Surprise?’ she said indicating Ciri. ‘I see you have applied yourselves to fulfilling the demands of fate and destiny? But it seems you have muddled the stories, boys. In the fairy-tales I was told, shepherdesses and orphans become princesses. But here, I see, a princess is becoming a witcher. Does that not appear somewhat daring to you?’

Vesemir glanced at Geralt. The white-haired witcher remained silent, his face perfectly still; he did not react with even the slightest quiver of his eyelids to Vesemir’s unspoken request for support.

‘It’s not what you think.’ The old man cleared his throat. ‘Geralt brought her here last autumn. She has no one apart from—Triss, how can one not believe in destiny when—’

‘What has destiny to do with waving a sword around?’

‘We are teaching her to fence,’ Geralt said quietly, turning towards her and looking her straight in the eyes. ‘What else are we to teach her? We know nothing else. Destiny or no, Kaer Morhen is now her home. At least for a while. Training and swordsmanship amuse her, keep her healthy and fit. They allow her to forget the tragedy she has lived through. This is her home now, Triss. She has no other.’

‘Masses of Cintrians,’ the enchantress said, holding his gaze, ‘fled to Verden after the defeat, to Brugge, Temeria and the Islands of Skellige. Amongst them are magnates, barons, knights. Friends, relations . . . as well as this girl’s subjects.’

‘Friends and relations did not look for her after the war. They did not find her.’

‘Because she was not destined for them?’ She smiled at him, not very sincerely but very prettily. As prettily as she could. She did not want him to use that tone of voice.

The witcher shrugged. Triss, knowing him a little, immediately changed tactics and gave up the argument.

She looked at Ciri again. The girl, agilely stepping along the balance beam, executed a half-turn, cut lightly, and immediately leaped away. The dummy, struck, swayed on its rope.

‘Well, at last!’ shouted Lambert. ‘You’ve finally got it! Go back and do it again. I want to make sure it wasn’t a fluke!’

‘The sword,’ Triss turned to the witchers, ‘looks sharp. The beam looks slippery and unstable. And Lambert looks like an idiot, demoralising the girl with all his shouting. Aren’t you afraid of an unfortunate accident? Or maybe you’re relying on destiny to protect the child against it?’

‘Ciri practised for nearly six months without a sword,’ said Coën. ‘She knows how to move. And we are keeping an eye on her because—’

‘Because this is her home,’ finished Geralt quietly but firmly. Very firmly. Using a tone which put an end to the discussion.

‘Exactly. It is.’ Vesemir took a deep breath. ‘Triss, you must be tired. And hungry?’

‘I cannot deny it,’ she sighed, giving up on trying to catch Geralt’s eye. ‘To be honest, I’m on my last legs. I spent last night on the Trail in a shepherd’s hut which was practically falling apart, buried in straw and sawdust. I used spells to insulate the shack; if it weren’t for that I would probably be dead. I long for clean linen.’

‘You will have supper with us now. And then you will sleep as long as you wish, and rest. We have prepared the best room for you, the one in the tower. And we have put the best bed we could find in Kaer Morhen there.’

‘Thank you.’ Triss smiled faintly. In the tower, she thought. All right, Vesemir. Let it be the tower for today, if appearances matter so much to you. I can sleep in the tower in the best of all the beds in Kaer Morhen. Although I would prefer to sleep with Geralt in the worst.

‘Let’s go, Triss.’

‘Let’s go.’

The wind hammered against the shutters and ruffled the remains of the moth-eaten tapestries which had been used to insulate the window. Triss lay in perfect darkness in the best bed in the whole of Kaer Morhen. She couldn’t sleep – and not because the best bed in Kaer Morhen was a dilapidated antique. Triss was thinking hard. And all the thoughts chasing sleep away revolved around one fundamental question.

What had she been summoned to the fortress for? Who had summoned her? Why? For what purpose?

Vesemir’s illness was just a pretext. Vesemir was a witcher. The fact that he was also an old man did not change the fact that many a youngster could envy him his health. If the old man had been stung by a manticore or bitten by a werewolf Triss would have accepted that she had been summoned to aid him. But ‘aching bones’ was a joke. For an ache in his bones, not a very original complaint within the horrendously cold walls of Kaer Morhen, Vesemir could have treated with a witchers’ elixir or – an even simpler solution – with strong rye vodka, applied internally and externally in equal proportions. He didn’t need a magician, with her spells, filters and amulets.

So who had summoned her? Geralt?

Triss thrashed about in the bedclothes, feeling a wave of heat come over her. And a wave of arousal, made all the stronger by anger. She swore quietly, kicked her quilt away and rolled on to her side. The ancient bedstead squeaked and creaked. I’ve no control over myself, she thought. I’m behaving like a stupid adolescent. Or even worse – like an old maid deprived of affection. I can’t even think logically.

She swore again.

Of course it wasn’t Geralt. Don’t get excited, little one. Don’t get excited, just think of his expression in the stable. You’ve seen expressions like that before. You’ve seen them, so don’t kid yourself. The foolish, contrite, embarrassed expressions of men who want to forget, who regret, who don’t want to remember what happened, don’t want to go back to what has been. By all the gods, little one, don’t fool yourself it’s different this time. It’s never different. And you know it. Because, after all, you’ve had a fair amount of experience.

As far as her erotic life was concerned, Triss Merigold had the right to consider herself a typical enchantress. It had began with the sour taste of forbidden fruit, made all the more exciting by the strict rules of the academy and the prohibitions of the mistress under whom she practised. Then came her independence, freedom and a crazy promiscuity which ended, as it usually does, in bitterness, disillusionment and resignation. Then followed a long period of loneliness and the discovery that if she wanted to release her tension and stress then someone who wanted to consider himself her lord and master – as soon as he had turned on his back and wiped the sweat from his brow – was entirely superfluous. There were far less troublesome ways of calming her nerves – ones with the additional advantages of not staining her towels with blood, not passing wind under the quilt and not demanding breakfast. That was followed by a short-lived and entertaining fascination with the same sex, which ended in the conclusion that soiling towels, passing wind and greediness were by no means exclusively male attributes. Finally, like all but a few magicians, Triss moved to affairs with other wizards, which proved sporadic and frustrating in their cold, technical and almost ritual course.

Then Geralt of Rivia appeared. A witcher leading a stormy life, and tied to her good friend Yennefer in a strange, turbulent and almost violent relationship.

Triss had watched them both and was jealous even though it seemed there was little to be jealous of. Their relationship quite obviously made them both unhappy, had led straight to destruction, pain and yet, against all logic . . . it had lasted. Triss couldn’t understand it. And it had fascinated her. It had fascinated her to such an extent that . . .

. . . she had seduced the witcher – with the help of a little magic. She had hit on a propitious moment, a moment when he and Yennefer had scratched at each other’s eyes yet again and had abruptly parted. Geralt had needed warmth, and had wanted to forget.

No, Triss had not desired to take him away from Yennefer. As a matter of fact, her friend was more important to her than he was. But her brief relationship with the witcher had not disappointed. She had found what she was looking for – emotions in the form of guilt, anxiety and pain. His pain. She had experienced his emotions, it had excited her and, when they parted, she had been unable to forget it. And she had only recently understood what pain is. The moment when she had overwhelmingly wanted to be with him again. For a short while – just for a moment – to be with him.

And now she was so close . . .

Triss clenched her fist and punched the pillow. No, she thought, no. Don’t be silly. Don’t think about it. Think about . . .

About Ciri. Is she . . .

Yes. She was the real reason behind her visit to Kaer Morhen. The ash-blonde girl who, here in Kaer Morhen, they want to turn into a witcher. A real witcher. A mutant. A killing machine, like themselves.

It’s clear, she suddenly thought, feeling a passionate arousal of an entirely different nature. It’s obvious. They want to mutate the child, subject her to the Trial of Grasses and Changes, but they don’t know how to do it. Vesemir was the only witcher left from the previous generation, and he was only a fencing instructor. The Laboratorium, hidden in the vaults of Kaer Morhen, with its dusty demi-johns of elixirs, the alembics, ovens and retorts . . . None of the witchers knew how to use them. The mutagenic elixirs had been concocted by some renegade wizard in the distant past and then perfected over the years by the wizard’s successors, who had, over the years, magically controlled the process of Changes to which children were subjected. And at a vital moment the chain had snapped. There was no more magical knowledge or power. The witchers had the herbs and Grasses, they had the Laboratorium. They knew the recipe. But they had no wizard.

Who knows, she thought, perhaps they have tried? Have they given children concoctions prepared without the use of magic?

She shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to those children.

And now they want to mutate the girl but can’t. And that might mean . . . They may ask me to help. And then I’ll see something no living wizard has seen, I’ll learn something no living wizard has learned. Their famous Grasses and herbs, the secret virus cultures, the renowned, mysterious recipes . . .

And I will be the one to give the child a number of elixirs, who will watch the Changes of mutation, who will watch, with my own eyes . . .

Watch the ashen-haired child die.

Oh, no. Triss shuddered again. Never. Not at such a price.

Besides, she thought, I’ve probably got excited too soon again. That’s probably not what this is about. We talked over supper, gossiped about this and that. I tried to guide the conversation to the Child Surprise several times to no avail. They changed the subject at once.

She had watched them. Vesemir had been tense and troubled; Geralt uneasy, Lambert and Eskel falsely merry and talkative, Coën so natural as to be unnatural. The only one who had been sincere and open was Ciri, rosy-cheeked from the cold, dishevelled, happy and devilishly voracious. They had eaten beer potage, thick with croutons and cheese, and Ciri had been surprised they had not served mushrooms as well. They had drunk cider, but the girl had been given water and was clearly both astonished and revolted by it. ‘Where’s the salad?’ she had yelled, and Lambert had rebuked her sharply and ordered her to take her elbows off the table.

Mushrooms and salad. In December?

Of course, thought Triss. They’re feeding her those legendary cave saprophytes – a mountain plant unknown to science – giving her the famous infusions of their mysterious herbs to drink. The girl is developing quickly, is acquiring a witcher’s infernal fitness. Naturally, without the mutation, without the risk, without the hormonal upheaval. But the magician must not know this. It is to be kept a secret from the magician. They aren’t going to tell me anything; they aren’t going to show me anything.

I saw how that girl ran. I saw how she danced on the beam with her sword, agile and swift, full of a dancer’s near-feline grace, moving like an acrobat. I must, she thought, I absolutely must see her body, see how she’s developing under the influence of whatever it is they’re feeding her. And what if I managed to steal samples of these ‘mushrooms’ and ‘salads’ and take them away? Well, well . . .

And trust? I don’t give a fig for your trust, witchers. There’s cancer out there in the world, smallpox, tetanus and leukaemia, there are allergies, there’s cot death. And you’re keeping your ‘mushrooms’, which could perhaps be distilled and turned into life-saving medicines, hidden away from the world. You’re keeping them a secret even from me, and others to whom you declare your friendship, respect and trust. Even I’m forbidden to see not just the Laboratorium, but even the bloody mushrooms!

So why did you bring me here? Me, a magician?

Magic!

Triss giggled. Ha, she thought, witchers, I’ve got you! Ciri scared you just as she did me. She ‘withdrew’ into a daydream, started to prophesy, gave out an aura which, after all, you can sense almost as well as I can. She automatically reached for something psychokinetically, or bent a pewter spoon with her will as she stared at it during lunch. She answered questions you only thought, and maybe even some which you were afraid to ask yourselves. And you felt fear. You realised that your Surprise is more surprising than you had imagined.

You realised that you have the Source in Kaer Morhen.

And that, you can’t manage without a magician.

And you don’t have a single friendly magician, not a single one you could trust. Apart from me and . . .

And Yennefer.

The wind howled, banged the shutter and swelled the tapestry. Triss rolled on to her back and, lost in thought, started to bite her thumb nail.

Geralt had not invited Yennefer. He had invited her. Does that mean . . . ?

Who knows. Maybe. But if it’s as I think then why . . . ?

Why . . . ?

‘Why hasn’t he come to me?’ she shouted quietly into the darkness, angry and aroused.

She was answered by the wind howling amidst the ruins.

The morning was sunny but devilishly cold. Triss woke chilled through and through, without having had enough sleep, but finally assured and decided.

She was the last to go down to the hall. She accepted the tribute of gazes which rewarded her efforts – she had changed her travel clothes for an attractive but simple dress and had skilfully applied magical scents and non-magical but incredibly expensive cosmetics. She ate her porridge chatting with the witchers about unimportant and trivial matters.

‘Water again?’ muttered Ciri suddenly, peering into her tumbler. ‘My teeth go numb when I drink water! I want some juice! That blue one!’

‘Don’t slouch,’ said Lambert, stealing a glance at Triss from the corner of his eye. ‘And don’t wipe your mouth with your sleeve! Finish your food; it’s time for training. The days are getting shorter.’

‘Geralt.’ Triss finished her porridge. ‘Ciri fell on the Trail yesterday. Nothing serious, but it was because of that jester’s outfit she wears. It all fits so badly, and it hinders her movements.’

Vesemir cleared his throat and turned his eyes away. Aha, thought the enchantress, so it’s your work, master of the sword. Predictable enough, Ciri’s short tunic does look as if it has been cut out with a knife and sewn together with an arrow-head.

‘The days are, indeed, getting shorter,’ she continued, not waiting for a comment. ‘But we’re going to make today shorter still. Ciri, have you finished? Come with me, if you please. We shall make some vital adjustments to your uniform.’

‘She’s been running around in this for a year, Merigold,’ said Lambert angrily. ‘And everything was fine until . . .’

‘. . . until a woman arrived who can’t bear to look at clothes in poor taste which don’t fit? You’re right, Lambert. But a woman has arrived, and the old order’s collapsed; a time of great change has arrived. Come on, Ciri.’

The girl hesitated, looked at Geralt. Geralt nodded his agreement and smiled. Pleasantly. Just as he had smiled in the past when, when . . .

Triss turned her eyes away. His smile was not for her.

Ciri’s little room was a faithful replica of the witchers’ quarters. It was, like theirs, devoid of almost all fittings and furniture. There was practically nothing there beside a few planks nailed together to form a bed, a stool and a trunk. Witchers decorated the walls and doors of their quarters with the skins of animals they killed when hunting – stags, lynx, wolves and even wolverines. On the door of Ciri’s little room, however, hung the skin of an enormous rat with a hideous scaly tail. Triss fought back her desire to tear the stinking abomination down and throw it out of the window.

The girl, standing by the bed, stared at her expectantly.

‘We’ll try,’ said the enchantress, ‘to make this . . . sheath fit a little better. I’ve always had a knack for cutting and sewing so I ought to be able to manage this goatskin, too. And you, little witcher-girl, have you ever had a needle in your hand? Have you been taught anything other than making holes with a sword in sacks of straw?’

‘When I was in Transriver, in Kagen, I had to spin,’ muttered Ciri unwillingly. ‘They didn’t give me any sewing because I only spoilt the linen and wasted thread; they had to undo everything. The spinning was terribly boring – yuk!’

‘True,’ giggled Triss. ‘It’s hard to find anything more boring. I hated spinning, too.’

‘And did you have to? I did because . . . But you’re a wi—magician. You can conjure anything up! That amazing dress . . . did you conjure it up?’

‘No.’ Triss smiled. ‘Nor did I sew it myself. I’m not that talented.’

‘And my clothes, how are you going to make them? Conjure them up?’

‘There’s no need. A magic needle is enough, one which we shall charm into working more vigorously. And if there’s a need . . .’

Triss slowly ran her hand across the torn hole in the sleeve of Ciri’s jacket, murmuring a spell while stimulating an amulet to work. Not a trace remained of the hole. Ciri squealed with joy.

‘That’s magic! I’m going to have a magical jacket! Wow!’

‘Only until I make you an ordinary – but good – one. Right, now take all that off, young lady, and change into something else. These aren’t your only clothes, surely?’

Ciri shook her head, lifted the lid of the trunk and showed her a faded loose dress, a dark grey tunic, a linen shirt and a woollen blouse resembling a penitent’s sack.

‘This is mine,’ she said. ‘This is what I came in. But I don’t wear it now. It’s woman’s stuff.’

‘I understand.’ Triss grimaced mockingly. ‘Woman’s or not, for the time being you’ll have to change into it. Well, get on with it, get undressed. Let me help you . . . Damn it! What’s this? Ciri?’

The girl’s shoulders were covered in massive bruises, suffused with blood. Most of them had already turned yellow; some were fresh.

‘What the hell is this?’ the magician repeated angrily. ‘Who beat you like this?’

‘This?’ Ciri looked at her shoulders as if surprised by the number of bruises. ‘Oh, this . . . That was the windmill. I was too slow.’

‘What windmill? Bloody hell!’

‘The windmill,’ repeated Ciri, raising her huge eyes to look up at the magician. ‘It’s a sort of . . . Well . . . I’m using it to learn to dodge while attacking. It’s got these paws made of sticks and it turns and waves the paws. You have to jump very quickly and dodge. You have to learn a lefrex. If you haven’t got the lefrex the windmill wallops you with a stick. At the beginning, the windmill gave me a really terribly horrible thrashing. But now—’

‘Take the leggings and shirt off. Oh, sweet gods! Dear girl! Can you really walk? Run?’

Both hips and her left thigh were black and blue with haematomas and swellings. Ciri shuddered and hissed, pulling away from the magician’s hand. Triss swore viciously in Dwarvish, using inexpressibly foul language.

‘Was that the windmill, too?’ she asked, trying to remain calm.

‘This? No. This, this was the windmill.’ Ciri pointed indifferently to an impressive bruise below her left knee, covering her shin. ‘And these other ones . . . They were the pendulum. I practise my fencing steps on the pendulum. Geralt says I’m already good at the pendulum. He says I’ve got . . . Flair. I’ve got flair.’

‘And if you run out of flair’ – Triss ground her teeth together – ‘I take it the pendulum thumps you?’

‘But of course,’ the girl confirmed, looking at her, clearly surprised at this lack of knowledge. ‘It thumps you, and how.’

‘And here? On your side? What was that? A smith’s hammer?’

Ciri hissed with pain and blushed.

‘I fell off the comb . . .’

‘. . . and the comb thumped you,’ finished Triss, controlling herself with increasing difficulty. Ciri snorted.

‘How can a comb thump you when it’s buried in the ground? It can’t! I just fell. I was practising a jumping pirouette and it didn’t work. That’s where the bruise came from. Because I hit a post.’

‘And you lay there for two days? ? In pain? Finding it hard to breathe’

‘Not at all. Coën rubbed it and put me straight back on the comb. You have to, you know? Otherwise you catch fear.’

‘What?’

‘You catch fear,’ Ciri repeated proudly, brushing her ashen fringe from her forehead. ‘Didn’t you know? Even when something bad happens to you, you have to go straight back to that piece of equipment or you get frightened. And if you’re frightened you’ll be hopeless at the exercise. You mustn’t give up. Geralt said so.’

‘I have to remember that maxim,’ the enchantress murmured through her teeth. ‘And that it came from Geralt. Not a bad prescription for life although I’m not sure it applies in every situation. But it is easy to put into practise at someone else’s expense. So you mustn’t give up? Even though you are being thumped and beaten in a thousand ways, you’re to get up and carry on practising?’

‘Of course. A witcher’s not afraid of anything.’

‘Is that so? And you, Ciri? You aren’t afraid of anything? Answer truthfully.’

The girl turned away and bit her lip.

‘You won’t tell anybody?’

‘I won’t.’

‘I’m frightened of two pendulums. Two at the same time. And the windmill, but only when it’s set to go fast. And there’s also a long balance, I still have to go on that . . . with a safety de—A safety device. Lambert says I’m a sissy and a wimp but that’s not true. Geralt told me my weight is distributed a little differently because I’m a girl. I’ve simply got to practise more unless . . . I wanted to ask you something. May I?’

‘You may.’

‘If you know magic and spells . . . If you can cast them . . . Can you turn me into a boy?’

‘No,’ Triss replied in an icy tone. ‘I can’t.’

‘Hmm . . .’ The little witcher-girl was clearly troubled. ‘But could you at least . . .’

‘At least what?’

‘Could you do something so I don’t have to . . .’ Ciri blushed. ‘I’ll whisper it in your ear.’

‘Go on.’ Triss leaned over. ‘I’m listening.’

Ciri, growing even redder, brought her head closer to the enchantress’s chestnut hair.

Triss sat up abruptly, her eyes flaming.

‘Today? Now?’

‘Mhm.’

‘Hell and bloody damnation!’ the enchantress yelled, and kicked the stool so hard that it hit the door and brought down the rat skin. ‘Pox, plague, shit and leprosy! I’m going to kill those cursed idiots!’

‘Calm down, Merigold,’ said Lambert. ‘It’s unhealthy to get so worked up, especially with no reason.’

‘Don’t preach at me! And stop calling me “Merigold”! But best of all, stop talking altogether. I’m not speaking to you. Vesemir, Geralt, have any of you seen how terribly battered this child is? She hasn’t got a single healthy spot on her body!’

‘Dear child,’ said Vesemir gravely, ‘don’t let yourself get carried away by your emotions. You were brought up differently, you’ve seen children being brought up in another way. Ciri comes from the south where girls and boys are brought up in the same way, like the elves. She was put on a pony when she was five and when she was eight she was already riding out hunting. She was taught to use a bow, javelin and sword. A bruise is nothing new to Ciri—’

‘Don’t give me that nonsense,’ Triss flared. ‘Don’t pretend you’re stupid. This is not some pony or horse or sleigh ride. This is Kaer Morhen! On these windmills and pendulums of yours, on this Killer path of yours, dozens of boys have broken their bones and twisted their necks, boys who were hard, seasoned vagabonds like you, found on roads and pulled out of gutters. Sinewy scamps and good-for-nothings, pretty experienced despite their short lives. What chance has Ciri got? Even though she’s been brought up in the south with elven methods, even growing up under the hand of a battle-axe like Lioness Calanthe, that little one was and still is a princess. Delicate skin, slight build, light bones . . . She’s a girl! What do you want to turn her into? A witcher?’

‘That girl,’ said Geralt quietly and calmly, ‘that petite, delicate princess lived through the Massacre of Cintra. Left entirely to her own devices, she stole past Nilfgaard’s cohorts. She successfully fled the marauders who prowled the villages, plundering and murdering anything that still lived. She survived on her own for two weeks in the forests of Transriver, entirely alone. She spent a month roaming with a pack of fugitives, slogging as hard as all the others and starving like all the others. For almost half a year, having been taken in by a peasant family, she worked on the land and with the livestock. Believe me, Triss, life has tried, seasoned and hardened her no less than good-for-nothings like us, who were brought to Kaer Morhen from the highways. Ciri is no weaker than unwanted bastards, like us, who were left with witchers in taverns like kittens in a wicker basket. And her gender ? What difference does that make?’

‘You still ask? You still dare ask that?’ yelled the magician. ‘What difference does it make? Only that the girl, not being like you, has her days! And bears them exceptionally badly! And you want her to tear her lungs out on the Killer and some bloody windmills!’

Despite her outrage, Triss felt an exquisite satisfaction at the sight of the sheepish expressions of the young witchers, and Vesemir’s jaw suddenly dropping open.

‘You didn’t even know.’ She nodded in what was now a calm, concerned and gentle reproach. ‘You’re pathetic guardians. She’s ashamed to tell you because she was taught not to mention such complaints to men. And she’s ashamed of the weakness, the pain and the fact that she is less fit. Has any one of you thought about that? Taken any interest in it? Or tried to guess what might be the matter with her? Maybe her very first bleed happened here, in Kaer Morhen? And she cried to herself at night, unable to find any sympathy, consolation or even understanding from anyone? Has any one of you given it any thought whatsoever?’

‘Stop it, Triss,’ moaned Geralt quietly. ‘That’s enough. You’ve achieved what you wanted. And maybe even more.’

‘The devil take it,’ cursed Coën. ‘We’ve turned out to be right idiots, there’s no two ways about it, eh, Vesemir, and you—’

‘Silence,’ growled the old witcher. ‘Not a word.’

It was Eskel’s behaviour which was most unlikely; he got up, approached the enchantress, bent down low, took her hand and kissed it respectfully. She swiftly withdrew her hand. Not so as to demonstrate her anger and annoyance but to break the pleasant, piercing vibration triggered by the witcher’s touch. Eskel emanated powerfully. More powerfully than Geralt.

‘Triss,’ he said, rubbing the hideous scar on his cheek with embarrassment, ‘help us. We ask you. Help us, Triss.’

The enchantress looked him in the eye and pursed her lips. ‘With what? What am I to help you with, Eskel?’

Eskel rubbed his cheek again, looked at Geralt. The white-haired witcher bowed his head, hiding his eyes behind his hand. Vesemir cleared his throat loudly.

At that moment, the door creaked open and Ciri entered the hall. Vesemir’s hawking changed into something like a wheeze, a loud indrawn breath. Lambert opened his mouth. Triss suppressed a laugh.

Ciri, her hair cut and styled, was walking towards them with tiny steps, carefully holding up a dark-blue dress – shortened and adjusted, and still showing the signs of having been carried in a saddle-bag. Another present from the enchantress gleamed around the girl’s neck – a little black viper made of lacquered leather with a ruby eye and gold clasp.

Ciri stopped in front of Vesemir. Not quite knowing what to do with her hands, she planted her thumbs behind her belt.

‘I cannot train today,’ she recited in the utter silence, slowly and emphatically, ‘for I am . . . I am . . .’

She looked at the enchantress. Triss winked at her, smirking like a rascal well pleased with his mischief, and moved her lips to prompt the memorised lines.

‘Indisposed !’ ended Ciri loudly and proudly, turning her nose up almost to the ceiling.

Vesemir hawked again. But Eskel, dear Eskel, kept his head and once more behaved as was fitting.

‘Of course,’ he said casually, smiling. ‘We understand and clearly we will postpone your exercises until your indisposition has passed. We will also cut the theory short and, if you feel unwell, we will put it aside for the time being, too. If you need any medication or—’

‘I’ll take care of that,’ Triss cut in just as casually.

‘Aha . . .’ Only now did Ciri blush a little – she looked at the old witcher. ‘Uncle Vesemir, I’ve asked Triss . . . that is, Miss Merigold, to . . . that is . . . Well, to stay here with us. For longer. For a long time. But Triss said you have to agree forsooth. Uncle Vesemir! Say yes!’

‘I agree . . .’ Vesemir wheezed out. ‘Of course, I agree . . .’

‘We are very happy.’ Only now did Geralt take his hand from his forehead. ‘We are extremely pleased, Triss.’

The enchantress nodded slightly towards him and innocently fluttered her eyelashes, winding a chestnut lock around her finger. Geralt’s face seemed almost graven from stone.

‘You behaved very properly and politely, Ciri,’ he said, ‘offering Miss Merigold our ongoing hospitality in Kaer Morhen. I am proud of you.’

Ciri reddened and smiled broadly. The enchantress gave her the next pre-arranged sign.

‘And now,’ said the girl, turning her nose up even higher, ‘I will leave you alone because you no doubt wish to talk over various important matters with Triss. Miss Merigold. Uncle Vesemir, gentlemen . . . I bid you goodbye. For the time being.’

She curtseyed gracefully then left the hall, walking up the stairs slowly and with dignity.

‘Bloody hell.’ Lambert broke the silence. ‘To think I didn’t believe that she really is a princess.’

‘Have you understood, you idiots?’ Vesemir cast his eye around. ‘If she puts a dress on in the morning I don’t want to see any exercises . . . Understood?’

Eskel and Coën bestowed a look which was entirely devoid of respect on the old man. Lambert snorted loudly. Geralt stared at the enchantress and the enchantress smiled back.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Triss.’

*

‘Conditions?’ Eskel was clearly worried. ‘But we’ve already promised to ease Ciri’s training, Triss. What other conditions do you want to impose?’

‘Well, maybe “conditions” isn’t a very nice phrase. So let us call it advice. I will give you three pieces of advice, and you are going to abide by each of them. If, of course, you really want me to stay and help you bring up the little one.’

‘We’re listening,’ said Geralt. ‘Go on, Triss.’

‘Above all,’ she began, smiling maliciously, ‘Ciri’s menu is to be more varied. And the secret mushrooms and mysterious greens in particular have to be limited.’

Geralt and Coën controlled their expressions wonderfully, Lambert and Eskel a little less so, Vesemir not at all. But then, she thought, looking at his comically embarrassed expression, in his days the world was a better place. Duplicity was a character flaw to be ashamed of. Sincerity did not bring shame.

‘Fewer infusions of your mystery-shrouded herbs,’ she continued, trying not to giggle, ‘and more milk. You have goats here. Milking is no great art. You’ll see, Lambert, you’ll learn how to do it in no time.’

‘Triss,’ started Geralt, ‘listen—’

‘No, you listen. You haven’t subjected Ciri to violent mutations, haven’t touched her hormones, haven’t tried any elixirs or Grasses on her. And that’s to be praised. That was sensible, responsible and humane. You haven’t harmed her with any of your poisons – all the more so you must not cripple her now.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The mushrooms whose secrets you guard so carefully,’ she explained, ‘do, indeed, keep the girl wonderfully fit and strengthen her muscles. The herbs guarantee an ideal metabolic rate and hasten her development. All this taken together and helped along by gruelling training causes certain changes in her build, in her adipose tissue. She’s a woman, and as you haven’t crippled her hormonal system, do not cripple her physically now. She might hold it against you later if you so ruthlessly deprive her of her womanly . . . attributes. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘And how,’ muttered Lambert, brazenly eyeing Triss’s breasts which strained against the fabric of her dress. Eskel cleared his throat and looked daggers at the young witcher.

‘At the moment,’ Geralt asked slowly, also gliding his eyes over this and that, ‘you haven’t noticed anything irreversible in her, I hope?’

‘No.’ She smiled. ‘Fortunately, not. She is developing healthily and normally and is built like a young dryad – it’s a pleasure to look at her. But I ask you to be moderate in using your accelerants.’

‘We will,’ promised Vesemir. ‘Thank you for the warning, child. What else? You said three . . . pieces of advice.’

‘Indeed. This is the second: Ciri must not be allowed to grow wild. She has to have contact with the world. With her peers. She has to be decently educated and prepared for a normal life. Let her wave her sword about for the time being. You won’t turn her into a witcher without mutation anyway, but having a witcher’s training won’t harm her. Times are hard and dangerous; she’ll be able to defend herself when necessary. Like an elf. But you must not bury her alive here, in the middle of nowhere. She has to enter normal life.’

‘Her normal life went up in flames along with Cintra,’ murmured Geralt, ‘but regarding this, Triss, as usual you’re right. We’ve already thought about it. In spring I’m going to take her to the Temple school. To Nenneke. To Ellander.’

‘That’s a very good idea and a wise decision. Nenneke is an exceptional woman and Goddess Melitele’s sanctuary an exceptional place. Safe, sure, and it guarantees an appropriate education for the girl. Does Ciri know yet?’

‘She does. She kicked up a fuss for a few days but finally accepted the idea. Now she is even looking forward to spring with impatience, excited by the prospect of an expedition to Temeria. She’s interested in the world.’

‘So was I at her age.’ Triss smiled. ‘And that comparison brings us dangerously close to the third piece of advice. The most important piece. And you already know what it is. Don’t pull silly faces. I’m a magician, have you forgotten? I don’t know how long it took you to recognise Ciri’s magical abilities. It took me less than half an hour. After that I knew who, or rather what, the girl is.’

‘And what is she?’

‘A Source.’

‘That’s impossible!’

‘It’s possible. Certain even. Ciri is a Source and has mediumistic powers. What is more, these powers are very, very worrying. And you, my dear witchers, are perfectly well aware of this. You’ve noticed these powers and they have worried you too. That is the one and only reason you brought me here to Kaer Morhen? Am I right? The one and only reason?’

‘Yes,’ Vesemir confirmed after a moment’s silence.

Triss breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief. For a moment, she was afraid that Geralt would be the one to confirm it.

The first snow fell the following day, fine snowflakes initially, but soon turning into a blizzard. It fell throughout the night and, in the early morning, the walls of Kaer Morhen were drowned beneath a snowdrift. There could be no question of running the Killer, especially since Ciri was still not feeling very well. Triss suspected that the witchers’ accelerants might be the cause of the girl’s menstrual problems. She could not be sure, however, knowing practically nothing about the drugs, and Ciri was, beyond doubt, the only girl in the world to whom they had been administered. She did not share her suspicions with the witchers. She did not want to worry or annoy them and preferred to apply her own methods. She gave Ciri elixirs to drink, tied a string of active jaspers around her waist, under her dress, and forbade her to exert herself in any way, especially by chasing around wildly hunting rats with a sword.

Ciri was bored. She roamed the castle sleepily and finally, for lack of any other amusement, joined Coën who was cleaning the stable, grooming the horses and repairing a harness.

Geralt – to the enchantress’s rage – disappeared somewhere and appeared only towards evening, bearing a dead goat. Triss helped him skin his prey. Although she sincerely detested the smell of meat and blood, she wanted to be near the witcher. Near him. As near as possible. A cold, determined resolution was growing in her. She did not want to sleep alone any longer.

‘Triss!’ yelled Ciri suddenly, running down the stairs, stamping. ‘Can I sleep with you tonight? Triss, please, please say yes! Please, Triss!’

The snow fell and fell. It brightened up only with the arrival of Midinváerne, the Day of the Winter Equinox.

On the third day all the children died save one, a male barely ten. Hitherto agitated by a sudden madness, he fell all at once into deep stupor. His eyes took on a glassy gaze; incessantly with his hands did he clutch at clothing, or brandish them in the air as if desirous of catching a quill. His breathing grew loud and hoarse; sweat cold, clammy and malodorous appeared on his skin. Then was he once more given elixir through the vein and the seizure it did return. This time a nose-bleed did ensue, coughing turned to vomiting, after which the male weakened entirely and became inert.

For two days more did symptoms not subside. The child’s skin, hitherto drenched in sweat, grew dry and hot, the pulse ceased to be full and firm – albeit remaining of average strength, slow rather than fast. No more did he wake, nor did he scream.

Finally, came the seventh day. The male awoke and opened his eyes, and his eyes were as those of a viper . . .

Carla Demetia Crest, The Trial of Grasses and other secret Witcher practices, seen with my own eyes, manuscript exclusively accessible to the Chapter of Wizards

CHAPTER THREE

‘Your fears were unfounded, entirely ungrounded.’ Triss grimaced, resting her elbows on the table. ‘The time when wizards used to hunt Sources and magically gifted children, tearing them from their parents or guardians by force or deceit, is long gone. Did you really think I might want to take Ciri away from you?’

Lambert snorted and turned his face away. Eskel and Vesemir looked at Geralt, and Geralt said nothing. He continued to gaze off to the side, playing incessantly with his silver witcher medallion, depicting the head of a snarling wolf. Triss knew the medallion reacted to magic. On such a night as Midinváerne, when the air itself was vibrating with magic, the witchers’ medallions must be practically humming. It must be both irritating and bothersome.

‘No, child,’ Vesemir finally said. ‘We know you would not do such a thing. But we also know that you do, ultimately, have to tell the Chapter about her. We’ve known for a long time that every wizard, male or female, is burdened with this duty. You don’t take talented children from their parents and guardians any more. You observe such children so that later – at the right moment – you can fascinate them in magic, influence them—’

‘Have no fear,’ she interrupted coldly. ‘I will not tell anyone about Ciri. Not even the Chapter. Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘We’re amazed by the ease with which you pledge to keep this secret,’ said Eskel calmly. ‘Forgive me, Triss, I do not mean to offend you, but what has happened to your legendary loyalty to the Council and Chapter?’

‘A lot has happened. The war changed many things, and the battle for Sodden Hill changed even more. I won’t bore you with the politics, especially as certain issues and affairs are bound by secrets I am not allowed to divulge. But as for loyalty . . . I am loyal. And believe me, in this matter I can be loyal to both you and to the Chapter.’

‘Such double loyalty’ – Geralt looked her in the eyes for the first time that evening – ‘is devilishly difficult to manage. Rarely does it succeed, Triss.’

The enchantress turned her gaze on Ciri. The girl was sitting on a bearskin with Coën, tucked away in the far corner of the hall, and both were busy playing a hand-slapping game. The game was growing monotonous as both were incredibly quick – neither could manage to slap the other’s hand in any way. This, however, clearly neither mattered to them nor spoiled their game.

‘Geralt,’ she said, ‘when you found Ciri, on the Yaruga, you took her with you. You brought her to Kaer Morhen, hid her from the world and do not let even those closest to the child know she is alive. You did this because something – about which I know nothing – convinced you that destiny exists, holds sway over us, and guides us in everything we do. I think the same, and have always done so. If destiny wants Ciri to become a magician, she will become one. Neither the Chapter nor the Council have to know about her, they don’t have to observe or encourage her. So in keeping your secret I won’t betray the Chapter in any way. But as you know, there is something of a hitch here.’

‘Were it only one,’ sighed Vesemir. ‘Go on, child.’

‘The girl has magical abilities, and that can’t be neglected. It’s too dangerous.’

‘In what way?’

‘Uncontrolled powers are an ominous thing. For both the Source and those in their vicinity. The Source can threaten those around them in many ways. But they threaten themselves in only one. Mental illness. Usually catatonia.’

‘Devil take it,’ said Lambert after a long silence. ‘I am listening to you half-convinced that someone here has already lost their marbles and will, any moment now, present a threat to the rest of us. Destiny, sources, spells, hocus-pocus . . . Aren’t you exaggerating, Merigold? Is this the first child to be brought to the Keep? Geralt didn’t find destiny; he found another homeless, orphaned child. We’ll teach the girl the sword and let her out into the world like the others. True, I admit we’ve never trained a girl in Kaer Morhen before. We’ve had some problems with Ciri, made mistakes, and it’s a good thing you’ve pointed them out to us. But don’t let us exaggerate. She is not so remarkable as to make us fall on our knees and raise our eyes to the heavens. Is there a lack of female warriors roaming the world? I assure you, Merigold, Ciri will leave here skilful and healthy, strong and able to face life. And, I warrant, without catatonia or any other epilepsy. Unless you delude her into believing she has some such disease.’

‘Vesemir,’ Triss turned in her chair, ‘tell him to keep quiet, he’s getting in the way.’

‘You think you know it all,’ said Lambert calmly, ‘but you don’t. Not yet. Look.’

He stretched his hand towards the hearth, arranging his fingers together in a strange way. The chimney roared and howled, the flames burst out violently, the glowing embers grew brighter and rained sparks. Geralt, Vesemir and Eskel glanced at Ciri anxiously but the girl paid no attention to the spectacular fireworks.

Triss folded her arms and looked at Lambert defiantly.

‘The Sign of Aard,’ she stated calmly. ‘Did you think to impress me? With the use of the same sign, strengthened through concentration, willpower and a spell, I can blow the logs from the chimney in a moment and blast them so high you will think they are stars.’

‘You can,’ he agreed. ‘But Ciri can’t. She can’t form the Sign of Aard. Or any other sign. She has tried hundreds of times, to no effect. And you know our Signs require minimal power. Ciri does not even have that. She is an absolutely normal child. She has not the least magical power – she has, in fact, a comprehensive lack of ability. And here you are telling us she’s a Source, trying to threaten us—’

‘A Source,’ she explained coldly, ‘has no control over their skills, no command over them. They are a medium, something like a transmitter. Unknowingly they get in touch with energy, unknowingly they convert it. And when they try to control it, when they strain trying to form the Signs perhaps, nothing comes of it. And nothing will come of it, not just after hundreds of attempts but after thousands. It is one characteristic of a Source. Then, one day, a moment comes when the Source does not exert itself, does not strain, is daydreaming or thinking about cabbage and sausages, playing dice, enjoying themselves in bed with a partner, picking their nose . . . and suddenly something happens. A house might goes up in flames. Or sometimes, half a town goes up.’

‘You’re exaggerating, Merigold.’

‘Lambert.’ Geralt released his medallion and rested his hands on the table. ‘First, stop calling Triss “Merigold”. She has asked you a number of times not to. Second, Triss is not exaggerating. I saw Ciri’s mother, Princess Pavetta, in action with my own eyes. I tell you, it was really something. I don’t know if she was a Source or not, but no one suspected she had any power at all until, save by a hair’s breadth, she almost reduced the royal castle of Cintra to ashes.’

‘We should assume, therefore,’ said Eskel, lighting the candles in yet another candle-stick, ‘that Ciri could, indeed, be genetically burdened.’

‘Not only could,’ said Vesemir, ‘she is so burdened. On the one hand Lambert is right. Ciri is not capable of forming Signs. On the other . . . We have all seen . . .’

He fell silent and looked at Ciri who, with a joyful squeal, acknowledged that she had the upper hand in the game. Triss spied a small smile on Coën’s face and was sure he had allowed her to win.

‘Precisely,’ she sneered. ‘You have all seen. What have you seen? Under what circumstances did you see it? Don’t you think, boys, that the time has come for more truthful confessions? Hell, I repeat, I will keep your secret. You have my word.’

Lambert glanced at Geralt; Geralt nodded in assent. The younger witcher stood and took a large rectangular crystal carafe and a smaller phial from a high shelf. He poured the contents of the phial into the carafe, shook it several times and poured the transparent liquid into the chalices on the table.

‘Have a drink with us, Triss.’

‘Is the truth so terrible,’ she mocked, ‘that we can’t talk about it soberly? Do I have to get drunk in order to hear it?’

‘Don’t be such a know-all. Take a sip. You will find it easier to understand.’

‘What is it?’

‘White Seagull.’

‘What?’

‘A mild remedy,’ Eskel smiled, ‘for pleasant dreams.’

‘Damn it! A witcher hallucinogenic? That’s why your eyes shine like that in the evenings!’

‘White Seagull is very gentle. It’s Black Seagull that is hallucinogenic.’

‘If there’s magic in this liquid I’m not allowed to take it!’

‘Exclusively natural ingredients,’ Geralt reassured her but he looked, she noticed, disconcerted. He was clearly afraid she would question them about the elixir’s ingredients. ‘And diluted with a great deal of water. We would not offer you anything that could harm you.’

The sparkling liquid, with its strange taste, struck her throat with its chill and then dispersed warmth throughout her body. The magician ran her tongue over her gums and palate. She was unable to recognise any of the ingredients.

‘You gave Ciri some of this . . . Seagull to drink,’ she surmised. ‘And then—’

‘It was an accident,’ Geralt interrupted quickly. ‘That first evening, just after we arrived . . . she was thirsty, and the Seagull stood on the table. Before we had time to react, she had drunk it all in one go. And fallen into a trance.’

‘We had such a fright,’ Vesemir admitted, and sighed. ‘Oh, that we did, child. More than we could take.’

‘She started speaking with another voice,’ the magician stated calmly, looking at the witchers’ eyes gleaming in the candlelight. ‘She started talking about events and matters of which she could have no knowledge. She started . . . to prophesy. Right? What did she say?’

‘Rubbish,’ said Lambert dryly. ‘Senseless drivel.’

‘Then I have no doubt’ – she looked straight at him – ‘that you understood each other perfectly well. Drivel is your speciality – and I am further convinced of it every time you open your mouth. Do me a great favour and don’t open it for a while, all right?’

‘This once,’ said Eskel gravely, rubbing the scar across his cheek, ‘Lambert is right, Triss. After drinking Seagull Ciri really was incomprehensible. That first time it was gibberish. Only after—’

He broke off. Triss shook her head.

‘It was only the second time that she started talking sense,’ she guessed. ‘So there was a second time, too. Also after she drank a drug because of your carelessness?’

‘Triss.’ Geralt raised his head. ‘This is not the time for your childish spitefulness. It doesn’t amuse us. It worries and upsets us. Yes, there was a second time, too, and a third. Ciri fell, quite by accident, during an exercise. She lost consciousness. When she regained it, she had fallen into another trance. And once again she spoke nonsense. Again it was not her voice. And again it was incomprehensible. But I have heard similar voices before, heard a similar way of speaking. It’s how those poor, sick, demented women known as oracles speak. You see what I’m thinking?’

‘Clearly. That was the second time, get to the third.’

Geralt wiped his brow, suddenly beaded with sweat, on his forearm. ‘Ciri often wakes up at night,’ he continued. ‘Shouting. She has been through a lot. She does not want to talk about it but it is clear that she saw things no child should see in Cintra and Angren. I even fear that . . . that someone harmed her. It comes back to her in dreams. Usually she is easy to reassure and she falls asleep without any problem . . . But once, after waking . . . she was in a trance again. She again spoke with someone else’s, unpleasant, menacing voice. She spoke clearly and made sense. She prophesied. Foresaw the future. And what she foretold . . .’

‘What? What, Geralt?’

‘Death,’ Vesemir said gently. ‘Death, child.’

Triss glanced at Ciri, who was shrilly accusing Coën of cheating. Coën put his arms around her and burst out laughing. The magician suddenly realised that she had never, up until now, heard any of the witchers laugh.

‘For whom?’ she asked briefly, still gazing at Coën.

‘Him,’ said Vesemir.

‘And me,’ Geralt added. And smiled.

‘When she woke up—’

‘She remembered nothing. And we didn’t ask her any questions.’

‘Quite so. As to the prophecy . . . Was it specific? Detailed?’

‘No.’ Geralt looked her straight in the eyes. ‘Confused. Don’t ask about it, Triss. We are not worried by the contents of Ciri’s prophecies and ravings but about what happens to her. We’re not afraid for ourselves but—’

‘Careful,’ warned Vesemir. ‘Don’t talk about it in front of her.’

Coën approached the table carrying the girl piggy-back.

‘Wish everybody goodnight, Ciri,’ he said. ‘Say goodnight to those night owls. We’re going to sleep. It’s nearly midnight. In a minute it’ll be the end of Midinváerne. As of tomorrow, every day brings spring closer!’

‘I’m thirsty.’ Ciri slipped off his back and reached for Eskel’s chalice. Eskel deftly moved the vessel beyond her reach and grabbed a jug of water. Triss stood quickly.

‘Here you are.’ She gave her half-full chalice to the girl while meaningfully squeezing Geralt’s arm and looking Vesemir in the eye. ‘Drink.’

‘Triss,’ whispered Eskel, watching Ciri drink greedily, ‘what are you doing? It’s—’

‘Not a word, please.’

They did not have to wait long for it to take effect. Ciri suddenly grew rigid, cried out, and smiled a broad, happy smile. She squeezed her eyelids shut and stretched out her arms. She laughed, spun a pirouette and danced on tiptoes. Lambert moved the stool away in a flash, leaving Coën standing between the dancing girl and the hearth.

Triss jumped up and tore an amulet from her pouch – a sapphire set in silver on a thin chain. She squeezed it tightly in her hand.

‘Child . . .’ groaned Vesemir. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said sharply. ‘Ciri has fallen into a trance and I am going to contact her psychically. I am going to enter her. I told you, she is something like a magical transmitter – I’ve got to know what she is transmitting, how, and from where she is drawing the aura, how she is transforming it. It’s Midinváerne, a favourable night for such an undertaking . . .’

‘I don’t like it.’ Geralt frowned. ‘I don’t like it at all.’

‘Should either of us suffer an epileptic fit,’ the magician said ignoring his words, ‘you know what to do. A stick between our teeth, hold us down, wait for it to pass. Chin up, boys. I’ve done this before.’

Ciri ceased dancing, sank to her knees, extended her arms and rested her head on her lap. Triss pressed the now warm amulet to her temple and murmured the formula of a spell. She closed her eyes, concentrated her willpower and gave out a burst of magic.

The sea roared, waves thundered against the rocky shore and exploded in high geysers amidst the boulders. She flapped her wings, chasing the salty wind. Indescribably happy, she dived, caught up with a flock of her companions, brushed the crests of the waves with her claws, soared into the sky again, shedding water droplets, and glided, tossed by the gale whistling through her pinfeathers. Force of suggestion, she thought soberly. It is only force of suggestion. Seagull!

Triiiss! Triiss!

Ciri? Where are you?

Triiiss!

The cry of the seagulls ceased. The magician still felt the wet splash of the breakers but the sea was no longer below her. Or it was – but it was a sea of grass, an endless plateau stretching as far as the horizon. Triss, with horror, realised she was looking at the view from the top of Sodden Hill. But it was not the Hill. It could not be the Hill.

The sky suddenly grew dark, shadows swirled around her. She saw a long column of indistinct figures slowly climbing down the mountainside. She heard murmurs superimposed over each other, mingling into an uncanny, incomprehensible chorus.

Ciri was standing nearby with her back turned to her. The wind was blowing her ashen hair about.

The indistinct, hazy figures continued past in a long, unending column. Passing her, they turned their heads. Triss suppressed a cry, watching the listless, peaceful faces and their dead, unseeing eyes. She did not know all of the faces, did not recognise them. But some of them she did know.

Coral. Vanielle. Yoël. Pox-marked Axel . . .

‘Why have you brought me here?’ she whispered. ‘Why?’

Ciri turned. She raised her arm and the magician saw a trickle of blood run down her life-line, across her palm and onto her wrist.

‘It is the rose,’ the girl said calmly. ‘The rose of Shaerrawedd. I pricked myself. It is nothing. It is only blood. The blood of elves . . .’

The sky grew even darker, then, a moment later, flared with the sharp, blinding glare of lightning. Everything froze in the silence and stillness. Triss took a step, wanting to make sure she could. She stopped next to Ciri and saw that both of them stood on the edge of a bottomless chasm where reddish smoke, glowing as though it was lit from behind, was swirling. The flash of another soundless bolt of lightning suddenly revealed a long, marble staircase leading into the depths of the abyss.

‘It has to be this way,’ Ciri said in a shaky voice. ‘There is no other. Only this. Down the stairs. It has to be this way because . . . Va’esse deireádh aep eigean . . .’

‘Speak,’ whispered the magician. ‘Speak, child.’

‘The Child of Elder Blood . . . Feainnewedd . . . Luned aep Hen Ichaer . . . Deithwen . . . The White Flame . . . No, no . . . No!’

‘Ciri !’

‘The black knight . . . with feathers in his helmet . . . What did he do to me? What happened ? I was frightened . . . I’m still frightened. It’s not ended, it will never end. The lion cub must die . . . Reasons of state . . . No . . . No . . .’

‘Ciri !’

‘No!’ The girl turned rigid and squeezed her eyelids shut. ‘No, no, I don’t want to! Don’t touch me!’

Ciri’s face suddenly changed, hardened; her voice became metallic, cold and hostile, resounding with threatening, cruel mockery.

‘You have come all this way with her, Triss Merigold? All the way here? You have come too far, Fourteenth One. I warned you.’

‘Who are you?’ Triss shuddered but she kept her voice under control.

‘You will know when the time comes.’

‘I will know now!’

The magician raised her arms, extended them abruptly, putting all her strength into a Spell of Identification. The magic curtain burst but behind it was a second . . . A third . . . A fourth . . .

Triss sank to her knees with a groan. But reality continued to burst, more doors opened, a long, endless row leading to nowhere. To emptiness.

‘You are wrong, Fourteenth One,’ the metallic, inhuman voice sneered. ‘You’ve mistaken the stars reflected on the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.’

‘Do not touch—Do not touch that child!’

‘She is not a child.’

Ciri’s lips moved but Triss saw that the girl’s eyes were dead, glazed and vacant.

‘She is not a child,’ the voice repeated. ‘She is the Flame, the White Flame which will set light to the world. She is the Elder Blood, Hen Ichaer. The blood of elves. The seed which will not sprout but burst into flame. The blood which will be defiled . . . When Tedd Deireádh arrives, the Time of End. Va’esse deireádh aep eigean!’

‘Are you foretelling death?’ shouted Triss. ‘Is that all you can do, foretell death? For everyone? Them, her . . . Me?’

‘You? You are already dead, Fourteenth One. Everything in you has already died.’

‘By the power of the spheres,’ moaned the magician, activating what little remained of her strength and drawing her hand through the air, ‘I throw a spell on you by water, fire, earth and air. I conjure you in thought, in dream and in death, by all that was, by what is and by what will be. I cast my spell on you. Who are you? Speak!’

Ciri turned her head away. The vision of the staircase leading down into the depths of the abyss disappeared, dissolved, and in its place appeared a grey, leaden sea, foaming, crests of waves breaking. And the seagull’s cries burst through the silence once more.

‘Fly,’ said the voice, through the girl’s lips. ‘It is time. Go back to where you came from, Fourteenth of the Hill. Fly on the wings of a gull and listen to the cry of other seagulls. Listen carefully!’

‘I conjure you—’

‘You cannot. Fly, seagull!’

And suddenly the wet salty air was there again, roaring with the gale, and there was the flight, a flight with no beginning and no end. Seagulls cried wildly, cried and commanded.

Triss?

Ciri ?

Forget about him! Don’t torture him! Forget! Forget, Triss! Forget!

Triss! Triss! Trisss!

‘Triss!’

She opened her eyes, tossed her head on the pillow and moved her numb hands.

‘Geralt?’

‘I’m here. How are you feeling?’

She cast her eyes around. She was in her chamber, lying on the bed. On the best bed in the whole of Kaer Morhen.

‘What is happening to Ciri?’

‘She is asleep.’

‘How long—’

‘Too long,’ he interrupted. He covered her with the duvet and put his arms around her. As he leaned over the wolf’s head medallion swayed just above her face. ‘What you did was not the best of ideas, Triss.’

‘Everything is all right.’ She trembled in his embrace. That’s not true, she thought. Nothing’s all right. She turned her face so that the medallion didn’t touch her. There were many theories about the properties of witcher amulets and none advised magicians to touch them during the Equinox.

‘Did . . . Did we say anything during the trance?’

‘You, nothing. You were unconscious throughout. Ciri . . . just before she woke up . . . said: “Va’esse deireádh aep eigean”.’

‘She knows the Elder Speech?’

‘Not enough to say a whole sentence.’

‘A sentence which means: “Something is ending”.’ The magician wiped her face with her hand. ‘Geralt, this is a serious matter. The girl is an exceptionally powerful medium. I don’t know what or who she is contacting, but I think there are no limits to her connection. Something wants to take possession of her. Something which is too powerful for me. I am afraid for her. Another trance could end in mental illness. I have no control over it, don’t know how to, can’t . . . If it proved necessary, I would not be able to block or suppress her powers; I would even not be capable, if there were no other option, of permanently extinguishing them. You have to get help from another magician. A more gifted one. More experienced. You know who I’m talking about.’

‘I do.’ He turned his head away, clenched his lips.

‘Don’t resist. Don’t defend yourself. I can guess why you turned to me rather than her. Overcome your pride, crush your rancour and obstinacy. There is no point to it, you’ll torture yourself to death. And you are risking Ciri’s health and life in the process. Another trance is liable to be more dangerous to her than the Trial of Grasses. Ask Yennefer for help, Geralt.’

‘And you, Triss?’

‘What about me?’ She swallowed with difficulty. ‘I’m not important. I let you down. I let you down . . . in everything. I was . . . I was your mistake. Nothing more.’

‘Mistakes,’ he said with effort, ‘are also important to me. I don’t cross them out of my life, or memory. And I never blame others for them. You are important to me, Triss, and always will be. You never let me down. Never. Believe me.’

She remained silent a long while.

‘I will stay until spring,’ she said finally, struggling against her shaking voice. ‘I will stay with Ciri . . . I will watch over her. Day and night. I will be with her day and night. And when spring is here . . . when spring is here we will take her to Melitele’s Temple in Ellander. The thing that wants to possess her might not be able to reach her in the temple. And then you will ask Yennefer for help.’

‘All right, Triss. Thank you.’

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ciri said something else, didn’t she? Something only you heard. Tell me what it was.’

‘No,’ he protested and his voice quivered. ‘No, Triss.’

‘Please.’

‘She wasn’t speaking to me.’

‘I know. She was speaking to me. Tell me, please.’

‘After coming to . . . When I picked her up . . . She whispered: “Forget about him. Don’t torture him.”’

‘I won’t,’ she said quietly. ‘But I can’t forget. Forgive me.’

‘I am the one who ought to be asking for forgiveness. And not only asking you.’

‘You love her that much,’ she stated, not asking.

‘That much,’ he admitted in a whisper after a long moment of silence.

‘Geralt.’

‘Yes, Triss?’

‘Stay with me tonight.’

‘Triss . . .’

‘Only stay.’

‘All right.’

Not long after Midinváerne the snow stopped falling. The frost came.

Triss stayed with Ciri day and night. She watched over her. She surrounded her with care, visible and invisible.

The girl woke up shouting almost every night. She was delirious, holding her cheek and crying with pain. The magician calmed her with spells and elixirs, put her to sleep, cuddling and rocking her in her arms. And then she herself would be unable to sleep for a long time, thinking about what Ciri had said in her sleep and after she came to. And she felt a mounting fear. Va’esse deireádh aep eigean . . . Something is ending . . .

That is how it was for ten days and nights. And finally it passed. It ended, disappeared without a trace. Ciri calmed, she slept peacefully with no nightmares, and no dreams.

But Triss kept a constant watch. She did not leave the girl for a moment. She surrounded her with care. Visible and invisible.

‘Faster, Ciri! Lunge, attack, dodge! Half-pirouette, thrust, dodge! Balance! Balance with your left arm or you’ll fall from the comb! And you’ll hurt your . . . womanly attributes!’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Aren’t you tired? We’ll take a break, if you like.’

‘No, Lambert! I can go on. I’m not that weak, you know. Shall I try jumping over every other post?’

‘Don’t you dare! You might fall and then Merigold will tear my—my head off.’

‘I won’t fall!’

‘I’ve told you once and I’m not going to say it again. Don’t show off! Steady on your legs! And breathe, Ciri, breathe! You’re panting like a dying mammoth!’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Don’t squeal. Practise! Attack, dodge! Parry! Half-piroutte! Parry, full pirouette! Steadier on the posts, damn it! Don’t wobble! Lunge, thrust! Faster! Half-pirouette! Jump and cut! That’s it! Very good!’

‘Really? Was that really very good, Lambert?’

‘Who said so?’

‘You did! A moment ago!’

‘Slip of the tongue. Attack! Half-pirouette! Dodge! And again! Ciri, where was the parry? How many times do I have to tell you? After you dodge you always parry, deliver a blow with the blade to protect your head and shoulders! Always!’

‘Even when I’m only fighting one opponent?’

‘You never know what you’re fighting. You never know what’s happening behind you. You always have to cover yourself. Foot and sword work! It’s got to be a reflex. Reflex, understand? You mustn’t forget that. You forget it in a real fight and you’re finished. Again! At last! That’s it! See how such a parry lands? You can take any strike from it. You can cut backwards from it, if you have to. Right, show me a pirouette and a thrust backwards.’

‘Haaa!’

‘Very good. You see the point now? Has it got through to you?’

‘I’m not stupid!’

‘You’re a girl. Girls don’t have brains.’

‘Lambert! If Triss heard that!’

‘If ifs and ands were pots and pans. All right, that’s enough. Come down. We’ll take a break.’

‘I’m not tired!’

‘But I am. I said, a break. Come down from the comb.’

‘Turning a somersault?’

‘What do you think? Like a hen off its roost? Go on, jump. Don’t be afraid, I’m here for you.’

‘Haaaa!’

‘Nice. Very good – for a girl. You can take off the blindfold now.’

‘Triss, maybe that’s enough for today? What do you think? Maybe we could take the sleigh and ride down the hill? The sun’s shining, the snow’s sparkling so much it hurts the eyes! The weather’s beautiful !’

‘Don’t lean out or you’ll fall from the window.’

‘Let’s go sleighing, Triss!’

‘Suggest that again in Elder Speech and we’ll end the lesson there. Move away from the window, come back to the table . . . Ciri, how many times do I have to ask you? Stop waving that sword about and put it away.’

‘It’s my new sword! It’s real, a witcher’s sword! Made of steel which fell from heaven! Really! Geralt said so and he never lies, you know that!’

‘Oh, yes. I know that.’

‘I’ve got to get used to this sword. Uncle Vesemir had it adjusted just right for my weight, height and arm-length. I’ve got to get my hand and wrist accustomed to it!’

‘Accustom yourself to your heart’s content, but outside. Not here! Well, I’m listening. You wanted to suggest we get the sleigh out. In Elder Speech. So – suggest it.’

‘Hmmm . . . What’s “sleigh”?’

‘Sledd as a noun. Aesledde as a verb.’

‘Aha . . . Vaien aesledde, ell’ea?’

‘Don’t end a question that way, it’s impolite. You form questions using intonation.’

‘But the children from the Islands—’

‘You’re not learning the local Skellige jargon but classical Elder Speech.’

‘And why am I learning the Speech, tell me?’

‘So that you know it. It’s fitting to learn things you don’t know. Anyone who doesn’t know other languages is handicapped.’

‘But people only speak the common tongue anyway!’

‘True. But some speak more than just it. I warrant, Ciri, that it is better to count yourself amongst those few than amongst everyone. So, I’m listening. A full sentence: “The weather today is beautiful, so let’s get the sleigh.”’

‘Elaine . . . Hmmm . . . Elaine tedd a’taeghane, a va’en aesledde?’

‘Very good.’

‘Ha! So let’s get the sleigh.’

‘We will. But let me finish applying my make-up.’

‘And who are you putting make-up on for, exactly?’

‘Myself. A woman accentuates her beauty for her own self-esteem. ’

‘Hmmm . . . Do you know what? I feel pretty poorly too. Don’t laugh, Triss!’

‘Come here. Sit on my knee. Put the sword away, I’ve already asked you! Thank you. Now take that large brush and powder your face. Not so much, girl, not so much! Look in the mirror. See how pretty you are?’

‘I can’t see any difference. I’ll do my eyes, all right? What are you laughing at? You always paint your eyes. I want to too.’

‘Fine. Here you are, put some shadow on your eyelids with this. Ciri, don’t close both your eyes or you won’t see anything – you’re smudging your whole face. Take a tiny bit and only skim over the eyelids. Skim, I said! Let me, I’ll just spread it a little. Close your eyes. Now open them.’

‘Oooo!’

‘See the difference? A tiny bit of shadow won’t do any harm, even to such beautiful eyes as yours. The elves knew what they were doing when they invented eye shadow.’

‘Elves?’

‘You didn’t know? Make-up is an elvish invention. We’ve learned a lot of useful things from the Elder People. And we’ve given bloody little back in return. Now take the pencil and draw a thin line across your upper lids, just above the lashes. Ciri, what are you doing?’

‘Don’t laugh! My eyelid’s trembling! That’s why!’

‘Part your lips a little and it’ll stop trembling. See?’

‘Ooooh!’

‘Come on, now we’ll go and stun the witchers with our beauty. It’s hard to find a prettier sight. And then we’ll take the sleigh and smudge our make-up in the deep snowdrifts.’

‘And we’ll make ourselves up again!’

‘No. We’ll tell Lambert to warm the bathroom and we’ll take a bath.’

‘Again? Lambert says we’re using up too much fuel with our baths.’

‘Lambert cáen me a’báeth aep arse.’

‘What? I didn’t understand . . .’

‘With time you’ll master the idioms, too. We’ve still got a lot of time for studying before spring. But now . . . Va’en aesledde, me elaine luned!’

*

‘Here, on this engraving . . . No, damn it, not on that one . . . On this one. This is, as you already know, a ghoul. Tell us, Ciri, what you’ve learned about ghouls . . . Hey, look at me! What the devil have you got on your eyelids?’

‘Greater self-esteem!’

‘What? Never mind, I’m listening.’

‘Hmm . . . The ghoul, Uncle Vesemir, is a corpse-devouring monster. It can be seen in cemeteries, in the vicinity of barrows, anywhere the dead are buried. At nec—necropolia. On battle-grounds, on fields of battle . . .’

‘So it’s only a danger to the dead, is that right?’

‘No, not only. A ghoul may also attack the living if it’s hungry or falls into a fury. If, for example, there’s a battle . . . A lot of people killed . . .’

‘What’s the matter, Ciri?’

‘Nothing . . .’

‘Ciri, listen. Forget about that. That will never return.’

‘I saw . . . In Sodden and in Transriver . . . Entire fields . . . They were lying there, being eaten by wolves and wild dogs. Birds were picking at them . . . I guess there were ghouls there too . . .’

‘That’s why you’re learning about ghouls now, Ciri. When you know about something it stops being a nightmare. When you know how to fight something, it stops being so threatening. So how do you fight a ghoul, Ciri?’

‘With a silver sword. The ghoul is sensitive to silver.’

‘And to what else?’

‘Bright light. And fire.’

‘So you can fight it with light and fire?’

‘You can, but it’s dangerous. A witcher doesn’t use light or fire because it makes it harder to see. Every light creates a shadow and shadows make it harder to get your bearings. One must always fight in darkness, by moon or starlight.’

‘Quite right. You’ve remembered it well, clever girl. And now look here, at this engraving.’

‘Eeeueeeuuueee—’

‘Oh well, true enough, it is not a beautiful cu—creature. It’s a graveir. A graveir is a type of ghoul. It looks very much like a ghoul but is considerably larger. He can also be told apart, as you can see, by these three bony combs on his skull. The rest is the same as any other corpse-eater. Take note of the short, blunt claws, adapted for digging up graves, and churning the earth. Strong teeth for shattering bones and a long, narrow tongue used to lick the decaying marrow from them. Such stinking marrow is a delicacy for the graveir . . . What’s the matter?’

‘Nnnnothing.’

‘You’re completely pale. And green. You don’t eat enough. Did you eat breakfast?’

‘Yeeees. I diiiidddddd.’

‘What was I . . . Aha. I almost forgot. Remember, because this is important. Graveirs, like ghouls and other monsters in this category, do not have their own ecological niche. They are relicts from the age of the interpenetration of spheres. Killing them does not upset the order and interconnections of nature which prevail in our present sphere. In this sphere these monsters are foreign and there is no place for them. Do you understand, Ciri?’

‘I do, Uncle Vesemir. Geralt explained it to me. I know all that. An ecological niche is—’

‘All right, that’s fine. I know what it is. If Geralt has explained it to you, you don’t have to recite it to me. Let us return to the graveir. Graveirs appear quite rarely, fortunately, because they’re bloody dangerous sons-of-bitches. The smallest wound inflicted by a graveir will infect you with corpse venom. Which elixir is used to treat corpse venom poisoning, Ciri?’

‘“Golden Oriole”.’

‘Correct. But it is better to avoid infection to begin with. That is why, when fighting a graveir, you must never get close to the bastard. You always fight from a distance and strike from a leap.’

‘Hmm . . . And where’s it best to strike one?’

‘We’re just getting to that. Look . . .’

‘Once more, Ciri. We’ll go through it slowly so that you can master each move. Now, I’m attacking you with tierce, taking the position as if to thrust . . . Why are you retreating?’

‘Because I know it’s a feint! You can move into a wide sinistra or strike with upper quarte. And I’ll retreat and parry with a counterfeint!’

‘Is that so? And if I do this?’

‘Auuu! It was supposed to be slow! What did I do wrong, Coën?’

‘Nothing. I’m just taller and stronger than you are.’

‘That’s not fair!’

‘There’s no such thing as a fair fight. You have to make use of every advantage and every opportunity that you get. By retreating you gave me the opportunity to put more force into the strike. Instead of retreating you should have executed a half-pirouette to the left and tried to cut at me from below, with quarte dextra, under the chin, in the cheek or throat.’

‘As if you’d let me! You’ll do a reverse pirouette and get my neck from the left before I can parry! How am I meant to know what you’re doing?’

‘You have to know. And you do know.’

‘Oh, sure!’

‘Ciri, what we’re doing is fighting. I’m your opponent. I want to and have to defeat you because my life is at stake. I’m taller and stronger than you so I’m going to watch for opportunities to strike in order to avoid or break your parry – as you’ve just seen. What do I need a pirouette for? I’m already in sinistra, see? What could be simpler than to strike with a seconde, under the arm, on the inside? If I slash your artery, you’ll be dead in a couple of minutes. Defend yourself!’

‘Haaaa!’

‘Very good. A beautiful, quick parry. See how exercising your wrist has come in useful? And now pay attention – a lot of fencers make the mistake of executing a standing parry and freeze for a second, and that’s just when you can catch them out, strike – like so!’

‘Haa!’

‘Beautiful! Now jump away, jump away immediately, pirouette! I could have a dagger in my left hand! Good! Very good! And now, Ciri? What am I going to do now?’

‘How am I to know?’

‘Watch my feet! How is my body weight distributed? What can I do from this position?’

‘Anything!’

‘So spin, spin, force me to open up! Defend yourself! Good! And again! Good! And again!’

‘Owwww!’

‘Not so good.’

‘Uff . . . What did I do wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m just faster. Take your guards off. We’ll sit for a moment, take a break. You must be tired, you’ve been running the Trail all morning.’

‘I’m not tired. I’m hungry.’

‘Bloody hell, so am I. And today’s Lambert’s turn and he can’t cook anything other than noodles . . . If he could only cook those properly . . .’

‘Coën?’

‘Aha?’

‘I’m still not fast enough—’

‘You’re very fast.’

‘Will I ever be as fast as you?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Hmm . . . And are you—? Who’s the best fencer in the world?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You’ve never known one?’

‘I’ve known many who believed themselves to be the best.’

‘Oh! What were they? What were their names? What could they do?’

‘Hold on, hold on, girl. I haven’t got an answer to those questions. Is it all that important?’

‘Of course it’s important! I’d like to know who these fencers are. And where they are.’

‘Where they are? I know that.’

‘Ah! So where?’

‘In cemeteries.’ *

*

‘Pay attention, Ciri. We’re going to attach a third pendulum now – you can manage two already. You use the same steps as for two only there’s one more dodge. Ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘Focus yourself. Relax. Breathe in, breathe out. Attack!’

‘Ouch! Owwww . . . Damn it!’

‘Don’t swear. Did it hit you hard?’

‘No, it only brushed me . . . What did I do wrong?’

‘You ran in at too even a pace, you sped the second half-pirouette up a bit too much, and your feint was too wide. And as a result you were carried straight under the pendulum.’

‘But Geralt, there’s no room for a dodge and turn there! They’re too close to each other!’

‘There’s plenty of room, I assure you. But the gaps are worked out to force you to make arrhythmic moves. This is a fight, Ciri, not ballet. You can’t move rhythmically in a fight. You have to distract the opponent with your moves, confuse his reactions. Ready for another try?’

‘Ready. Start those damn logs swinging.’

‘Don’t swear. Relax. Attack!’

‘Ha! Ha! Well, how about that? How was that, Geralt? It didn’t even brush me!’

‘And you didn’t even brush the second sack with your sword. So I repeat, this is a fight. Not ballet, not acrobatics—What are you muttering now?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Relax. Adjust the bandage on your wrist. Don’t grip the hilt so tightly, it distracts you and upsets your equilibrium. Breathe calmly. Ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go!’

‘Ouch! May you—Geralt, it’s impossible! There’s not enough room for a feint and a change of foot. And when I strike from both legs, without a feint . . .’

‘I saw what happens when you strike without a feint. Does it hurt?’

‘No. Not much . . .’

‘Sit down next to me. Take a break.’

‘I’m not tired. Geralt, I’m not going to be able to jump over that third pendulum even if I rest for ten years. I can’t be any faster—’

‘And you don’t have to be. You’re fast enough.’

‘Tell me how to do it then. Half-pirouette, dodge and hit at the same time?’

‘It’s very simple; you just weren’t paying attention. I told you before you started – an additional dodge is necessary. Displacement. An additional half-pirouette is superfluous. The second time round, you did everything well and passed all the pendulums.’

‘But I didn’t hit the sack because . . . Geralt, without a half-pirouette I can’t strike because I lose speed, I don’t have the . . . the, what do you call it . . .’

‘Impetus. That’s true. So gain some impetus and energy. But not through a pirouette and change of foot because there’s not enough time for it. Hit the pendulum with your sword.’

‘The pendulum? I’ve got to hit the sacks!’

‘This is a fight, Ciri. The sacks represent your opponent’s sensitive areas, you’ve got to hit them. The pendulums – which simulate your opponent’s weapon – you have to avoid, dodge past. When the pendulum hits you, you’re wounded. In a real fight, you might not get up again. The pendulum mustn’t touch you. But you can hit the pendulum . . . Why are you screwing your nose up?’

‘I’m . . . not going to be able to parry the pendulum with my sword. I’m too weak . . . I’ll always be too weak! Because I’m a girl!’

‘Come here, girl. Wipe your nose, and listen carefully. No strongman, mountain-toppling giant or muscle-man is going to be able to parry a blow aimed at him by a dracolizard’s tail, gigascorpion’s pincers or a griffin’s claws. And that’s precisely the sort of weapons the pendulum simulates. So don’t even try to parry. You’re not deflecting the pendulum, you’re deflecting yourself from it. You’re intercepting its energy, which you need in order to deal a blow. A light, but very swift deflection and instantaneous, equally swift blow from a reverse half-turn is enough. You’re picking impetus up by rebounding. Do you see?’

‘Mhm.’

‘Speed, Ciri, not strength. Strength is necessary for a lumberjack axing trees in a forest. That’s why, admittedly, girls are rarely lumberjacks. Have you got that?’

‘Mhm. Start the pendulums swinging.’

‘Take a rest first.’

‘I’m not tired.’

‘You know how to now? The same steps, feint—’

‘I know.’

‘Attack!’

‘Haaa! Ha! Haaaaa! Got you! I got you, you griffin! Geraaaalt! Did you see that?’

‘Don’t yell. Control your breathing.’

‘I did it! I really did it!! I managed it! Praise me, Geralt!’

‘Well done, Ciri. Well done, girl.’

In the middle of February, the snow disappeared, whisked away by a warm wind blowing from the south, from the pass.

Whatever was happening in the world, the witchers did not want to know.

In the evenings, consistently and determinedly, Triss guided the long conversations held in the dark hall, lit only by the bursts of flames in the great hearth, towards politics. The witchers’ reactions were always the same. Geralt, a hand on his forehead, did not say a word. Vesemir nodded, from time to time throwing in comments which amounted to little more than that ‘in his day’ everything had been better, more logical, more honest and healthier. Eskel pretended to be polite, and neither smiled nor made eye contact, and even managed, very occasionally, to be interested in some issue or question of little importance. Coën yawned openly and looked at the ceiling, and Lambert did nothing to hide his disdain.

They did not want to know anything, they cared nothing for dilemmas which drove sleep from kings, wizards, rulers and leaders, or for the problems which made councils, circles and gatherings tremble and buzz. For them, nothing existed beyond the passes drowning in snow or beyond the Gwenllech river carrying ice-floats in its leaden current. For them, only Kaer Morhen existed, lost and lonely amongst the savage mountains.

That evening Triss was irritable and restless – perhaps it was the wind howling along the great castle’s walls. And that evening they were all oddly excited – the witchers, apart from Geralt, were unusually talkative. Quite obviously, they only spoke of one thing – spring. About their approaching departure for the Trail. About what the Trail would have in store for them – about vampires, wyverns, leshys, lycanthropes and basilisks.

This time it was Triss who began to yawn and stare at the ceiling. This time she was the one who remained silent – until Eskel turned to her with a question. A question which she had anticipated.

‘And what is it really like in the south, on the Yaruga? Is it worth going there? We wouldn’t like to find ourselves in the middle of any trouble.’

‘What do you mean by trouble?’

‘Well, you know . . .’ he stammered, ‘you keep telling us about the possibility of a new war . . . About constant fighting on the borders, about rebellions in the lands invaded by Nilfgaard. You said they’re saying the Nilfgaardians might cross the Yaruga again—’

‘So what?’ said Lambert. ‘They’ve been hitting, killing and striking against each other constantly for hundreds of years. It’s nothing to worry about. I’ve already decided – I’m going to the far South, to Sodden, Mahakam and Angren. It’s well known that monsters abound wherever armies have passed. The most money is always made in places like that.’

‘True,’ Coën acknowledged. ‘The neighbourhood grows deserted, only women who can’t fend for themselves remain in the villages . . . scores of children with no home or care, roaming around . . . Easy prey attracts monsters.’

‘And the lord barons and village elders,’ added Eskel, ‘have their heads full of the war and don’t have the time to defend their subjects. They have to hire us. It’s true. But from what Triss has been telling us all these evenings, it seems the conflict with Nilfgaard is more serious than that, not just some local little war. Is that right, Triss?’

‘Even if it were the case,’ said the magician spitefully, ‘surely that suits you? A serious, bloody war will lead to more deserted villages, more widowed women, simply hordes of orphaned children—’

‘I can’t understand your sarcasm.’ Geralt took his hand away from his forehead. ‘I really can’t, Triss.’

‘Nor I, my child.’ Vesemir raised his head. ‘What do you mean? Are you thinking about the widows and children? Lambert and Coën speak frivolously, as youngsters do, but it is not the words that are important. After all, they—’

‘. . . they defend these children,’ she interrupted crossly. ‘Yes, I know. From the werewolf who might kill two or three a year, while a Nilfgaardian foray can kill and burn an entire settlement in an hour. Yes, you defend orphans. While I fight that there should be as few of those orphans as possible. I’m fighting the cause, not the effect. That’s why I’m on Foltest of Temeria’s council and sit with Fercart and Keira Metz. We deliberate on how to stop war from breaking out and, should it come to it, how to defend ourselves. Because war is constantly hovering over us like a vulture. For you it’s an adventure. For me, it’s a game in which the stakes are survival. I’m involved in this game, and that’s why your indifference and frivolity hurt and insult me.’

Geralt sat up and looked at her.

‘We’re witchers, Triss. Can’t you understand that?’

‘What’s there to understand?’ The enchantress tossed her chestnut mane back. ‘Everything’s crystal-clear. You’ve chosen a certain attitude to the world around you. The fact that this world might at any moment fall to pieces has a place in this choice. In mine, it doesn’t. That’s where we differ.’

‘I’m not sure it’s only there we differ.’

‘The world is falling to ruins,’ she repeated. ‘We can watch it happen and do nothing. Or we can counteract it.’

‘How?’ He smiled derisively. ‘With our emotions?’

She did not answer, turning her face to the fire roaring in the hearth.

‘The world is falling to ruins,’ repeated Coën, nodding his head in feigned thoughtfulness. ‘How many times I’ve heard that.’

‘Me, too,’ Lambert grimaced. ‘And it’s not surprising – it’s a popular saying of late. It’s what kings say when it turns out that a modicum of brains is necessary to rule after all. It’s what merchants say when greed and stupidity have led them to bankruptcy. It’s what wizards say when they start to lose their influence on politics or income. And the person they’re speaking to should expect some sort of proposal straight away. So cut the introduction short, Triss, and present us with your proposition.’

‘Verbal squabbling has never amused me,’ the enchantress declared, gauging him with cold eyes, ‘or displays of eloquence which mock whoever you’re talking to. I don’t intend to take part in anything like that. You know only too well what I mean. You want to hide your heads in the sand, that’s your business. But coming from you, Geralt, it’s a great surprise.’

‘Triss.’ The white-haired witcher looked her straight in the eyes again. ‘What do you expect from me? To take an active part in the fight to save a world which is falling to pieces? Am I to enlist in the army and stop Nilfgaard? Should I, if it comes to another battle for Sodden, stand with you on the Hill, shoulder to shoulder, and fight for freedom?’

‘I’d be proud,’ she said quietly, lowering her head. ‘I’d be proud and happy to fight at your side.’

‘I believe that. But I’m not gallant enough. Nor valiant enough. I’m not suited to be a soldier or a hero. And having an acute fear of pain, mutilation and death is not the only reason. You can’t stop a soldier from being frightened but you can give him motivation to help him overcome that fear. I have no such motivation. I can’t have. I’m a witcher: an artificially created mutant. I kill monsters for money. I defend children when their parents pay me to. If Nilfgaardian parents pay me, I’ll defend Nilfgaardian children. And even if the world lies in ruin – which does not seem likely to me – I’ll carry on killing monsters in the ruins of this world until some monster kills me. That is my fate, my reason, my life and my attitude to the world. And it is not what I chose. It was chosen for me.’

‘You’re embittered,’ she stated, tugging nervously at a strand of hair. ‘Or pretending to be. You forget that I know you, so don’t play the unfeeling mutant, devoid of a heart, of scruples and of his own free will, in front of me. And the reasons for your bitterness, I can guess and understand. Ciri’s prophecy, correct?’

‘No, not correct,’ he answered icily. ‘I see that you don’t know me at all. I’m afraid of death, just like everyone else, but I grew used to the idea of it a very long time ago – I’m not under any illusions. I’m not complaining about fate, Triss – this is plain, cold calculation. Statistics. No witcher has yet died of old age, lying in bed dictating his will. Not a single one. Ciri didn’t surprise or frighten me. I know I’m going to die in some cave which stinks of carcases, torn apart by a griffin, lamia or manticore. But I don’t want to die in a war, because they’re not my wars.’

‘I’m surprised at you,’ she replied sharply. ‘I’m surprised that you’re saying this, surprised by your lack of motivation, as you learnedly chose to describe your supercilious distance and indifference. You were at Sodden, Angren and Transriver. You know what happened to Cintra, know what befell Queen Calanthe and many thousands of people there. You know the hell Ciri went through, know why she cries out at night. And I know, too, because I was also there. I’m afraid of pain and death too, even more so now than I was then – I have good reason. As for motivation, it seems to me that back then I had just as little as you. Why should I, a magician, care about the fates of Sodden, Brugge, Cintra or other kingdoms? The problems of having more or less competent rulers? The interests of merchants and barons? I was a magician. I, too, could have said it wasn’t my war, that I could mix elixirs for the Nilfgaardians on the ruins of the world. But I stood on that Hill next to Vilgefortz, next to Artaud Terranova, next to Fercart, next to Enid Findabair and Filippa Eilhart, next to your Yennefer. Next to those who no longer exist – Coral, Yoël, Vanielle . . . There was a moment when out of sheer terror I forgot all my spells except for one – and thanks to that spell I could have teleported myself from that horrific place back home, to my tiny little tower in Maribor. There was a moment, when I threw up from fear, when Yennefer and Coral held me up by the shoulders and hair—’

‘Stop. Please, stop.’

‘No, Geralt. I won’t. After all, you want to know what happened there, on the Hill. So listen – there was a din and flames, there were flaming arrows and exploding balls of fire, there were screams and crashes, and I suddenly found myself on the ground on a pile of charred, smoking rags, and I realised that the pile of rags was Yoël and that thing next to her, that awful thing, that trunk with no arms and no legs which was screaming so horrifically was Coral. And I thought the blood in which I was lying was Coral’s blood. But it was my own. And then I saw what they had done to me, and I started to howl, howl like a beaten dog, like a battered child—Leave me alone! Don’t worry, I’m not going to cry. I’m not a little girl from a tiny tower in Maribor any more. Damn it, I’m Triss Merigold, the Fourteenth One Killed at Sodden. There are fourteen graves at the foot of the obelisk on the Hill, but only thirteen bodies. You’re amazed such a mistake could have been made? Most of the corpses were in hard-to-recognise pieces – no one identified them. The living were hard to account for, too. Of those who had known me well, Yennefer was the only one to survive, and Yennefer was blind. Others knew me fleetingly and always recognised me by my beautiful hair. And I, damn it, didn’t have it any more!’

Geralt held her closer. She no longer tried to push him away.

‘They used the highest magics on us,’ she continued in a muted voice, ‘spells, elixirs, amulets and artefacts. Nothing was left wanting for the wounded heroes of the Hill. We were cured, patched up, our former appearances returned to us, our hair and sight restored. You can hardly see the marks. But I will never wear a plunging neckline again, Geralt. Never.’

The witchers said nothing. Neither did Ciri, who had slipped into the hall without a sound and stopped at the threshold, hunching her shoulders and folding her arms.

‘So,’ the magician said after a while, ‘don’t talk to me about motivation. Before we stood on that Hill the Chapter simply told us: “That is what you have to do.” Whose war was it? What were we defending there? The land? The borders? The people and their cottages? The interests of kings? The wizards’ influence and income? Order against Chaos? I don’t know! But we defended it because that’s what had to be done. And if the need arises, I’ll stand on the Hill again. Because if I don’t, it will make the sacrifices made the first time futile and unnecessary.’

‘I’ll stand beside you!’ shouted Ciri shrilly. ‘Just wait and see, I’ll stand with you! Those Nilfgaardians are going to pay for my grandmother, pay for everything . . . I haven’t forgotten!’

‘Be quiet,’ growled Lambert. ‘Don’t butt into grown-ups’ conversations—’

‘Oh sure!’ The girl stamped her foot and in her eyes a green fire kindled. ‘Why do you think I’m learning to fight with a sword? I want to kill him, that black knight from Cintra with wings on his helmet, for what he did to me, for making me afraid ! And I’m going to kill him! That’s why I’m learning it!’

‘And therefore you’ll stop learning,’ said Geralt in a voice colder than the walls of Kaer Morhen. ‘Until you understand what a sword is, and what purpose it serves in a witcher’s hand, you will not pick one up. You are not learning in order to kill and be killed. You are not learning to kill out of fear and hatred, but in order to save lives. Your own and those of others.’

The girl bit her lip, shaking from agitation and anger.

‘Understood ?’

Ciri raised her head abruptly. ‘No.’

‘Then you’ll never understand. Get out.’

‘Geralt, I—’

‘Get out.’

Ciri spun on her heel and stood still for a moment, undecided, as if waiting – waiting for something that could not happen. Then she ran swiftly up the stairs. They heard the door slam.

‘Too severe, Wolf,’ said Vesemir. ‘Much too severe. And you shouldn’t have done it in Triss’s presence. The emotional ties—’

‘Don’t talk to me about emotions. I’ve had enough of all this talk about emotions!’

‘And why is that?’ The magician smiled derisively and coldly. ‘Why, Geralt? Ciri is normal. She has normal feelings, she accepts emotions naturally, takes them for what they really are. You, obviously, don’t understand and are therefore surprised by them. It surprises and irritates you. The fact that someone can experience normal love, normal hatred, normal fear, pain and regret, normal joy and normal sadness. That it is coolness, distance and indifference which are considered abnormal. Oh yes, Geralt, it annoys you, it annoys you so much that you are starting to think about Kaer Morhen’s vaults, about the Laboratorium, the dusty demi-johns full of mutagenic poisons—’

‘Triss!’ called Vesemir, gazing at Geralt’s face, suddenly grown pale. But the enchantress refused to be interrupted and spoke faster and faster, louder and louder.

‘Who do you want to deceive, Geralt? Me? Her? Or maybe yourself? Maybe you don’t want to admit the truth, a truth everyone knows except you? Maybe you don’t want to accept the fact that human emotions and feelings weren’t killed in you by the elixirs and Grasses! You killed them! You killed them yourself ! But don’t you dare kill them in the child!’

‘Silence!’ he shouted, leaping from the chair. ‘Silence, Merigold!’

He turned away and lowered his arms defencelessly. ‘Sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘Forgive me, Triss.’ He made for the stairs quickly, but the enchantress was up in a flash and threw herself at him, embracing him.

‘You are not leaving here alone,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t let you be alone. Not right now.’

They knew immediately where she had run to. Fine, wet snow had fallen that evening and had covered the forecourt with a thin, impeccably white carpet. In it they saw her footsteps.

Ciri was standing on the very summit of the ruined wall, as motionless as a statue. She was holding the sword above her right shoulder, the cross-guard at eye level. The fingers of her left hand were lightly touching the pommel.

On seeing them, the girl jumped, spun in a pirouette and landed softly in an identical but reverse mirror position.

‘Ciri,’ said the witcher, ‘come down, please.’

It seemed she hadn’t heard him. She did not move, not even a muscle. Triss, however, saw the reflection of the moon, thrown across her face by the blade, glisten silver over a stream of tears.

‘No one’s going to take the sword away from me!’ she shouted. ‘No one! Not even you!’

‘Come down,’ repeated Geralt.

She tossed her head defiantly and the next second leaped once more. A loose brick slipped beneath her foot with a grating sound. Ciri staggered, trying to find her balance. And failed.

The witcher jumped.

Triss raised her hand, opening her mouth to utter a formula for levitation. She knew she couldn’t do it in time. She knew that Geralt would not make it. It was impossible.

Geralt did make it.

He was forced down to the ground, thrown on his knees and back. He fell. But he did not let go of Ciri.

The magician approached them slowly. She heard the girl whisper and sniff. Geralt too was whispering. She could not make out the words. But she understood their meaning.

A warm wind howled in the crevices of the wall. The witcher raised his head.

‘Spring,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, swallowing. ‘There is still snow in the passes but in the valleys . . . In the valleys, it is already spring. Shall we leave, Geralt? You, Ciri and I?’

‘Yes. It is high time.’

Upriver we saw their towns, as delicate as if they were woven from the morning mist out of which they loomed. It seemed as if they would disappear a moment later, blown away on the wind which rippled the surface of the water. There were little palaces, white as nenuphar flowers; there were little towers looking as though they were plaited out of ivy; there were bridges as airy as weeping willows. And there were other things for which we could find no word or name. Yet we already had names for everything which our eyes beheld in this new, reborn world. Suddenly, in the far recesses of our memories, we found the words for dragons and griffins, mermaids and nymphs, sylphs and dryads once more. For the white unicorns which drank from the river at dusk, inclining their slender necks towards the water. We named everything. And everything seemed to be close to our hearts, familiar to us, ours.

Apart from them. They, although so resembling us, were alien. So very alien that, for a long time, we could find no word for their strangeness.

Hen Gedymdeith, Elves and Humans

A good elf is a dead elf.

Marshal Milan Raupenneck

CHAPTER FOUR

The misfortune behaved in the eternal manner of misfortunes and hawks – it hung over them for some while waiting for an appropriate moment before it attacked. It chose its moment, when they had passed the few settlements on the Gwenllech and Upper Buina, passed Ard Carraigh and plunged into the forest below, deserted and intersected by gorges. Like a hawk striking, this misfortune’s aim was true. It fell accurately upon its victim, and its victim was Triss.

Initially it seemed nasty but not too serious, resembling an ordinary stomach upset. Geralt and Ciri discreetly tried to take no notice of the stops the enchantress’s ailment necessitated. Triss, as pale as death, beaded with sweat and painfully contorted, tried to continue riding for several hours longer, but at about midday, and having spent an abnormally long time in the bushes by the road, she was no longer in any condition to sit on a saddle. Ciri tried to help her but to no avail – the enchantress, unable to hold on to the horse’s mane, slid down her mount’s flank and collapsed to the ground.

They picked her up and laid her on a cloak. Geralt unstrapped the saddle-bags without a word, found a casket containing some magic elixirs, opened it and cursed. All the phials were identical and the mysterious signs on the seals meant nothing to him.

‘Which one, Triss?’

‘None of them,’ she moaned, with both hands on her belly. ‘I can’t . . . I can’t take them.’

‘What? Why?’

‘I’m sensitised—’

‘You? A magician?’

‘I’m allergic!’ she sobbed with helpless exasperation and despairing anger. ‘I always have been! I can’t tolerate elixirs! I can treat others with them but can only treat myself with amulets.’

‘Where is the amulet?’

‘I don’t know.’ She ground her teeth. ‘I must have left it in Kaer Morhen. Or lost it—’

‘Damn it. What are we going to do? Maybe you should cast a spell on yourself?’

‘I’ve tried. And this is the result. I can’t concentrate because of this cramp . . .’

‘Don’t cry.’

‘Easy for you to say!’

The witcher got up, pulled his saddle-bags from Roach’s back and began rummaging through them. Triss curled up, her face contracted and her lips twisted in a spasm of pain.

‘Ciri . . .’

‘Yes, Triss?’

‘Do you feel all right? No . . . unusual sensations?’

The girl shook her head.

‘Maybe it’s food poisoning? What did I eat? But we all ate the same thing . . . Geralt! Wash your hands. Make sure Ciri washes her hands . . .’

‘Calm down. Drink this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Ordinary soothing herbs. There’s next to no magic in them so they shouldn’t do you any harm. And they’ll relieve the cramps.’

‘Geralt, the cramps . . . they’re nothing. But if I run a fever . . . It could be . . . dysentery. Or paratyphoid.’

‘Aren’t you immune?’

Triss turned her head away without replying, bit her lip and curled up even tighter. The witcher did not pursue the question.

Having allowed her to rest for a while they hauled the enchantress onto Roach’s saddle. Geralt sat behind her, supporting her with both hands, while Ciri rode beside them, holding the reins and leading Triss’s gelding. They did not even manage a mile. The enchantress kept falling from Geralt’s hands; she could not stay in the saddle. Suddenly she started trembling convulsively, and instantly burned with a fever. The gastritis had grown worse. Geralt told himself that it was an allergic reaction to the traces of magic in his witcher’s elixir. He told himself that. But he did not believe it.

‘Oh, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘you have not come at a good time. Indeed, you could not have arrived at a worse moment.’

The sergeant was right. Geralt could neither contest it nor argue.

The fort guarding the bridge, where there would usually be three soldiers, a stable-boy, a toll-collector and – at most – a few passersby, was swarming with people. The witcher counted over thirty lightly armed soldiers wearing the colours of Kaedwen and a good fifty shield bearers, camping around the low palisade. Most of them were lying by campfires, in keeping with the old soldier’s rule which dictates that you sleep when you can and get up when you’re woken. Considerable activity could be seen through the thrown-open gates – there were a lot of people and horses inside the fort, too. At the top of the little leaning lookout tower two soldiers were on duty, with their crossbows permanently at the ready. On the worn bridge trampled by horses’ hooves, six peasant carts and two merchant wagons were parked. In the enclosure, their heads lowered sadly over the mud and manure, stood umpteen unyoked oxen.

‘There was an assault on the fort – last night.’ The sergeant anticipated his question. ‘We just got here in time with the relief troops – otherwise we’d have found nothing here but charred earth.’

‘Who were your attackers? Bandits? Marauders?’

The soldier shook his head, spat and looked at Ciri and Triss, huddled in the saddle.

‘Come inside,’ he said, ‘your Enchantress is going to fall out of her saddle any minute now. We already have some wounded men there; one more won’t make much difference.’

In the yard, in an open, roofed shelter, lay several people with their wounds dressed with bloodied bandages. A little further, between the palisade fence and a wooden well with a sweep, Geralt made out six still bodies wrapped in sacking from which only pairs of feet in worn, dirty boots protruded.

‘Lay her there, by the wounded men.’ The soldier indicated the shelter. ‘Oh sir, it truly is bad luck she’s sick. A few of our men were hurt during the battle and we wouldn’t turn down a bit of magical assistance. When we pulled the arrow out of one of them its head stuck in his guts. The lad will peter out by the morning, he’ll peter out like anything . . . And the enchantress who could have saved him is tossing and turning with a fever and seeking help from us. A bad time, I say, a bad time—’

He broke off, seeing that the witcher could not tear his eyes from the sacking-wrapped bodies.

‘Two guards from here, two of our relief troops and two . . . two of the others,’ he said, pulling up a corner of the stiff material. ‘Take a look, if you wish.’

‘Ciri, step away.’

‘I want to see, too!’ The girl leaned out around him, staring at the corpses with her mouth open.

‘Step away, please. Take care of Triss.’

Ciri huffed, unwilling, but obeyed. Geralt came closer.

‘Elves,’ he noted, not hiding his surprise.

‘Elves,’ the soldier confirmed. ‘Scoia’tael.’

‘Who?’

‘Scoia’tael,’ repeated the soldier. ‘Forest bands.’

‘Strange name. It means “Squirrels”, if I’m not mistaken?’

‘Yes, sir. Squirrels. That’s what they call themselves in elvish. Some say it’s because sometimes they wear squirrel tails on their fur caps and hats. Others say it’s because they live in the woods and eat nuts. They’re getting more and more troublesome, I tell you.’

Geralt shook his head. The soldier covered the bodies again and wiped his hands on his tunic.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘There’s no point standing here. I’ll take you to the commandant. Our corporal will take care of your patient if he can. He knows how to sear and stitch wounds and set bones so maybe he knows how to mix up medicines and what not too. He’s a brainy chap, a mountain-man. Come, witcher.’

In the dim, smoky toll-collector’s hut a lively and noisy discussion was underway. A knight with closely cropped hair wearing a habergeon and yellow surcoat was shouting at two merchants and a greeve, watched by the toll-collector, who had an indifferent, rather gloomy expression, and whose head was wrapped in bandages.

‘I said, no!’ The knight thumped his fist on the rickety table and stood up straight, adjusting the gorget across his chest. ‘Until the patrols return, you’re not going anywhere! You are not going to roam the highways!’

‘I’s to be in Daevon in two days!’ the greeve yelled, shoving a short notched stick with a symbol branded into it under the knight’s nose. ‘I have a transport to lead! The bailiff ’s going to have me head if it be late! I’ll complain to the voivode!’

‘Go ahead and complain,’ sneered the knight. ‘But I advise you to line your breeches with straw before you do because the voivode can do a mean bit of arse-kicking. But for the time being I give the orders here – the voivode is far away and your bailiff means no more to me than a heap of dung. Hey, Unist! Who are you bringing here, sergeant? Another merchant?’

‘No,’ answered the sergeant reluctantly. ‘A witcher, sir. He goes by the name Geralt of Rivia.’

To Geralt’s astonishment, the knight gave a broad smile, approached and held a hand out in greeting.

‘Geralt of Rivia,’ he repeated, still smiling. ‘I have heard about you, and not just from gossip and hearsay. What brings you here?’

Geralt explained what brought him there. The knight’s smile faded.

‘You have not come at a good time. Or to a good place. We are at war here, witcher. A band of Scoia’tael is doing the rounds and there was a skirmish yesterday. I am waiting here for relief forces and then we’ll start a counterattack.’

‘You’re fighting elves?’

‘Not just elves! Is it possible? Have you, a witcher, not heard of the Squirrels?’

‘No. I haven’t.’

‘Where have you been these past two years? Beyond the seas? Here, in Kaedwen, the Scoia’tael have made sure everybody’s talking about them, they’ve seen to it only too well. The first bands appeared just after the war with Nilgaard broke out. The cursed non-humans took advantage of our difficulties. We were fighting in the south and they began a guerrilla campaign at our rear. They counted on the Nilgaardians defeating us, started declaring it was the end of human rule and there would be a return to the old order. “Humans to the sea!” That’s their battle cry, as they murder, burn and plunder!’

‘It’s your own fault and your own problem,’ the greeve commented glumly, tapping his thigh with the notched stick, a mark of his position. ‘Yours, and all the other noblemen and knights. You’re the ones who oppressed the non-humans, would not allow them their way of life, so now you pay for it. While we’ve always moved goods this way and no one stopped us. We didn’t need an army.’

‘What’s true is true,’ said one of the merchants who had been sitting silently on a bench. ‘The Squirrels are no fiercer than the bandits who used to roam these ways. And who did the elves take in hand first? The bandits!’

‘What do I care if it’s a bandit or an elf who runs me through with an arrow from behind some bushes?’ the toll-collector with the bandaged head said suddenly. ‘The thatch, if it’s set on fire above my head in the night, burns just the same. What difference does it make who lit the fire-brand? You say, sir, that the Scoia’tael are no worse than the bandits? You lie. The bandits wanted loot, but the elves are after human blood. Not everyone has ducats, but we all have blood running through our veins. You say it’s the nobility’s problem, greeve? That’s an even greater folly. What about the lumberjacks shot in the clearing, the tar-makers hacked to pieces at the Beeches, the refugee peasants from the burned down hamlets, did they hurt the non-humans? They lived and worked together, as neighbours, and suddenly they got an arrow in the back . . . And me? Never in my life have I harmed a non-human and look, my head is broken open by a dwarf’s cutlass. And if it were not for the soldiers you’re snapping at, I would be lying beneath an ell of turf—’

‘Exactly!’ The knight in the yellow surcoat thumped his fist against the table once again. ‘We are protecting your mangy skin, greeve, from those, as you call them, oppressed elves, who, according to you, we did not let live. But I will say something different – we have emboldened them too much. We tolerated them, treated them as humans, as equals and now they are stabbing us in the back. Nilfgaard is paying them for it, I’d stake my life, and the savage elves from the mountains are furnishing them with arms. But their real support comes from those who always lived amongst us – from the elves, half-elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings. They are the ones who are hiding them, feeding them, supplying them with volunteers—’

‘Not all of them,’ said another merchant, slim, with a delicate and noble face – in no way a typical merchant’s features. ‘The majority of non-humans condemn the Squirrels, sir, and want nothing to do with them. The majority of them are loyal, and sometimes pay a high price for that loyalty. Remember the burgomaster from Ban Ard. He was a half-elf who urged peace and cooperation. He was killed by an assassin’s arrow.’

‘Aimed, no doubt, by a neighbour, some halfling or dwarf who also feigned loyalty,’ scoffed the knight. ‘If you ask me, none of them are loyal! Every one of them—Hey there! Who are you?’

Geralt looked around. Ciri stood right behind him casting her huge emerald eyes over everyone. As far as the ability to move noiselessly was concerned, she had clearly made enormous progress.

‘She’s with me,’ he explained.

‘Hmmm . . .’ The knight measured Ciri with his eyes then turned back to the merchant with the noble face, evidently considering him the most serious partner in the discussion. ‘Yes, sir, do not talk to me about loyal non-humans. They are all our enemies, it’s just that some are better than others at pretending otherwise. Halflings, dwarves and gnomes have lived amongst us for centuries – in some sort of harmony, it would seem. But it sufficed for the elves to lift their heads, and all the others grabbed their weapons and took to the woods too. I tell you, it was a mistake to tolerate the free elves and dryads, with their forests and their mountain enclaves. It wasn’t enough for them, and now they’re yelling: “It’s our world! Begone, strangers!”. By the gods, we’ll show them who will be gone, and of which race even the slightest traces will be wiped away. We beat the hides off the Nilfgaardians and now we will do something about these rogue bands.’

‘It’s not easy to catch an elf in the woods,’ said the witcher. ‘Nor would I go after a gnome or dwarf in the mountains. How large are these units?’

‘Bands,’ corrected the knight. ‘They’re bands, witcher. They can count up to a hundred heads, sometimes more. They call each pack a “commando”. It’s a word borrowed from the gnomes. And in saying they are hard to catch you speak truly. Evidently you are a professional. Chasing them through the woods and thickets is senseless. The only way is to cut them off from their supplies, isolate them, starve them out. Seize the non-humans who are helping them firmly by the scruff of their necks. Those from the towns and settlements, villages and farms—’

‘The problem is,’ said the merchant with noble features, ‘that we still don’t know which of the non-humans are helping them and which aren’t.’

‘Then we have to seize them all!’

‘Ah.’ The merchant smiled. ‘I understand. I’ve heard that somewhere before. Take everyone by the scruff of their neck and throw them down the mines, into enclosed camps, into quarries. Everyone. The innocent, too. Women and children. Is that right?’

The knight raised his head and slammed his hand down on his sword hilt.

‘Just so, and no other way!’ he said sharply. ‘You pity the children yet you’re like a child yourself in this world, dear sir. A truce with Nilfgaard is a very fragile thing, like an egg-shell. If not today then the war might start anew tomorrow, and anything can happen in war. If they defeated us, what do you think would happen? I’ll tell you what – elven commandos would emerge from the forests, they’d emerge strong and numerous and these “loyal elements” would instantly join them. Those loyal dwarves of yours, your friendly halflings, do you think they are going to talk of peace, of reconciliation then? No, sir. They’ll be tearing our guts out. Nilfgaard is going to deal with us through their hands. And they’ll drown us in the sea, just as they promise. No, sir, we must not pussyfoot around them. It’s either them or us. There’s no third way!’

The door of the hut squeaked and a soldier in a bloodied apron stood in the doorway.

‘Forgive me for disturbing you,’ he hawked. ‘Which of you, noble sirs, be the one who brought this sick woman here?’

‘I did,’ said the witcher. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Come with me, please.’

They went out into the courtyard.

‘It bodes not well with her, sir,’ said the soldier, indicating Triss. ‘Firewater with pepper and saltpetre I gave her – but it be no good. I don’t really . . .’

Geralt made no comment because there was nothing to say. The magician, doubled over, was clear evidence of the fact that firewater with pepper and saltpetre was not something her stomach could tolerate.

‘It could be some plague.’ The soldier frowned. ‘Or that, what’s it called . . . Zintery. If it were to spread to our men—’

‘She is a wizard,’ protested the witcher. ‘Wizards don’t fall sick . . .’

‘Just so,’ the knight who had followed them out threw in cynically. ‘Yours, as I see, is just emanating good health. Geralt, listen to me. The woman needs help and we cannot offer such. Nor can I risk an epidemic amongst my troops. You understand.’

‘I understand. I will leave immediately. I have no choice – I have to turn back towards Daevon or Ard Carraigh.’

‘You won’t get far. The patrols have orders to stop everyone. Besides, it is dangerous. The Scoia’tael have gone in exactly that direction.’

‘I’ll manage.’

‘From what I’ve heard about you’ – the knight’s lips twisted – ‘I have no doubt you would. But bear in mind you are not alone. You have a gravely sick woman on your shoulders and this brat . . .’

Ciri, who was trying to clean her dung-smeared boot on a ladder rung, raised her head. The knight cleared his throat and looked down. Geralt smiled faintly. Over the last two years Ciri had almost forgotten her origins and had almost entirely lost her royal manners and airs, but her glare, when she wanted, was very much like that of her grandmother. So much so that Queen Calanthe would no doubt have been very proud of her granddaughter.

‘Yeeessss, what was I . . .’ the knight stammered, tugging at his belt with embarrassment. ‘Geralt, sir, I know what you need to do. Cross beyond the river, south. You will catch up with a caravan which is following the trail. Night is just around the corner and the caravan is certain to stop for a rest. You will reach it by dawn.’

‘What kind of caravan?’

‘I don’t know.’ The knight shrugged. ‘But it is not a merchant or an ordinary convoy. It’s too orderly, the wagons are all the same, all covered . . . A royal bailiff’s, no doubt. I allowed them to cross the bridge because they are following the Trail south, probably towards the fords on the Lixela.’

‘Hmmm . . .’ The witcher considered this, looking at Triss. ‘That would be on my way. But will I find help there?’

‘Maybe yes,’ the knight said coldly. ‘Maybe no. But you won’t find it here, that’s for sure.’

They did not hear or see him as he approached, engrossed as they were in conversation, sitting around a campfire which, with its yellow light, cadaverously illuminated the canvas of the wagons arranged in a circle. Geralt gently pulled up his mare and forced her to neigh loudly. He wanted to warn the caravan, which had set up camp for the night, wanted to temper the surprise of having visitors and avoid a nervous reaction. He knew from experience that the release mechanisms on crossbows did not like nervous moves.

The campers leaped up and, despite his warning, performed numerous agitated movements. Most of them, he saw at once, were dwarves. This reassured him somewhat – dwarves, although extremely irascible, usually asked questions first in situations such as these and only then aimed their crossbows.

‘Who’s that?’ shouted one of the dwarves hoarsely and with a swift, energetic move, prised an axe from a stump by the campfire. ‘Who goes there?’

‘A friend.’ The witcher dismounted.

‘I wonder whose,’ growled the dwarf. ‘Come closer. Hold your hands out so we can see them.’

Geralt approached, holding his hands out so they could be seen even by someone afflicted with conjunctivitis or night blindness.

‘Closer.’

He obeyed. The dwarf lowered his axe and tilted his head a little.

‘Either my eyes deceive me,’ he said, ‘or it’s the witcher Geralt of Rivia. Or someone who looks damn like him.’

The fire suddenly shot up into flames, bursting into a golden brightness which drew faces and figures from the dark.

‘Yarpen Zigrin,’ declared Geralt, astonished. ‘None other than Yarpen Zigrin in person, complete with beard!’

‘Ha!’ The dwarf waved his axe as if it were an osier twig. The blade whirred in the air and cut into a stump with a dull thud. ‘Call the alarm off! This truly is a friend!’

The rest of the gathering visibly relaxed and Geralt thought he heard deep sighs of relief. The dwarf walked up to him, holding out his hand. His grip could easily rival a pair of iron pincers.

‘Welcome, you warlock,’ he said. ‘Wherever you’ve come from and wherever you’re going, welcome. Boys! Over here! You remember my boys, witcher ? This is Yannick Brass, this one’s Xavier Moran and here’s Paulie Dahlberg and his brother Regan.’

Geralt didn’t remember any of them, and besides they all looked alike, bearded, stocky, practically square in their thick quilted jerkins.

‘There were six of you,’ one by one he squeezed the hard, gnarled hands offered him, ‘if I remember correctly.’

‘You’ve a good memory,’ laughed Yarpen Zigrin. ‘There were six of us, indeed. But Lucas Corto got married, settled down in Mahakam and dropped out of the company, the stupid oaf. Somehow we haven’t managed to find anybody worthy of his place yet. Pity, six is just right, not too many, not too few. To eat a calf, knock back a barrel, there’s nothing like six—’

‘As I see,’ with a nod Geralt indicated the rest of the group standing undecided by the wagons, ‘there are enough of you here to manage three calves, not to mention a quantity of poultry. What’s this gang of fellows you’re commanding, Yarpen?’

‘I’m not the one in command. Allow me to introduce you. Forgive me, Wenck, for not doing so straight away but me and my boys have known Geralt of Rivia for a long time – we’ve a fair number of shared memories behind us. Geralt, this is Commissar Vilfrid Wenck, in the service of King Henselt of Ard Carraigh, the merciful ruler of Kaedwen.’

Vilfrid Wenck was tall, taller than Geralt and near twice the dwarf’s height. He wore an ordinary, simple outfit like that worn by greeves, bailiffs or mounted messengers, but there was a sharpness in his movements, a stiffness and sureness which the witcher knew and could faultlessly recognise, even at night, even in the meagre light of the campfire. That was how men accustomed to wearing hauberks and belts weighed down with weapons moved. Wenck was a professional soldier. Geralt was prepared to wager any sum on it. He shook the proffered hand and gave a little bow.

‘Let’s sit down.’ Yarpen indicated the stump where his mighty axe was still embedded. ‘Tell us what you’re doing in this neighbourhood, Geralt.’

‘Looking for help. I’m journeying in a threesome with a woman and youngster. The woman is sick. Seriously sick. I caught up with you to ask for help.’

‘Damn it, we don’t have a medic here.’ The dwarf spat at the flaming logs. ‘Where have you left them?’

‘Half a furlong from here, by the roadside.’

‘You lead the way. Hey, you there! Three to the horses, saddle the spare mounts! Geralt, will your sick woman hold up in the saddle?’

‘Not really. That’s why I had to leave her there.’

‘Get the sheepskin, canvas sheet and two poles from the wagon! Quick!’

Vilfrid Wenck, crossing his arms, hawked loudly.

‘We’re on the trail,’ Yarpen Zigrin said sharply, without looking at him. ‘You don’t refuse help on the Trail.’

‘Damn it.’ Yarpen removed his palm from Triss’s forehead. ‘She’s as hot as a furnace. I don’t like it. What if it’s typhoid or dysentery?’

‘It can’t be typhoid or dysentery,’ Geralt lied with conviction, wrapping the horse blankets around the sick woman. ‘Wizards are immune to those diseases. It’s food poisoning, nothing contagious.’

‘Hmm . . . Well, all right. I’ll rummage through the bags. I used to have some good medicine for the runs, maybe there’s still a little left.’

‘Ciri,’ muttered the witcher, passing her a sheepskin unstrapped from the horse, ‘go to sleep, you’re barely on your feet. No, not in the wagon. We’ll put Triss in the wagon. You lie down next to the fire.’

‘No,’ she protested quietly, watching the dwarf walk away. ‘I’m going to lie down next to her. When they see you keeping me away from her, they won’t believe you. They’ll think it’s contagious and chase us away, like the soldiers in the fort.’

‘Geralt?’ the enchantress moaned suddenly. ‘Where . . . are we?’

‘Amongst friends.’

‘I’m here,’ said Ciri, stroking her chestnut hair. ‘I’m at your side. Don’t be afraid. You feel how warm it is here? A campfire’s burning and a dwarf is just going to bring some medicine for . . . For your stomach.’

‘Geralt,’ sobbed Triss, trying to disentangle herself from the blankets. ‘No . . . no magic elixirs, remember . . .’

‘I remember. Lie peacefully.’

‘I’ve got to . . . Oooh . . .’

The witcher leaned over without a word, picked up the enchantress together with her cocoon of caparisons and blankets, and marched to the woods, into the darkness. Ciri sighed.

She turned, hearing heavy panting. Behind the wagon appeared the dwarf, hefting a considerable bundle under his arm. The campfire flame gleamed on the blade of the axe behind his belt; the rivets on his heavy leather jerkin also glistened.

‘Where’s the sick one?’ he snarled. ‘Flown away on a broomstick?’

Ciri pointed to the darkness.

‘Right.’ The dwarf nodded. ‘I know the pain and I’ve known the same nasty complaint. When I was younger I used to eat everything I managed to find or catch or cut down, so I got food poisoning many a time. Who is she, this Enchantress?’

‘Triss Merigold.’

‘I don’t know her, never heard of her. I rarely have anything to do with the Brotherhood anyway. Well, but it’s polite to introduce oneself. I’m called Yarpen Zigrin. And what are you called, little goose?’

‘Something other than Little Goose,’ snarled Ciri with a gleam in her eyes.

The dwarf chuckled and bared his teeth.

‘Ah.’ He bowed with exaggeration. ‘I beg your forgiveness. I didn’t recognise you in the darkness. This isn’t a goose but a noble young lady. I fall at your feet. What is the young lady’s name, if it’s no secret?’

‘It’s no secret. I’m Ciri.’

‘Ciri. Aha. And who is the young lady?’

‘That,’ Ciri turned her nose up proudly, ‘is a secret.’

Yarpen snorted again.

‘The young lady’s little tongue is as sharp as a wasp. If the young lady will deign to forgive me, I’ve brought the medicine and a little food. Will the young lady accept it or will she send the old boor, Yarpen Zigrin, away?’

‘I’m sorry . . .’ Ciri had second thoughts and lowered her head. ‘Triss really does need help, Master . . . Zigrin. She’s very sick. Thank you for the medicine.’

‘It’s nothing.’ The dwarf bared his teeth again and patted her shoulder amicably. ‘Come on, Ciri, you help me. The medicine has to be prepared. We’ll roll some pellets according to my grandmother’s recipe. No disease sitting in the guts will resist these kernels.’

He unwrapped the bundle, extracted something shaped like a piece of turf and a small clay vessel. Ciri approached, curious.

‘You should know, Ciri,’ said Yarpen, ‘that my grandmother knew her medicine like nobody’s business. Unfortunately, she believed that the source of most disease is idleness, and idleness is best cured through the application of a stick. As far as my siblings and I were concerned, she chiefly used this cure preventively. She beat us for anything and for nothing. She was a rare old hag. And once when, out of the blue, she gave me a chunk of bread with dripping and sugar, it was such a surprise that I dropped it in astonishment, dripping down. So my gran gave me a thrashing, the nasty old bitch. And then she gave me another chunk of bread, only without the sugar.’

‘My grandmother,’ Ciri nodded in understanding, ‘thrashed me once, too. With a switch.’

‘A switch?’ The dwarf laughed. ‘Mine whacked me once with a pickaxe handle. But that’s enough reminiscing, we have to roll the pellets. Here, tear this up and mould it into little balls.’

‘What is it? It’s sticky and messy . . . Eeeuuggh . . . What a stink!’

‘It’s mouldy oil-meal bread. Excellent medicine. Roll it into little balls. Smaller, smaller, they’re for a magician, not a cow. Give me one. Good. Now we’re going to roll the ball in medicine.’

‘Eeeeuuuugggghh!’

‘Stinks?’ The dwarf brought his upturned nose closer to the clay pot. ‘Impossible. Crushed garlic and bitter salt has no right to stink, even if it’s a hundred years old.’

‘It’s foul, uugghh. Triss won’t eat that!’

‘We’ll use my grandmother’s method. You squeeze her nose and I’ll shove the pellets in.’

‘Yarpen,’ Geralt hissed, emerging abruptly from the darkness with the magician in his arms. ‘Watch out or I’ll shove something down you.’

‘It’s medicine!’ The dwarf took offence. ‘It helps! Mould, garlic . . .’

‘Yes,’ moaned Triss weakly from the depths of her cocoon. ‘It’s true . . . Geralt, it really ought to help . . .’

‘See?’ Yarpen nudged Geralt with his elbow, turning his beard up proudly and pointing to Triss, who swallowed the pellets with a martyred expression. ‘A wise magician. Knows what’s good for her.’

‘What are you saying, Triss?’ The witcher leaned over. ‘Ah, I see. Yarpen, do you have any angelica? Or saffron?’

‘I’ll have a look, and ask around. I’ve brought you some water and a little food—’

‘Thank you. But they both need rest above all. Ciri, lie down.’

‘I’ll just make up a compress for Triss—’

‘I’ll do it myself. Yarpen, I’d like to talk to you.’

‘Come to the fire. We’ll broach a barrel—’

‘I want to talk to you. I don’t need an audience. Quite the contrary.’

‘Of course. I’m listening.’

‘What sort of convoy is this?’

The dwarf raised his small, piercing eyes at him.

‘The king’s service,’ he said slowly and emphatically.

‘That’s what I thought.’ The witcher held the gaze. ‘Yarpen, I’m not asking out of any inappropriate curiosity.’

‘I know. And I also know what you mean. But this convoy is . . . hmm . . . special.’

‘So what are you transporting?’

‘Salt fish,’ said Yarpen casually, and proceeded to embellish his lie without batting an eyelid. ‘Fodder, tools, harnesses, various odds and ends for the army. Wenck is a quartermaster to the king’s army.’

‘If he’s quartermaster then I’m a druid,’ smiled Geralt. ‘But that’s your affair – I’m not in the habit of poking my nose into other people’s secrets. But you can see the state Triss is in. Let us join you, Yarpen, let us put her in one of the wagons. Just for a few days. I’m not asking where you’re going because this trail goes straight to the south without forking until past the Lixela and it’s a ten-day journey to the Lixela. By that time the fever will have subsided and Triss will be able to ride a horse. And even if she isn’t then I’ll stop in a town beyond the river. Ten days in a wagon, well covered, hot food . . . Please.’

‘I don’t give the orders here. Wenck does.’

‘I don’t believe you lack influence over him. Not in a convoy primarily made up of dwarves. Of course he has to bear you in mind.’

‘Who is this Triss to you?’

‘What difference does it make in this situation?’

‘In this situation – none. I asked out of an inappropriate curiosity born of the desire to start new rumours going around the inns. But be that as it may, you’re mighty attracted to this enchantress, Geralt.’

The witcher smiled sadly.

‘And the girl?’ Yarpen indicated Ciri with his head as she wriggled under the sheepskin. ‘Yours?’

‘Mine,’ he replied without thinking. ‘Mine, Zigrin.’

The dawn was grey, wet, and smelled of night rain and morning mist. Ciri felt she had slept no more than a few minutes, as though she had been woken up the very minute she lay her head down on the sacks heaped on the wagon.

Geralt was just settling Triss down next to her, having brought her in from another enforced expedition into the woods. The rugs cocooning the enchantress sparkled with dew. Geralt had dark circles under his eyes. Ciri knew he had not closed them for an instant – Triss had run a fever through the night and suffered greatly.

‘Did I wake you? Sorry. Sleep, Ciri. It’s still early.’

‘What’s happening with Triss? How is she?’

‘Better,’ moaned the magician. ‘Better, but . . . Listen, Geralt . . . I’d like to—’

‘Yes?’ The witcher leaned over but Triss was already asleep. He straightened himself, stretched.

‘Geralt,’ whispered Ciri, ‘are they going to let us travel on the wagon?’

‘We’ll see.’ He bit his lip. ‘Sleep while you can. Rest.’

He jumped down off the wagon. Ciri heard the sound of the camp packing up – horses stamping, harnesses ringing, poles squeaking, swingle-trees grating, and talking and cursing. And then, nearby, Yarpen Zigrin’s hoarse voice and the calm voice of the tall man called Wenck. And the cold voice of Geralt. She raised herself and carefully peered out from behind the canvas.

‘I have no categorical interdictions on this matter,’ declared Wenck.

‘Excellent.’ The dwarf brightened. ‘So the matter’s settled?’

The commissar raised his hand a little, indicating that he had not yet finished. He was silent for a while, and Geralt and Yarpin waited patiently.

‘Nevertheless,’ Wenck said finally, ‘when it comes to the safe arrival of this caravan, it’s my head on the line.’

Again he said nothing. This time no one interrupted. There was no question about it – one had to get used to long intervals between sentences when speaking to the commissar.

‘For its safe arrival,’ he continued after a moment. ‘And for its timely arrival. Caring for this sick woman might slow down the march.’

‘We’re ahead of schedule on the route,’ Yarpen assured him, after a significant pause. ‘We’re ahead of time, Wenck, sir, we won’t miss the deadline. And as for safety . . . I don’t think the witcher’s company will harm that. The Trail leads through the woods right up to the Lixela, and to the right and left there’s a wild forest. And rumour has it all sorts of evil creatures roam the forest.’

‘Indeed,’ the commissar agreed. Looking the witcher straight in the eye, he seemed to be weighing out every single word. ‘One can come across certain evil creatures in Kaedwen forests, lately incited by other evil creatures. They could jeopardise our safety. King Henselt, knowing this, empowered me to recruit volunteers to join our armed escort. Geralt? That would solve your problem.’

The witcher’s silence lasted a long while, longer than Wenck’s entire speech, interspersed though it had been with regular pauses.

‘No,’ he said finally. ‘No, Wenck. Let us put this clearly. I am prepared to repay the help given Lady Merigold, but not in this manner. I can groom the horses, carry water and firewood, even cook. But I will not enter the king’s service as a soldier. Please don’t count on my sword. I have no intention of killing those, as you call them, evil creatures on the order of other creatures whom I do not consider to be any better.’

Ciri heard Yarpen Zigrin hiss loudly and cough into his rolled-up sleeve. Wenck stared at the witcher calmly.

‘I see,’ he stated dryly. ‘I like clear situations. All right then. Zigrin, see to it that the speed of our progress does not slow. As for you, Geralt . . . I know you will prove to be useful and helpful in a way you deem fit. It would be an affront to both of us if I were to treat your good stead as payment for aid offered to a suffering woman. Is she feeling better today?’

The witcher gave a nod which seemed, to Ciri, to be somewhat deeper and politer than usual. Wenck’s expression did not change.

‘That pleases me,’ he said after a normal pause. ‘In taking Lady Merigold aboard a wagon in my convoy I take on the responsibility for her health, comfort and safety. Zigrin, give the command to march out.’

‘Wenck.’

‘Yes, Geralt?’

‘Thank you.’

The commissar bowed his head, a bit more deeply and politely, it seemed to Ciri, than the usual, perfunctory politeness required.

Yarpen Zigrin ran the length of the column, giving orders and instructions loudly, after which he clambered onto the coachman’s box, shouted and whipped the horses with the reins. The wagon jolted and rattled along the forest trail. The bump woke Triss up but Ciri reassured her and changed the compress on her forehead. The rattling had a soporific effect and the magician was soon asleep; Ciri, too, fell to dozing.

When she woke the sun was already high. She peered out between the barrels and packages. The wagon she was in was at the vanguard of the convoy. The one following them was being driven by a dwarf with a red kerchief tied around his neck. From conversations between the dwarves, she had gathered that his name was Paulie Dahlberg. Next to him sat his brother Regan. She also saw Wenck riding a horse, in the company of two bailiffs.

Roach, Geralt’s mare, tethered to the wagon, greeted her with a quiet neigh. She couldn’t see her chestnut anywhere or Triss’s dun. No doubt they were at the rear, with the convoy’s spare horses.

Geralt was sitting on the coachman’s box next to Yarpen. They were talking quietly, drinking beer from a barrel perched between them. Ciri pricked up her ears but soon grew bored – the discussion concerned politics and was mainly about King Henselt’s intentions and plans, and some special service or missions to do with secretly aiding his neighbour, King Demawend of Aedirn, who was being threatened by war. Geralt expressed interest about how five wagons of salted fish could help Aedirn’s defence. Yarpen, ignoring the gibe in Geralt’s voice, explained that some species of fish were so valuable that a few wagon-loads would suffice to pay an armoured company for a year, and each new armoured company was a considerable help. Geralt was surprised that the aid had to be quite so secretive, to which the dwarf replied that was why the secret was a secret.

Triss tossed in her sleep, shook the compress off and talked indistinctly to herself. She demanded that someone called Kevyn kept his hands to himself, and immediately after that declared that destiny cannot be avoided. Finally, having stated that everyone, absolutely everyone, is a mutant to a certain degree, she fell into a peaceful sleep.

Ciri also felt sleepy but was brought to her senses by Yarpen’s chuckle, as he reminded Geralt of their past adventures. This one concerned a hunt for a golden dragon who instead of allowing itself to be hunted down had counted the hunters’ bones and then eaten a cobbler called Goatmuncher. Ciri began to listen with greater interest.

Geralt asked about what had happened to the Slashers but Yarpen didn’t know. Yarpen, in turn, was curious about a woman called Yennefer, at which Geralt grew oddly uncommunicative. The dwarf drank more beer and started to complain that Yennefer still bore him a grudge although a good few years had gone by since those days.

‘I came across her at the market in Gors Velen,’ he recounted. ‘She barely noticed me – she spat like a she-cat and insulted my deceased mother horribly. I fled for all I was worth, but she shouted after me that she’d catch up with me one day and make grass grow out of my arse.’

Ciri giggled, imagining Yarpen with the grass. Geralt grunted something about women and their impulsive natures – which the dwarf considered far too mild a description for maliciousness, obstinacy and vindictiveness. Geralt did not take up the subject and Ciri fell into dozing once more.

This time she was woken by raised voices. Yarpen’s voice to be exact – he was yelling.

‘Oh yes! So you know! That’s what I’ve decided!’

‘Quieter,’ said the witcher calmly. ‘There’s a sick woman in the wagon. Understand, I’m not criticising your decisions or your resolutions . . .’

‘No, of course not,’ the dwarf interrupted sarcastically. ‘You’re just smiling knowingly about them.’

‘Yarpen I’m warning you, as one friend to another: both sides despise those who sit on the fence, or at best they treat them with suspicion.’

‘I’m not sitting. I’m unambiguously declaring myself to be on one side.’

‘But you’ll always remain a dwarf for that side. Someone who’s different. An outsider. While for the other side . . .’

He broke off.

‘Well !’ growled Yarpen turning away. ‘Well, go on, what are you waiting for? Call me a traitor and a dog on a human leash who for a handful of silver and a bowl of lousy food, is prepared to be set against his rebelling kinsmen who are fighting for freedom. Well, go on, spit it out. I don’t like insinuations.’

‘No, Yarpen,’ said Geralt quietly. ‘No. I’m not going to spit anything out.’

‘Ah, you’re not?’ The dwarf whipped the horses. ‘You don’t feel like it? You prefer to stare and smile? Not a word to me, eh? But you could say it to Wenck! “Please don’t count on my sword.” Oh, so haughtily, nobly and proudly said! Shove your haughtiness up a dog’s arse, and your bloody pride with it!’

‘I just wanted to be honest. I don’t want to get mixed up in this conflict. I want to remain neutral.’

‘It’s impossible!’ yelled Yarpen. ‘It’s impossible to remain neutral, don’t you understand that? No, you don’t understand anything. Oh, get off my wagon, get on your horse, and get out of my sight, with your arrogant neutrality. You get on my nerves.’

Geralt turned away. Ciri held her breath in anticipation. But the witcher didn’t say a word. He stood and jumped from the wagon, swiftly, softly and nimbly. Yarpen waited for him to untether his mare from the ladder, then whipped his horses once again, growling something incomprehensible, sounding terrifying under his breath.

She stood up to jump down too, and find her chestnut. The dwarf turned and measured her with a reluctant eye.

‘And you’re just a nuisance, too, little madam,’ he snorted angrily. ‘All we need are ladies and girls, damn it. I can’t even take a piss from the box – I have to stop the cart and go into the bushes!’

Ciri put her hands on her hips, shook her ashen fringe and turned up her nose.

‘Is that so?’ she shrilled, enraged. ‘Drink less beer, Zigrin, and then you won’t have to!’

‘My beer’s none of your shitin’ business, you chit!’

‘Don’t yell, Triss has just fallen asleep!’

‘It’s my wagon! I’ll yell if I want to!’

‘Stumpy!’

‘What? You impertinent brat!’

‘Stump!’

‘I’ll show you stump . . . Oh, damn it! Pprrr!’

The dwarf leaned far back, pulling at the reins at the very last moment, just as the two horses were on the point of stepping over a log blocking their way. Yarpen stood up in the box and, swearing in both human and dwarvish, whistling and roaring, brought the cart to a halt. Dwarves and humans alike, leaping from their wagons, ran up and helped lead the horses to the clear path, tugging them on by their halters and harnesses.

‘Dozing off, eh Yarpen?’ growled Paulie Dahlberg as he approached. ‘Bloody hell, if you’d ridden over that the axle would be done for, and the wheels shattered to hell. Damn it, what were you—’

‘Piss off, Paulie!’ roared Yarpen Zigrin and furiously lashed the horses’ hindquarters with the reins.

‘You were lucky,’ said Ciri, ever so sweetly, squeezing onto the box next to the dwarf. ‘As you can see, it’s better to have a witcher-girl on your wagon than to travel alone. I warned you just in time. But if you’d been in the middle of pissing from the box and ridden onto that log, well, well. It’s scary to think what might have happened—’

‘Are you going to be quiet?’

‘I’m not saying any more. Not a word.’

She lasted less than a minute.

‘Zigrin, sir?’

‘I’m not a sir.’ The dwarf nudged her with his elbow and bared his teeth. ‘I’m Yarpen. Is that clear? We’ll lead the horses together, right?’

‘Right. Can I hold the reins?’

‘If you must. Wait, not like that. Pass them over your index finger and hold them down with your thumb, like this. The same with the left. Don’t tug them, don’t pull too hard.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Right.’

‘Yarpen?’

‘Huh?’

‘What does it mean, “remain neutral”?’

‘To be indifferent,’ he muttered reluctantly. ‘Don’t let the reins hang down. Pull the left one closer to yourself!’

‘What’s indifferent? Indifferent to what?’

The dwarf leaned far out and spat under the wagon.

‘If the Scoia’tael attack us, your Geralt intends to stand by and look calmly on as they cut our throats. You’ll probably stand next to him, because it’ll be a demonstration class. Today’s subject: the witcher’s behaviour in face of conflict between intelligent races.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me in the least.’

‘Is that why you quarrelled with him and were angry? Who are these Scoia’tael anyway? These . . . Squirrels?’

‘Ciri,’ Yarpen tussled his beard violently, ‘these aren’t matters for the minds of little girls.’

‘Aha, now you’re angry at me. I’m not little at all. I heard what the soldiers in the fort said about the Squirrels. I saw . . . I saw two dead elves. And the knight said they also kill. And that it’s not just elves amongst them. There are dwarves too.’

‘I know,’ said Yarpen sourly.

‘And you’re a dwarf.’

‘There’s no doubt about that.’

‘So why are you afraid of the Squirrels? It seems they only fight humans.’

‘It’s not so simple as that.’ He grew solemn. ‘Unfortunately.’

Ciri stayed silent for a long time, biting her lower lip and wrinkling her nose.

‘Now I know,’ she said suddenly. ‘The Squirrels are fighting for freedom. And although you’re a dwarf, you’re King Henselt’s special secret servant on a human leash.’

Yarpen snorted, wiped his nose on his sleeve and leaned out of the box to check that Wenck had not ridden up too close. But the commissar was far away, engaged in conversation with Geralt.

‘You’ve got pretty good hearing, girl, like a marmot.’ He grinned broadly. ‘You’re also a bit too bright for someone destined to give birth, cook and spin. You think you know everything, don’t you? That’s because you’re a brat. Don’t pull silly faces. Faces like that don’t make you look any older, just uglier than usual. You’ve grasped the nature of the Scoia’taels quickly, you like the slogans. You know why you understand them so well? Because the Scoia’taels are brats too. They’re little snotheads who don’t understand that they’re being egged on, that someone’s taking advantage of their childish stupidity by feeding them slogans about freedom.’

‘But they really are fighting for freedom.’ Ciri raised her head and gazed at the dwarf with wide-open green eyes. ‘Like the dryads in the Brokilon woods. They kill people because people . . . some people are harming them. Because this used to be your country, the dwarves’ and the elves’ and those . . . halflings’, gnomes’ and other . . . And now there are people here so the elves—’

‘Elves!’ snorted Yarpen. ‘They – to be accurate – happen to be strangers just as much as you humans, although they arrived in their white ships a good thousand years before you. Now they’re competing with each other to offer us friendship, suddenly we’re all brothers, now they’re grinning and saying: “we, kinsmen”, “we, the Elder Races”. But before, shi—Hm, hm . . . Before, their arrows used to whistle past our ears when we—’

‘So the first on earth were dwarves?’

‘Gnomes, to be honest. As far as this part of the world is concerned – because the world is unimaginably huge, Ciri.’

‘I know. I saw a map—’

‘You couldn’t have. No one’s drawn a map like that, and I doubt they will in the near future. No one knows what exists beyond the Mountains of Fire and the Great Sea. Even elves, although they claim they know everything. They know shit all, I tell you.’

‘Hmm . . . But now . . . There are far more people than . . . Than there are you.’

‘Because you multiply like rabbits.’ The dwarf ground his teeth. ‘You’d do nothing but screw day in day out, without discrimination, with just anyone and anywhere. And it’s enough for your women to just sit on a man’s trousers and it makes their bellies swell . . . Why have you gone so red, crimson as a poppy? You wanted to know, didn’t you? So you’ve got the honest truth and faithful history of a world where he who shatters the skulls of others most efficiently and swells women’s bellies fastest, reigns. And it’s just as hard to compete with you people in murdering as it is in screwing—’

‘Yarpen,’ said Geralt coldly, riding up on Roach. ‘Restrain yourself a little, if you please, with your choice of words. And Ciri, stop playing at being a coachwoman and have a care for Triss, check if she’s awake and needs anything.’

‘I’ve been awake for a long time,’ the magician said weakly from the depths of the wagon. ‘But I didn’t want to . . . interrupt this interesting conversation. Don’t disturb them, Geralt. I’d like . . . to learn more about the role of screwing in the evolution of society.’

‘Can I heat some water? Triss wants to wash.’

‘Go ahead,’ agreed Yarpen Zigrin. ‘Xavier, take the spit off the fire, our hare’s had enough. Hand me the cauldron, Ciri. Oh, look at you, it’s full to the brim! Did you lug this great weight from the stream by yourself?’

‘I’m strong.’

The elder of the Dahlberg brothers burst out laughing.

‘Don’t judge her by appearances, Paulie,’ said Yarpen seriously as he skilfully divided the roasted grey hare into portions. ‘There’s nothing to laugh at here. She’s skinny but I can see she’s a robust and resilient lass. She’s like a leather belt: thin, but it can’t be torn apart in your hands. And if you were to hang yourself on it, it would bear your weight, too.’

No one laughed. Ciri squatted next to the dwarves sprawled around the fire. This time Yarpen Zigrin and his four ‘boys’ had lit their own fire at the camp because they did not intend to share the hare which Xavier Moran had shot. For them alone there was just enough for one, at most two, mouthfuls each.

‘Add some wood to the fire,’ said Yarpen, licking his fingers. ‘The water will heat quicker.’

‘That water’s a stupid idea,’ stated Regan Dahlberg, spitting out a bone. ‘Washing can only harm you when you’re sick. When you’re healthy, too, come to that. You remember old Schrader ? His wife once told him to wash, and Schrader went and died soon afterwards.’

‘Because a rabid dog bit him.’

‘If he hadn’t washed, the dog wouldn’t have bitten him.’

‘I think,’ said Ciri, checking the temperature of the water in the cauldron with her finger, ‘it’s excessive to wash every day too. But Triss asked for it – she even started crying once . . . So Geralt and I—’

‘We know.’ The elder Dahlberg nodded. ‘But that a witcher should . . . I’m constantly amazed. Hey, Zigrin, if you had a woman would you wash her and comb her hair? Would you carry her into the bushes if she had to—’

‘Shut up, Paulie.’ Yarpen cut him short. ‘Don’t say anything against that witcher, because he’s a good fellow.’

‘Am I saying anything? I’m only surprised—’

‘Triss,’ Ciri butted in cheekily, ‘is not his woman.’

‘I’m all the more surprised.’

‘You’re all the more a blockhead, you mean,’ Yarpen summed up. ‘Ciri, pour a bit of water in to boil. We’ll infuse some more saffron and poppy seeds for the magician. She felt better today, eh?’

‘Probably did,’ murmured Yannick Brass. ‘We only had to stop the convoy six times for her. I know it wouldn’t do to deny aid on the trail, and he’s a prick who thinks otherwise. And he who denies it would be an arch-prick and base son-of-a-bitch. But we’ve been in these woods too long, far too long, I tell you. We’re tempting fate, damn it, we’re tempting fate too much, boys. It’s not safe here. The Scoia’tael—’

‘Spit that word out, Yannick.’

‘Ptoo, ptoo. Yarpen, fighting doesn’t frighten me, and a bit of blood’s nothing new but . . . If it comes to fighting our own . . . Damn it! Why did this happen to us? This friggin’ load ought to be transported by a hundred friggin’ cavalrymen, not us! The devil take those know-alls from Ard Carraigh, may they—’

‘Shut up, I said. And pass me the pot of kasha. The hare was a snack, damn it, now we have to eat something. Ciri, will you eat with us?’

‘Of course.’

For a long while all that could be heard was the smacking of lips, munching, and the crunch of wooden spoons hitting the pot.

‘Pox on it,’ said Paulie Dahlberg and gave a long burp. ‘I could still eat some more.’

‘Me, too,’ declared Ciri and burped too, delighted by the dwarves’ unpretentious manners.

‘As long as it’s not kasha,’ said Xavier Moran. ‘I can’t stomach those milled oats any more. I’ve gone off salted meat, too.’

‘So gorge yourself on grass, if you’ve got such delicate taste-buds. ’

‘Or rip the bark off the birch with your teeth. Beavers do it and survive.’

‘A beaver – now that’s something I could eat.’

‘As for me, a fish.’ Paulie lost himself in dreams as he crunched on a husk pulled from his beard. ‘I’ve a fancy for a fish, I can tell you.’

‘So let’s catch some fish.’

‘Where?’ growled Yannick Brass. ‘In the bushes?’

‘In the stream.’

‘Some stream. You can piss to the other side. What sort of fish could be in there?’

‘There are fish.’ Ciri licked her spoon clean and slipped it into the top of her boot. ‘I saw them when I went to get the water. But they’re sick or something, those fish. They’ve got a rash. Black and red spots—’

‘Trout!’ roared Paulie, spitting crumbs of husk. ‘Well, boys, to the stream double-quick! Regan! Get your breeches down! We’ll turn them into a fishing-trap.’

‘Why mine?’

‘Pull them off, at the double, or I’ll wallop you, snothead! Didn’t mother say you have to listen to me?’

‘Hurry up if you want to go fishing because dusk is just round the corner,’ said Yarpen. ‘Ciri, is the water hot yet? Leave it, leave it, you’ll burn yourself and get dirty from the cauldron. I know you’re strong but let me – I’ll carry it.’

Geralt was already waiting for them; they could see his white hair through the gap in the canvas covering the wagon from afar. The dwarf poured the water into the bucket.

‘Need any help, witcher?’

‘No, thank you, Yarpen. Ciri will help.’

Triss was no longer running a high temperature but she was extremely weak. Geralt and Ciri were, by now, efficient at undressing and washing her. They had also learned to temper her ambitious but, at present, unrealistic attempts to manage on her own. They coped exceptionally well – he supported the enchantress in his arms, Ciri washed and dried her. Only one thing had started to surprise and annoy Ciri – Triss, in her opinion, snuggled up to Geralt too tightly. This time she was even trying to kiss him.

Geralt indicated the magician’s saddle-bags with his head. Ciri understood immediately because this, too, was part of the ritual – Triss always demanded to have her hair combed. She found the comb and knelt down beside her. Triss, lowering her head towards her, put her arms around the witcher. In Ciri’s opinion, definitely a little too tightly.

‘Oh, Geralt,’ she sobbed. ‘I so regret . . . I so regret that what was between us—’

‘Triss, please.’

‘. . . it should have happened . . . now. When I’m better . . . It would be entirely different . . . I could . . . I could even—’

‘Triss.’

‘I envy Yennefer . . . I envy her you—’

‘Ciri, step out.’

‘But—’

‘Go, please.’

She jumped out of the wagon and straight onto Yarpen who was waiting, leaning against a wheel and pensively chewing a blade of grass. The dwarf put his arm around her. He did not need to lean over in order to do so, as Geralt did. He was no taller than her.

‘Never make the same mistake, little witcher-girl,’ he murmured, indicating the wagon with his eyes. ‘If someone shows you compassion, sympathy and dedication, if they surprise you with integrity of character, value it but don’t mistake it for . . . something else.’

‘It’s not nice to eavesdrop.’

‘I know. And it’s dangerous. I only just managed to jump aside when you threw out the suds from the bucket. Come on, let’s go and see how many trout have jumped into Regan’s breeches.’

‘Yarpen?’

‘Huh?’

‘I like you.’

‘And I like you, kid.’

‘But you’re a dwarf. And I’m not.’

‘And what diff—Ah, the Scoia’tael. You’re thinking about the Squirrels, aren’t you? It’s not giving you any peace, is it?’

Ciri freed herself from his heavy arm.

‘Nor you,’ she said. ‘Nor any of the others. I can plainly see that.’

The dwarf said nothing.

‘Yarpen?’

‘Yes?’

‘Who’s right? The Squirrels or you? Geralt wants to be . . . neutral. You serve King Henselt even though you’re a dwarf. And the knight in the fort shouted that everybody’s our enemy and that everyone’s got to be . . . Everyone. Even the children. Why, Yarpen? Who’s right?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the dwarf with some effort. ‘I’m not omniscient. I’m doing what I think right. The Squirrels have taken up their weapons and gone into the woods. “Humans to the sea,” they’re shouting, not realising that their catchy slogan was fed them by Nilfgaardian emissaries. Not understanding that the slogan is not aimed at them but plainly at humans, that it’s meant to ignite human hatred, not fire young elves to battle. I understood – that’s why I consider the Scoia’tael’s actions criminally stupid. What to do? Maybe in a few years time I’ll be called a traitor who sold out and they’ll be heroes . . . Our history, the history of our world, has seen events turn out like that.’

He fell silent, ruffled his beard. Ciri also remained silent.

‘Elirena . . .’ he muttered suddenly. ‘If Elirena was a hero, if what she did is heroism, then that’s just too bad. Let them call me a traitor and a coward. Because I, Yarpen Zigrin, coward, traitor and renegade, state that we should not kill each other. I state that we ought to live. Live in such a way that we don’t, later, have to ask anyone for forgiveness. The heroic Elirena . . . She had to ask. Forgive me, she begged, forgive me. To hell with that! It’s better to die than to live in the knowledge that you’ve done something that needs forgiveness.’

Again he fell quiet. Ciri did not ask the questions pressing to her lips. She instinctively felt she should not.

‘We have to live next to each other,’ Yarpen continued. ‘We and you, humans. Because we simply don’t have any other option. We’ve known this for two hundred years and we’ve been working towards it for over a hundred. You want to know why I entered King Henselt’s service, why I made such a decision? I can’t allow all that work to go to waste. For over a hundred years we’ve been trying to come to terms with the humans. The halflings, gnomes, us, even the elves – I’m not talking about rusalkas, nymphs and sylphs, they’ve always been savages, even when you weren’t here. Damn it all, it took a hundred years but, somehow or other, we managed to live a common life, next to each other, together. We managed to partially convince humans that we’re not so very different—’

‘We’re not different at all, Yarpen.’

The dwarf turned abruptly.

‘We’re not different at all,’ repeated Ciri. ‘After all, you think and feel like Geralt. And like . . . like I do. We eat the same things, from the same pot. You help Triss and so do I. You had a grandmother and I had a grandmother . . . My grandmother was killed by the Nilfgaardians. In Cintra.’

‘And mine by the humans,’ the dwarf said with some effort. ‘In Brugge. During the pogrom.’

* ‘Riders!’ shouted one of Wenck’s advance guards. ‘Riders ahead!’

The commissar trotted up to Yarpen’s wagon and Geralt approached from the other side.

‘Get in the back, Ciri,’ he said brusquely. ‘Get off the box and get in the back! Stay with Triss.’

‘I can’t see anything from there!’

‘Don’t argue!’ growled Yarpen. ‘Scuttle back there and be quick about it! And hand me the martel. It’s under the sheepskin.’

‘This?’ Ciri held up a heavy, nasty-looking object, like a hammer with a sharp, slightly curved hook at its head.

‘That’s it,’ confirmed the dwarf. He slipped the handle into the top of his boot and laid the axe on his knees. Wenck, seeming calm, watched the highway while sheltering his eyes with his hand.

‘Light cavalry from Ban Gleán,’ he surmised after a while. ‘The so-called Dun Banner – I recognise them by their cloaks and beaver hats. Remain calm. And stay sharp. Cloaks and beaver hats can be pretty quick to change owners.’

The riders approached swiftly. There were about ten of them. Ciri saw Paulie Dahlberg, in the wagon behind her, place two readied crossbows on his knee and Regan covered them with a cloak. Ciri crept stealthily out from under the canvas, hiding behind Yarpen’s broad back. Triss tried to raise herself, swore and collapsed against her bedding.

‘Halt!’ shouted the first of the riders, no doubt their leader. ‘Who are you? From whence and to where do you ride?’

‘Who asks?’ Wenck calmly pulled himself upright in the saddle. ‘And on whose authority?’

‘King Henselt’s army, inquisitive sir! Lance-corporal Zyvik asks, and he is unused to asking twice! So answer at the double! Who are you?’

‘Quartermaster’s service of the King’s army.’

‘Anyone could claim that! I see no one here bearing the King’s colours!’

‘Come closer, lance-corporal, and examine this ring.’

‘Why flash a ring at me?’ The soldier grimaced. ‘Am I supposed to know every ring, or something? Anyone could have a ring like that. Some significant sign!’

Yarpen Zigrin stood up in the box, raised his axe and with a swift move pushed it under the soldier’s nose.

‘And this sign,’ he snarled. ‘You know it? Smell it and remember how it smells.’

The lance-corporal yanked the reins and turned his horse. ‘Threaten me, do you?’ he roared. ‘Me? I’m in the king’s service!’

‘And so are we,’ said Wenck quietly. ‘And have been for longer than you at that, I’m sure. I warn you, trooper, don’t overdo it.’

‘I’m on guard here! How am I to know who you are?’

‘You saw the ring,’ drawled the commissar. ‘And if you didn’t recognise the sign on the jewel then I wonder who you are. The colours of your unit bear the same emblem so you ought to know it.’

The soldier clearly restrained himself, influenced, no doubt, equally by Wenck’s calm words and the serious, determined faces peering from the escort’s carts.

‘Hmm . . .’ he said, shifting his fur-hat towards his left ear. ‘Fine. But if you truly are who you claim to be, you will not, I trust, have anything against my having a look to see what you carry in the wagons.’

‘We will indeed.’ Wenck frowned. ‘And very much, at that. Our load is not your business, lance-corporal. Besides, I do not understand what you think you may find there.’

‘You do not understand.’ The soldier nodded, lowering his hand towards the hilt of his sword. ‘So I shall tell you, sir. Human trafficking is forbidden and there is no lack of scoundrels selling slaves to the Nilfgaardians. If I find humans in stocks in your wagons, you will not convince me that you are in the king’s service. Even if you were to show me a dozen rings.’

‘Fine,’ said Wenck dryly. ‘If it is slaves you are looking for then look. You have my permission.’

The soldier cantered to the wagon in the middle, leaned over from the saddle and raised the canvas.

‘What’s in those barrels?’

‘What do you expect? Prisoners?’ sneered Yannick Brass, sprawled in the coachman’s box.

‘I am asking you what’s in them, so answer me!’

‘Salt fish.’

‘And in those trunks there?’ The warrior rode up to the next wagon and kicked the side.

‘Hooves,’ snapped Paulie Dahlberg. ‘And there, in the back, are buffalo skins.’

‘So I see.’ The lance-corporal waved his hand, smacked his lips at his horse, rode up to the vanguard and peered into Yarpen’s wagon.

‘And who is that woman lying there?’

Triss Merigold smiled weakly, raised herself to her elbow and traced a short, complicated sign with her hand.

‘Who am I?’ she asked in a quiet voice. ‘But you can’t see me at all.’

The soldier winked nervously, shuddered slightly.

‘Salt fish,’ he said, convinced, lowering the canvas. ‘All is in order. And this child?’

‘Dried mushrooms,’ said Ciri looking at him impudently. The soldier fell silent, frozen with his mouth open.

‘What’s that?’ he asked after a while, frowning. ‘What?’

‘Have you concluded your inspection, warrior?’ Wenck showed cool interest as he rode up on the other side of the cart. The soldier could barely look away from Ciri’s green eyes.

‘I have concluded it. Drive on, and may the gods guide you. But be on your guard. Two days ago, the Scoia’tael wiped out an entire mounted patrol up by Badger Ravine. It was a strong, large command. It’s true that Badger Ravine is far from here but elves travel through the forest faster than the wind. We were ordered to round them up, but how do you catch an elf? It’s like trying to catch the wind—’

‘Good, enough, we’re not interested,’ the commissar interrupted him brusquely. ‘Time presses and we still have a long journey ahead of us.’

‘Fare you well then. Hey, follow me!’

‘You heard, Geralt?’ snarled Yarpen Zigrin, watching the patrol ride away. ‘There are bloody Squirrels in the vicinity. I felt it. I’ve got this tingling feeling in my back all the time as if some archer was already aiming at me. No, damn it, we can’t travel blindly as we’ve been doing until now, whistling away, dozing and sleepily farting. We have to know what lies ahead of us. Listen, I’ve an idea.’

Ciri pulled her chestnut up sharply, and then launched into a gallop, leaning low in the saddle. Geralt, engrossed in conversation with Wenck, suddenly sat up straight.

‘Don’t run wild!’ he called. ‘No madness, girl! Do you want to break your neck? And don’t go too far—’

She heard no more – she had torn ahead too fiercely. She had done it on purpose, not wanting to listen to the daily cautions. Not too quickly, not too fiercely, Ciri! Pah-pah. Don’t go too far! Pah-pah-pah . Be careful! Pah-pah! Exactly as if I were a child, she thought. And I’m almost thirteen and have a swift chestnut beneath me and a sharp sword across my back. And I’m not afraid of anything!

And it’s spring!

‘Hey, careful, you’ll burn your backside!’

Yarpen Zigrin. Another know-it-all. Pah-pah!

Further, further, at a gallop, along the bumpy path, through the green, green grasses and bushes, through the silver puddles, through the damp golden sand, through the feathery ferns. A frightened fallow deer disappeared into the woods, flashing the black and white lantern of its tail and rump as it skipped away. Birds soared up from the trees – colourful jays and bee-eaters, screaming black magpies with their funny tails. Water splashed beneath her horse’s hooves in the puddles and the clefts.

Further, even further! The horse, which had been trudging sluggishly behind the wagon for too long, carried her joyously and briskly; happy to be allowed speed, it ran fluidly, muscles playing between her thighs, damp mane thrashing her face. The horse extended its neck as Ciri gave it free rein. Further, dear horse, don’t feel the bit, further, at the gallop, at the gallop, sharp, sharp! Spring!

She slowed and glanced back. There, alone at last. Far away at last. No one was going to tell her off any more, remind her of something, demand her attention, threaten that this would be the end of such rides. Alone at last, free, at ease and independent.

Slower. A light trot. After all, this wasn’t just a fun ride, she also had responsibilities. Ciri was, after all, a mounted foray now, a patrol, an advance guard. Ha, she thought, looking around, the safety of the entire convoy depends on me now. They’re all waiting impatiently for me to return and report: the way is clear and passable, I didn’t see anyone – there are no traces of wheels or hooves. I’ll report it, and thin Master Wenck with his cold, blue eyes will nod his head gravely, Yarpen Zigrin will bare his yellow, horse teeth, Paulie Dahlberg will shout: ‘Well done, little one!’, and Geralt will smile faintly. He’ll smile, although he very rarely smiles recently.

Ciri looked around and took a mental note. Two felled birches – no problem. A heap of branches – nothing the wagons couldn’t pass. A cleft washed out by the rain – a small obstacle, the wheels of the first wagon will run over it, the others will follow in the ruts. A huge clearing – a good place for a rest . . .

Traces? What traces can there be here? There’s no one here. There’s the forest. There are birds screeching amidst fresh, green leaves. A red fox runs leisurely across the path . . . And everything smells of spring.

The track broke off halfway up the hill, disappeared in the sandy ravine, wound through the crooked pines which clung to the slopes. Ciri abandoned the path and, wanting to scrutinise the area from a height, climbed the steep slope. And so she could touch the wet, sweet-smelling leaves . . .

She dismounted, threw the reins over a snag in a tree and slowly strolled among the junipers which covered the hill. On the other side of the hill was an open space, gaping in the thick of the forest like a hole bitten out of the trees – left, no doubt, after a fire which had raged here a very long time ago, for there was no sign of blackened or charred remains, everywhere was green with low birches and little fir trees. The trail, as far as the eye could see, seemed clear and passable.

And safe.

What are they afraid of? she thought. The Scoia’tael? But what was there to be afraid of? I’m not frightened of elves. I haven’t done anything to them.

Elves. The Squirrels. Scoia’tael.

Before Geralt had ordered her to leave, Ciri had managed to take a look at the corpses in the fort. She remembered one in particular – his face covered by hair stuck together with darkened blood, his neck unnaturally twisted and bent. Pulled back in a ghastly, set grimace, his upper lip revealed teeth, very white and very tiny, non-human. She remembered the elf’s boots, ruined and reaching up to the knees, laced at the bottom and fastened at the top with many wrought buckles.

Elves who kill humans and die in battles themselves. Geralt says you have to remain neutral . . . And Yarpen says you have to behave in such a way that you don’t have to ask for forgiveness . . .

She kicked a molehill and, lost in thought, dug her heel into the sand.

Who and whom, whom and what should one forgive?

The Squirrels kill humans. And Nilfgaard pays them for it. Uses them. Incites them. Nilfgaard.

Ciri had not forgotten – although she very much wanted to forget – what had happened in Cintra. The wandering, the despair, the fear, the hunger and the pain. The apathy and torpor, which came later, much later when the druids from Transriver had found her and taken her in. She remembered it all as though through a mist, and she wanted to stop remembering it.

But it came back. Came back in her thoughts, into her dreams. Cintra. The thundering of horses and the savage cries, corpses, flames . . . And the black knight in his winged helmet . . . And later . . . Cottages in Transriver . . . A flame-blackened chimney amongst charred ruins . . . Next to it, by an unscathed well, a black cat licking a terrible burn on its side. A well . . . A sweep . . . A bucket . . .

A bucket full of blood.

Ciri wiped her face, looked down at her hand, taken aback. Her palm was wet. The girl sniffed and wiped the tears with her sleeve.

Neutrality? Indifference? She wanted to scream. A witcher looking on indifferently? No! A witcher has to defend people. From the leshy, the vampire, the werewolf. And not only from them. He has to defend people from every evil. And in Transriver I saw what evil is.

A witcher has to defend and save. To defend men so that they aren’t hung on trees by their hands, aren’t impaled and left to die. To defend fair girls from being spread-eagled between stakes rammed into the ground. Defend children so they aren’t slaughtered and thrown into a well. Even a cat burned alive in a torched barn deserves to be defended. That’s why I’m going to become a witcher, that’s why I’ve got a sword, to defend people like those in Sodden and Transriver – because they don’t have swords, don’t know the steps, half-turns, dodges and pirouettes. No one has taught them how to fight, they are defenceless and helpless in face of the werewolf and the Nilfgaardian marauder. They’re teaching me to fight so that I can defend the helpless. And that’s what I’m going to do. Never will I be neutral. Never will I be indifferent.

Never!

She didn’t know what warned her – whether it was the sudden silence which fell over the forest like a cold shadow, or a movement caught out of the corner of her eye. But she reacted in a flash, instinctively – with a reaction she had learnt in the woods of Transriver when, escaping from Cintra, she had raced against death. She fell to the ground, crawled under a juniper bush and froze, motionless. Just let the horse not neigh, she thought.

On the other side of the ravine something moved again; she saw a silhouette show faintly, hazily amidst the leaves. An elf peered cautiously from the thicket. Having thrown the hood from his head, he looked around for a moment, pricked up his ears and then, noiselessly and swiftly, moved along the ridge. After him, two more leaned out. And then others moved. Many of them. In single file. About half were on horseback – these rode slowly, straight in their saddles, focused and alert. For a moment she saw them all clearly and precisely as, in utter silence, they flowed across a bright breach in the wall of trees, framed against the background of the sky – before they disappeared, dissolved in the shimmering shadows of the wild forest. They vanished without a rustle or a sound, like ghosts. No horse tapped its hoof or snorted, no branch cracked under foot or hoof. The weapons slung across them did not clang.

They disappeared but Ciri did not move. She lay flat on the ground under the juniper bush, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. She knew that a frightened bird or animal could give her away, and a bird or animal could be frightened by any sound or movement – even the slightest, the most careful. She got up only when the woods had grown perfectly calm and the magpies chattered again among the trees where the elves had disappeared.

She rose only to find herself in a strong grip. A black, leather glove fell across her mouth, muffled the scream of fear.

‘Be quiet.’

‘Geralt?’

‘Quiet, I said.’

‘You saw them?’

‘I did.’

‘It’s them . . .’ she whispered. ‘The Scoia’tael. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Quick back to the horses. Watch your feet.’

They rode carefully and silently down the slope without returning to the trail; they remained in the thicket. Geralt looked around, alert. He did not allow her to ride independently; he did not give her the chestnut’s reins; he led the horse himself.

‘Ciri,’ he said suddenly. ‘Not a word about what we saw. Not to Yarpen, not to Wenck. Not to anybody. Understand?’

‘No,’ she grunted, lowering her head. ‘I don’t understand. Why shouldn’t I say anything? They have to be warned. Whose side are we on, Geralt? Whose side are we against? Who’s our friend and who’s our enemy?’

‘We’ll part with the convoy tomorrow,’ he said after a moment’s silence. ‘Triss is almost recovered. We’ll say goodbye and go our own way. We have problems of our own, our own worries and our own difficulties. Then, I hope, you’ll finally stop dividing the inhabitants of this world into friends and enemies.’

‘We’re to be . . . neutral? Indifferent, is that right? And if they attack . . .’

‘They won’t.’

‘And if—’

‘Listen to me.’ He turned to her. ‘Why do you think that such a vital load of gold and silver, King Henselt’s secret aid for Aedirn, is being escorted by dwarves and not humans? I saw an elf watching us from a tree yesterday. I heard them pass by our camp during the night. The Scoia’tael will not attack the dwarves, Ciri.’

‘But they’re here,’ she muttered. ‘They are. They’re moving around, surrounding us . . .’

‘I know why they’re here. I’ll show you.’

He turned the horse abruptly and threw the reins to her. She kicked the chestnut with her heels and moved away faster, but he motioned for her to stay behind him. They cut across the trail and reentered the wild forest. The witcher led, Ciri following in his tracks. Neither said anything. Not for a long time.

‘Look.’ Geralt held back his horse. ‘Look, Ciri.’

‘What is it?’ she sighed.

‘Shaerrawedd.’

In front of them, as far as the woods allowed them to see, rose smoothly hewn blocks of granite and marble with blunt corners, worn away by the winds, decorated with patterns long leached out by the rains, cracked and shattered by frost, split by tree roots. Amongst the trunks’ broken columns flashed white, arcades, the remains of ornamental friezes entwined with ivy, and wrapped in a thick layer of green moss.

‘This was . . . a castle?’

‘A palace. The elves didn’t build castles. Dismount, the horses won’t manage in the rubble.’

‘Who destroyed it all? Humans?’

‘No, they did. Before they left.’

‘Why?’

‘They knew they wouldn’t be coming back. It happened following their second clash with the humans, more than two hundred years ago. Before that, they used to leave towns untouched when they retreated. Humans used to build on the foundations left by the elves. That’s how Novigrad, Oxenfurt, Wyzima, Tretogor, Maribor and Cidaris were built. And Cintra.’

‘Cintra?’

He confirmed it with a nod of the head, not taking his eyes off the ruins.

‘They left,’ whispered Ciri, ‘but now they’re coming back. Why?’

‘To have a look.’

‘At what?’

Without a word he laid his hand on her shoulder and pushed her gently before him. They jumped down the marble stairs, climbing down holding on to the springy hazel, clusters of which had burst through every gap, every crevice in the moss-covered, cracked plates.

‘This was the centre of the palace, its heart. A fountain.’

‘Here?’ she asked, surprised, gazing at the dense thicket of alders and white birch trunks amongst the misshapen blocks and slabs. ‘Here? But there’s nothing there.’

‘Come.’

The stream feeding the fountain must have changed its course many times, patiently and constantly washing the marble blocks and alabaster plates which had sunk or fallen to form dams, once again changing the course of the current. As a result the whole area was divided up by shallow gullies. Here and there the water cascaded over the remains of the building, washing it clean of leaves, sand and litter. In these places, the marble, terracotta and mosaics were still as vibrant with colour, as fresh as if they had been lying there for three days, not two centuries.

Geralt leapt across the stream and went in amongst what remained of the columns. Ciri followed. They jumped off the ruined stairs and, lowering their heads, walked beneath the untouched arch of the arcade, half buried beneath a mound of earth. The witcher stopped and indicated with his hand. Ciri sighed loudly.

From rubble colourful with smashed terracotta grew an enormous rose bush covered with beautiful white-lilied flowers. Drops of dew as bright as silver glistened on the petals. The bush wove its shoots around a large slab of white stone and from it a sad, pretty face looked out at them; the downpours and snows had not yet managed to blur or wash away its delicate and noble features. It was a face which the chisels of plunderers digging out golden ornaments, mosaics and precious stones from the relief sculpture had not managed to disfigure.

‘Aelirenn,’ said Geralt after a long silence.

‘She’s beautiful,’ whispered Ciri, grabbing him by the hand. The witcher didn’t seem to notice. He stared at the sculpture and was far away, far away in a different world and time.

‘Aelirenn,’ he repeated after a while. ‘Known as Elirena by dwarves and humans. She led them into battle two hundred years ago. The elders of the elves were against it, they knew they had no chance. That they would not be able to pick themselves up after the defeat. They wanted to save their people, wanted to survive. They decided to destroy their towns and retreat to the inaccessible, wild mountains . . . and to wait. Elves live a long time, Ciri. By our time scale they are almost eternal. They thought humans were something that would pass, like a drought, like a heavy winter, or a plague of locust, after which comes rain, spring, a new harvest. They wanted to sit it out. Survive. They decided to destroy their towns and palaces, amongst them their pride – the beautiful Shaerrawedd. They wanted to weather out the storm but Elirena . . . Elirena stirred up the young. They took up arms and followed her into their last desperate battle. And they were massacred. Mercilessly massacred.’

Ciri did not say anything, staring at the beautiful, still face.

‘They died with her name on their lips,’ the witcher continued quietly. ‘Repeating her challenge, her cry, they died for Shaerrawedd. Because Shaerrawedd was a symbol. They died for this stone and marble . . . and for Aelirenn. Just as she promised them, they died with dignity, heroically and honourably. They saved their honour but they brought nothing but ruin as a result, condemned their own race to annihilation. Their own people. You remember what Yarpen told you? Those who rule the world and those who die out? He explained it to you coarsely but truly. Elves live for a long time, but only their youngsters are fertile, only the young can have offspring. And practically all the elven youngsters had followed Elirena. They followed Aelirenn, the White Rose of Shaerrawedd. We are standing in the ruins of her palace, by the fountain whose waters she listened to in the evenings. And these . . . these were her flowers.’

Ciri was silent. Geralt drew her to himself, put his arm around her.

‘Do you know now why the Scoia’tael were here, do you see what they wanted to look at? And do you understand why the elven and dwarven young must not be allowed to be massacred once again? Do you understand why neither you nor I are permitted to have a hand in this massacre? These roses flower all year round. They ought to have grown wild by now, but they are more beautiful than any rose in a tended garden. Elves continue to come to Shaerrawedd, Ciri. A variety of elves. The impetuous and the foolish ones for whom the cracked stone is a symbol as well as the sensible ones for whom these immortal, forever reborn flowers are a symbol. Elves who understand that if this bush is torn from the ground and the earth burned out, the roses of Shaerrawedd will never flower again. Do you understand?’

She nodded.

‘Do you understand what this neutrality is, which stirs you so? To be neutral does not mean to be indifferent or insensitive. You don’t have to kill your feelings. It’s enough to kill hatred within yourself. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I understand. Geralt, I . . . I’d like to take one . . . One of these roses. To remind me. May I?’

‘Do,’ he said after some hesitation. ‘Do, in order to remember. Let’s go now. Let’s return to the convoy.’

Ciri pinned the rose under the lacing of her jerkin. Suddenly she cried out quietly, lifted her hand. A trickle of blood ran from her finger down her palm.

‘Did you prick yourself?’

‘Yarpen . . .’ whispered the girl, looking at the blood filling her life-line. ‘Wenck . . . Paulie . . .’

‘What?’

‘Triss!’ she shouted with a piercing voice which was not hers, shuddered fiercely and wiped her face with her arm. ‘Quick, Geralt! We’ve got to help! To the horses, Geralt!’

‘Ciri! What’s happening?’

‘They’re dying!’

She galloped with her ear almost touching the horse’s neck and spurred her mount on, kicking with her heels and shouting. The sand of the forest path flew beneath the hooves. She heard screaming in the distance, and smelt smoke.

Coming straight at them, blocking the path, raced two horses dragging a harness, reins and a broken shaft behind them. Ciri did not hold her chestnut back and shot past them at full speed, flakes of froth skimming across her face. Behind her she heard Roach neigh and Geralt’s curses as he was forced to a halt.

She tore around a bend in the path in to a large glade.

The convoy was in flames. From thickets, flaming arrows flew towards the wagons like fire birds, perforating the canvas and digging into the boards. The Scoia’tael attacked with war-cries and yells.

Ciri, ignoring Geralt’s shouts from behind her, directed her horse straight at the first two wagons brought to the fore. One was lying on its side and Yarpen Zigrin, axe in one hand, crossbow in the other, stood next to it. At his feet, motionless, with her blue dress hitched halfway up her thighs, lay . . .

‘Triiiiiisss!’ Ciri straightened in the saddle, thumping her horse with her heels. The Scoia’tael turned towards her and arrows whistled past the girl’s ears. She shook her head without slowing her gallop. She heard Geralt shout, ordering her to flee into the woods. She did not intend to obey. She leaned down and bolted straight towards the archers shooting at her. Suddenly she smelt the overpowering scent of the white rose pinned to her jerkin.

‘Triiiiisss!’

The elves leaped out of the way of the speeding horses. Ciri caught one lightly with her stirrup. She heard a sharp buzz, her steed struggled, whinnied and threw itself to the side. Ciri saw an arrow dug deep, just below the withers, right by her thigh. She tore her feet from the stirrups, jumped up, squatted in the saddle, bounced off strongly and leaped.

She fell softly on the body of the overturned wagon, used her hands to balance herself and jumped again, landing with bent knees next to Yarpen who was roaring and brandishing his axe. Next to them, on the second wagon, Paulie Dahlberg was fighting while Regan, leaning back and bracing his legs against the board, was struggling to hold on to the harnessed horses. They neighed wildly, stamped their hooves and yanked at the shaft in fear of the fire devouring the canvas.

She rushed to Triss, who lay amongst the scattered barrels and chests, grabbed her by her clothes and started to drag her towards the overturned wagon. The enchantress moaned, holding her head just above the ear. Right by Ciri’s side, hooves suddenly clattered and horses snorted – two elves, brandishing their swords, were pressing the madly fighting Yarpen hard. The dwarf spun like a top and agilely deflected the blows directed against him with his axe. Ciri heard curses, grunts and the whining clang of metal.

Another span of horses detached itself from the flaming convoy and rushed towards them, dragging smoke and flames behind it and scattering burning rags. The wagon-man hung inertly from the box and Yannick Brass stood next to him, barely keeping his balance. With one hand he wielded the reins, with the other he was cutting himself away from two elves galloping one at each side of the wagon. A third Scoia’tael, keeping up with the harnessed horses, was shooting arrow after arrow into their sides.

‘Jump!’ yelled Yarpen, shouting over the noise. ‘Jump, Yannick!’

Ciri saw Geralt catch up with the speeding wagon and with a short, spare slash of his sword swipe one of the elves from his saddle while Wenck, riding up on the opposite side, hewed at the other, the elf shooting the horses. Yannick threw the reins down and jumped off – straight under the third Scoia’tael’s horse. The elf stood in his stirrups and slashed at him with his sword. The dwarf fell. At that moment the flaming wagon crashed into those still fighting, parting and scattering them. Ciri barely managed to pull Triss out from beneath the crazed horses’ hooves at the last moment. The swingle-tree tore away with a crack, the wagon leaped into the air, lost a wheel and overturned, scattering its load and smouldering boards everywhere.

Ciri dragged the enchantress under Yarpen’s overturned wagon. Paulie Dahlberg, who suddenly found himself next to her, helped, while Geralt covered them both, shoving Roach between them and the charging Scoia’tael. All around the wagon, battle seethed: Ciri heard shouting, blades clashing, horses snorting, hooves clattering. Yarpen, Wenck and Geralt, surrounded on all sides by the elves, fought like raging demons.

The fighters were suddenly parted by Regan’s span as he struggled in the coachman’s box with a halfling wearing a lynx fur hat. The halfling was sitting on Regan trying to jab him with a long knife.

Yarpen deftly leaped onto the wagon, caught the halfling by the neck and kicked him overboard. Regan gave a piercing yell, grabbed the reins and lashed the horses. The span jerked, the wagon rolled and gathered speed in a flash.

‘Circle, Regan!’ roared Yarpen. ‘Circle! Go round!’

The wagon turned and descended on the elves again, parting them. One of them sprung up, grabbed the right lead-horse by the halter but couldn’t stop him; the impetus threw him under the hooves and wheels. Ciri heard an excruciating scream.

Another elf, galloping next to them, gave a backhanded swipe with his sword. Yarpen ducked, the blade rang against the hoop supporting the canvas and the momentum carried the elf forward. The dwarf hunched abruptly and vigorously swung his arm. The Scoia’tael yelled, stiffened in the saddle and tumbled to the ground. A martel protruded between his shoulder blades.

‘Come on then, you whoresons!’ Yarpen roared, whirling his axe. ‘Who else? Chase a circle, Regan! Go round!’

Regan, tossing his bloodied mane of hair, hunched in the box amidst the whizzing of arrows, howled like the damned, and mercilessly lashed the horses on. The span dashed in a tight circle, creating a moving barricade belching flames and smoke around the overturned wagon beneath which Ciri had dragged the semi-conscious, battered magician.

Not far from them danced Wenck’s horse, a mouse-coloured stallion. Wenck was hunched over; Ciri saw the white feathers of an arrow sticking out of his side. Despite the wound, he was skilfully hacking his way past two elves on foot, attacking him from both sides. As Ciri watched another arrow struck him in the back. The commissar collapsed forward onto his horse’s neck but remained in the saddle. Paulie Dahlberg rushed to his aid.

Ciri was left alone.

She reached for her sword. The blade which throughout her training had leaped out from her back in a flash would not let itself be drawn for anything; it resisted her, stuck in its scabbard as if glued in tar. Amongst the whirl seething around her, amongst moves so swift that they blurred in front of her eyes, her sword seemed strangely, unnaturally slow; it seemed ages would pass before it could be fully drawn. The ground trembled and shook. Ciri suddenly realised that it was not the ground. It was her knees.

Paulie Dahlberg, keeping the elf charging at him at bay with his axe, dragged the wounded Wenck along the ground. Roach flitted past, beside the wagon, and Geralt threw himself at the elf. He had lost his headband and his hair streamed out behind him with his speed. Swords clashed.

Another Scoia’tael, on foot, leaped out from behind the wagon. Paulie abandoned Wenck, pulled himself upright and brandished his axe. Then froze.

In front of him stood a dwarf wearing a hat adorned with a squirrel’s tail, his black beard braided into two plaits. Paulie hesitated.

The black-beard did not hesitate for a second. He struck with both arms. The blade of the axe whirred and fell, slicing into the collar-bone with a hideous crunch. Paulie fell instantly, without a moan; it looked as if the force of the blow had broken both his knees.

Ciri screamed.

Yarpen Zigrin leaped from the wagon. The black-bearded dwarf spun and cut. Yarpen avoided the blow with an agile half-turn dodge, grunted and struck ferociously, chopping in to black-beard – throat, jaw and face, right up to the nose. The Scoia’tael bent back and collapsed, bleeding, pounding his hands against the ground and tearing at the earth with his heels.

‘Geraaaallllttt!’ screamed Ciri, feeling something move behind her. Sensing death behind her.

There was only a hazy shape, caught in a turn, a move and a flash but the girl – like lightning – reacted with a diagonal parry and feint taught her in Kaer Morhen. She caught the blow but had not been standing firmly enough, had been leaning too far to the side to receive the full force. The strength of the strike threw her against the body of the wagon. Her sword slipped from her hand.

The beautiful, long-legged elf wearing high boots standing in front of her grimaced fiercely and, tossing her hair free of her lowered hood, raised her sword. The sword flashed blindingly, the bracelets on the Squirrel’s wrists glittered.

Ciri was in no state to move.

But the sword did not fall, did not strike. Because the elf was not looking at Ciri but at the white rose pinned to her jerkin.

‘Aelirenn!’ shouted the Squirrel loudly as if wanting to shatter her hesitation with the cry. But she was too late. Geralt, shoving Ciri away, slashed her broadly across the chest with his sword. Blood spurted over the girl’s face and clothes, red drops spattered on the white petals of the rose.

‘Aelirenn . . .’ moaned the elf shrilly, collapsing to her knees. Before she fell on her face, she managed to shout one more time. Loudly, lengthily, despairingly:

‘Shaerraweeeeedd !’

Reality returned just as suddenly as it had disappeared. Through the monotonous, dull hum which filled her ears, Ciri began to hear voices. Through the flickering, wet curtain of tears, she began to see the living and the dead.

‘Ciri,’ whispered Geralt who was kneeling next to her. ‘Wake up.’

‘A battle . . .’ she moaned, sitting up. ‘Geralt, what—’

‘It’s all over. Thanks to the troops from Ban Gleán which came to our aid.’

‘You weren’t . . .’ she whispered, closing her eyes, ‘you weren’t neutral . . .’

‘No, I wasn’t. But you’re alive. Triss is alive.’

‘How is she?’

‘She hit her head falling out of the wagon when Yarpen tried to rescue it. But she’s fine now. Treating the wounded.’

Ciri cast her eyes around. Amidst the smoke from the last wagons, burning out, silhouettes of armed men flickered. And all around lay chests and barrels. Some of were shattered and the contents scattered. They had contained ordinary, grey field stones. She stared at them, astounded.

‘Aid for Demawend from Aedirn.’ Yarpen Zigrin, standing nearby, ground his teeth. ‘Secret and exceptionally important aid. A convoy of special significance!’

‘It was a trap?’

The dwarf turned, looked at her, at Geralt. Then he looked back at the stones pouring from the barrels and spat.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘A trap.’

‘For the Squirrels?’

‘No.’

The dead were arranged in a neat row. They lay next to each other, not divided – elves, humans and dwarves. Yannick Brass was amongst them. The dark-haired elf in the high boots was there. And the dwarf with his black, plaited beard, glistening with dried blood. And next to them . . .

‘Paulie!’ sobbed Regan Dahlberg, holding his brother’s head on his knees. ‘Paulie! Why?’

No one said anything. No one. Even those who knew why. Regan turned his contorted face, wet with tears, towards them.

‘What will I tell our mother?’ he wailed. ‘What am I going to say to her?’

No one said anything.

Not far away, surrounded by soldiers in the black and gold of Kaedwen, lay Wenck. He was breathing with difficulty and every breath forced bubbles of blood to his lips. Triss knelt next to him and a knight in shining armour stood over them both.

‘Well?’ asked the knight. ‘Lady enchantress? Will he live?’

‘I’ve done everything I can.’ Triss got to her feet, pinched her lips. ‘But . . .’

‘What?’

‘They used this.’ She showed him an arrow with a strange head to it and struck it against a barrel standing by them. The tip of the arrow fell apart, split into four barbed, hook-like needles. The knight cursed.

‘Fredegard . . .’ Wenck uttered with difficulty. ‘Fredegard, listen—’

‘You mustn’t speak!’ said Triss severely. ‘Or move! The spell is barely holding!’

‘Fredegard,’ the commissar repeated. A bubble of blood burst on his lips and another immediately appeared in its place. ‘We were wrong . . . Everyone was wrong. It’s not Yarpen . . . We suspected him wrongly . . . I vouch for him. Yarpen did not betray . . . Did not betr—’

‘Silence!’ shouted the knight. ‘Silence, Vilfrid! Hey, quick now, bring the stretcher! Stretcher!’ ‘No need,’ the magician said hollowly, gazing at Wenck’s lips

where no more bubbles appeared. Ciri turned away and pressed her face to Geralt’s side.

Fredegard drew himself up. Yarpen Zigrin did not look at him. He was looking at the dead. At Regan Dahlberg still kneeling over his brother.

‘It was necessary, Zigrin,’ said the knight. ‘This is war. There was an order. We had to be sure . . .’

Yarpen did not say anything. The knight lowered his eyes.

‘Forgive us,’ he whispered.

The dwarf slowly turned his head, looked at him. At Geralt. At Ciri. At them all. The humans.

‘What have you done to us?’ he asked bitterly. ‘What have you done to us? What have you made of us?’

No one answered him.

The eyes of the long-legged elf were glassy and dull. Her contorted lips were frozen in a soundless cry.

Geralt put his arms around Ciri. Slowly, he unpinned the white rose, spattered with dark stains, from her jerkin and, without a word, threw it on the Squirrel’s body.

‘Farewell,’ whispered Ciri. ‘Farewell, Rose of Shaerrawedd. Farewell and . . .’

‘And forgive us,’ added the witcher.

They roam the land, importunate and insolent, nominating themselves the stalkers of evil, vanquishers of werewolves and exterminators of spectres, extorting payment from the gullible and, on receipt of their ignoble earnings, moving on to dispense the same deceit in the near vicinity. The easiest access they find at cottages of honest, simple and unwitting peasants who readily ascribe all misfortune and ill events to spells, unnatural creatures and monsters, the doings of windsprites or evil spirits. Instead of praying to the gods, instead of bearing rich offerings to the temple, such a simpleton is ready to give his last penny to the base witcher, believing the witcher, the godless changeling, will turn around his fate and save him from misfortune.

Anonymous, Monstrum, or Description of the Witcher

I have nothing against witchers. Let them hunt vampires. As long as they pay taxes.

Radovid III the Bold, King of Redania

If you thirst for justice, hire a witcher.

Grafitti on the wall of the Faculty of Law, University of Oxenfurt

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Did you say something?’

The boy sniffed and pushed his over-sized velvet hat, a pheasant’s feather hanging rakishly to the side, back from his forehead.

‘Are you a knight?’ he repeated, gazing at Geralt with wide eyes as blue as the sky.

‘No,’ replied the witcher, surprised that he felt like answering. ‘I’m not.’

‘But you’ve got a sword! My daddy’s one of King Foltest’s knights. He’s got a sword, too. Bigger than yours!’

Geralt leaned his elbows on the railing and spat into the water eddying at the barge’s wake.

‘You carry it on your back,’ the little snot persisted. The hat slipped down over his eyes again.

‘What?’

‘The sword. On your back. Why have you got the sword on your back?’

‘Because someone stole my oar.’

The little snot opened his mouth, demanding that the impressive gaps left by milk teeth be admired.

‘Move away from the side,’ said the witcher. ‘And shut your mouth or flies will get in.’

The boy opened his mouth even wider.

‘Grey-haired yet stupid!’ snarled the little snot’s mother, a richly attired noblewoman, pulling her offspring away by the beaver collar of his cloak. ‘Come here, Everett! I’ve told you so many times not to be familiar with the passing rabble!’

Geralt sighed, gazing at the outline of islands and islets looming through the morning mist. The barge, as ungainly as a tortoise, trudged along at an appropriate speed – that being the speed of a tortoise – dictated by the lazy Delta current. The passengers, mostly merchants and peasants, were dozing on their baggage. The witcher unfurled the scroll once more and returned to Ciri’s letter.

. . . I sleep in a large hall called a Dormitorium and my bed is terribly big, I tell you. I’m with the Intermediary Girls. There are twelve of us but I’m most friendly with Eurneid, Katye and Iola the Second. Whereas today I Ate Broth and the worst is that sometimes we have to Fast and get up very early at Dawn. Earlier than in Kaer Morhen. I will write the rest tomorrow for we shall presently be having Prayers. No one ever prayed in Kaer Morhen, I wonder why we have to here. No doubt because this is a Temple.

Geralt. Mother Nenneke has read and said I must not write Silly Things and write clearly without mistakes. And about what I’m studying and that I feel well and healthy. I feel well and am healthy if unfortunately Hungry, but Soone be Dinner. And Mother Nenneke also said write that prayer has never harmed anybody yet, neither me nor, certainly, you.

Geralt, I have some free time again, I will write therefore that I am studying. To read and write correct Runes. History. Nature. Poetry and Prose. To express myself well in the Common Speech and in the Elder Speech. I am best at the Elder Speech, I can also write Elder Runes. I will write something for you and you will see for yourself. Elaine blath, Feainnewedd. That meant: Beautiful flower, child of the Sun. You see for yourself that I can. And also—

Now I can write again for I have found a new quill for the old one broke. Mother Nenneke read this and praised me that it was correct. That I am obedient, she told me to write, and that you should not worry. Don’t worry, Geralt.

Again I have some time so I will write what happened. When we were feeding the turkey hens, I, Iola and Katye, One Enormous Turkey attacked us, a red neck it had and was Terrible Horrible. First it attacked Iola and then it wanted to attack me but I was not afraid because it was smaller and slower than the Pendulum anyway. I dodged and did a pirouette and walloped it twice with a switch until it Made Off. Mother Nenneke does not allow me to carry My Sword here, a pity, for I would have shown that Turkey what I learned in Kaer Morhen. I already know that in the Elder Runes it would be written Caer a’Muirehen and that it means Keep of the Elder Sea. So no doubt that is why there are Shells and Snails there as well as Fish imprinted on the stones. And Cintra is correctly written Xin’trea. Whereas my name comes from Zireael for that means Swallow and that means that . . .

‘Are you busy reading?’

He raised his head.

‘I am. So? Has anything happened? Someone noticed something?’

‘No, nothing,’ replied the skipper, wiping his hands on his leather jerkin. ‘There’s calm on the water. But there’s a mist and we’re already near Crane Islet—’

‘I know. It’s the sixth time I’ve sailed this way, Boatbug, not counting the return journeys. I’ve come to know the trail. My eyes are open, don’t worry.’

The skipper nodded and walked away to the prow, stepping over travellers’ packages and bundles stacked everywhere. Squeezed in amidships, the horses snorted and pounded their hooves on the deck-boards. They were in the middle of the current, in dense fog. The prow of the barge ploughed the surface of water lilies, parting their clumps. Geralt turned back to his reading.

. . . that means I have an elven name. But I am not, after all, an elf, Geralt, there is also talk about the Squirrels here. Sometimes even the Soldiers come and ask questions and say that we must not treat wounded elves. I have not squealed a word to anyone about what happened in spring, don’t worry. And I also remember to practise, don’t think otherwise. I go to the park and train when I have time. But not always, for I also have to work in the kitchen or in the orchard like all the girls. And we also have a terrible amount of studying to do. But never mind, I will study. After all, you too studied in the Temple, Mother Nenneke told me. And she also told me that just any idiot can brandish a sword but a witcher-girl must be wise.

Geralt, you promised to come. Come.

Your Ciri

PS Come, come.

PS II. Mother Nenneke told me to end with Praise be to Great Melitele, may her blessing and favour always go with you. And may nothing happen to you.

Ciri

I’d like to go to Ellander, he thought, putting away the letter. But it’s dangerous. I might lead them to—These letters have got to end. Nenneke makes use of temple mail but still . . . Damn it, it’s too risky.

‘Hmmm . . . Hmm . . .’

‘What now, Boatbug? We’ve passed Crane Islet.’

‘And without incident, thank the gods,’ sighed the skipper. ‘Ha, Geralt, I see this is going to be another peaceful trip. Any moment now the mist is going to clear and when the sun peeps through, the fear is over. The monster won’t show itself in the sunlight.’

‘That won’t worry me in the least.’

‘So I should think.’ Boatbug smiled wryly. ‘The company pays you by the trip. Regardless whether something happens or not a penny falls into your pouch, doesn’t it?’

‘You ask as if you didn’t know. What is this – envy talking? That I earn money standing leaning against the side, watching the lapwings? And what do you get paid for? The same thing. For being on board. When everything is going smoothly you haven’t got anything to do. You stroll from prow to stern, grinning at the women or trying to entice merchants to have a drink. I’ve been hired to be on board too. Just in case. The transport is safe because a witcher is on board. The cost of the witcher is included in the price of the trip, right?’

‘Well, that certainly is true,’ sighed the skipper. ‘The company won’t lose out. I know them well. This is the fifth year I sail the Delta for them from Foam to Novigrad, from Novigrad to Foam. Well, to work, witcher, sir. You go on leaning against the side and I’ll go for a stroll from prow to stern.’

The mist thinned a little. Geralt extracted another letter from his bag, one he had recently received from a strange courier. He had already read it about thirty times.

Dear friend . . .

The witcher swore quietly, looking at the sharp, angular, even runes drawn with energetic sweeps of the pen, faultlessly reflecting the author’s mood. He felt once again the desire to try to bite his own backside in fury. When he was writing to the enchantress a month ago he had spent two nights in a row contemplating how best to begin. Finally, he had decided on ‘Dear friend’. Now he had his just deserts.

Dear friend, your unexpected letter – which I received not quite three years after we last saw each other – has given me much joy. My joy is all the greater as various rumours have been circulating about your sudden and violent death. It is a good thing that you have decided to disclaim them by writing to me; it is a good thing, too, that you are doing so so soon. From your letter it appears that you have lived a peaceful, wonderfully boring life, devoid of all sensation. These days such a life is a real privilege, dear friend, and I am happy that you have managed to achieve it.

I was touched by the sudden concern which you deigned to show as to my health, dear friend. I hasten with the news that, yes, I now feel well; the period of indisposition is behind me, I have dealt with the difficulties, the description of which I shall not bore you with.

It worries and troubles me very much that the unexpected present you received from Fate brings you worries. Your supposition that this requires professional help is absolutely correct. Although your description of the difficulty – quite understandably – is enigmatic, I am sure I know the Source of the problem. And I agree with your opinion that the help of yet another magician is absolutely necessary. I feel honoured to be the second to whom you turn. What have I done to deserve to be so high on your list?

Rest assured, my dear friend; and if you had the intention of supplicating the help of additional magicians, abandon it because there is no need. I leave without delay, and go to the place which you indicated in an oblique yet, to me, understandable way. It goes without saying that I leave in absolute secrecy and with great caution. I will surmise the nature of the trouble on the spot and will do all that is in my power to calm the gushing source. I shall try, in so doing, not to appear any worse than other ladies to whom you have turned, are turning or usually turn with your supplications. I am, after all, your dear friend. Your valuable friendship is too important to me to disappoint you, dear friend.

Should you, in the next few years, wish to write to me, do not hesitate for a moment. Your letters invariably give me boundless pleasure.

Your friend Yennefer

The letter smelled of lilac and gooseberries.

Geralt cursed.

He was torn from his reverie by the movement on deck and a rocking of the barge that indicated they were changing course. Some of the passengers crowded starboard. Skipper Boatbug was yelling orders from the bow; the barge was slowly and laboriously turning towards the Temerian shore, leaving the fairway and ceding right of way to two ships looming through the mist. The witcher watched with curiosity.

The first was an enormous three-masted galliass at least a hundred and forty yards long, carrying an amaranth flag with a silver eagle. Behind it, its forty oars rhythmically hard at work, glided a smaller, slim galley adorned with a black ensign with gold-red chevron.

‘Ooohh, what huge dragons,’ said Boatbug standing next to the witcher. ‘They’re pushing a heck of a wave, the way they’re ploughing the river.’

‘Interesting,’ muttered Geralt. ‘The galliass is sailing under the Redanian flag but the galley is from Aedirn.’

‘From Aedirn, very much so,’ confirmed the skipper. ‘And it carries the Governor of Hagge’s pennon. But note, both ships have sharp keels, near on four yards’ draught. That means they’re not sailing to Hagge itself – they wouldn’t cross the rapids and shallows up the river. They’re heading to Foam or White Bridge. And look, there are swarms of soldiers on the decks. These aren’t merchants. They’re war ships, Geralt.’

‘Someone important is on that galliass. They’ve set up a tent on deck.’

‘That’s right, that’s how the nobles travel.’ Boatbug nodded, picking his teeth with a splinter peeled from the barge’s side. ‘It’s safer by river. Elven commandos are roaming the forests. There’s no knowing which tree an arrow’s going to come flying from. But on the water there’s no fear. Elves, like cats, don’t like water. They prefer dwelling in brushwood . . .’

‘It’s got to be someone really important. The tent is rich.’

‘That’s right, could be. Who knows, maybe King Vizimir himself is favouring the river with his presence? All sorts of people are travelling this way now . . . And while we’re at it, in Foam you asked me to keep my ears open in case anyone was interested in you, asking about you. Well, that weakling there, you see him?’

‘Don’t point, Boatbug. Who is he?’

‘How should I know? Ask him yourself, he’s coming over. Just look at his stagger! And the water’s as still as a mirror, pox on it; if it were to swell just a little he’d probably be on all fours, the oaf.’

The ‘oaf ’ turned out to be a short, thin man of uncertain age, dressed in a large, woollen and none-too-clean cloak pinned in place with a circular brass broach. Its pin, clearly lost, had been replaced by a crooked nail with a flattened head. The man approached, cleared his throat and squinted with his myopic eyes.

‘Hmm . . . Do I have the pleasure of speaking to Geralt of Rivia, the witcher?’

‘Yes, sir. You do.’

‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Linus Pitt, Master Tutor and Lecturer in Natural History at the Oxenfurt Academy.’

‘My very great pleasure.’

‘Hmm . . . I’ve been told that you, sir, are on commission from the Malatius and Grock Company to protect this transport. Apparently from the danger of some monster attack. I wonder what this “monster” could be.’

‘I wonder myself.’ The witcher leaned against the ship’s side, gazing at the dark outline of the marshy meadows on the Temerian river bank looming in the mist. ‘And have come to the conclusion that I have most likely been hired as a precaution against an attack from a Scoia’tael commando force said to be roaming the vicinity. This is my sixth journey between Foam and Novigrad and no aeschna has shown itself—’

‘Aeschna? That’s some kind of common name. I would rather you used the scientific terminology. Hmm . . . aeschna . . . I truly do not know which species you have in mind—’

‘I’m thinking of a bumpy and rough-skinned monster four yards in length resembling a stump overgrown with algae and with ten paws and jaws like cut-saws.’

‘The description leaves a lot to be desired as regards scientific precision. Could it be one of the species of the Hyphydridae family?’

‘I don’t exclude the possibility,’ sighed Geralt. ‘The aeschna, as far as I know, belongs to an exceptionally nasty family for which no name can be abusive. The thing is, Master Tutor, that apparently a member of this unsympathetic clan attacked the Company’s barge two weeks ago. Here, on the Delta, not far from where we are.’

‘He who says this’ – Linus Pitt gave a screeching laugh – ‘is either an ignoramus or a liar. Nothing like that could have happened. I know the fauna of the Delta very well. The family Hyphydridae does not appear here at all. Nor do any other quite so dangerous predatory species. The considerable salinity and atypical chemical composition of the water, especially during high tide—’

‘During high tide,’ interrupted Geralt, ‘when the incoming tide wave passes the Novigrad canals, there is no water – to use the word precisely – in the Delta at all. There is a liquid made up of excrement, soapsuds, oil and dead rats.’

‘Unfortunately, unfortunately.’ The Master Tutor grew sad. ‘Degradation of the environment . . . You may not believe it, but of more than two thousand species of fish living in this river only fifty years ago, not more than nine hundred remain. It is truly sad.’

They both leaned against the railing and stared into the murky green depths. The tide must have already been coming in because the stench of the water was growing stronger. The first dead rats appeared.

‘The white-finned bullhead has died off completely.’ Linus Pitt broke the silence. ‘The mullet has died, as have the snakehead, the kithara, the striped loach, the redbelly dace, the long-barbel gudgeon, the king pickerel . . .’

At a distance of about twenty yards from the ship’s side, the water surged. For a moment, both men saw a twenty-pound or more specimen of the king pickerel swallowing a dead rat and disappearing into the depths, having gracefully flashed its tail fin.

‘What was that?’ The Master Tutor shuddered.

‘I don’t know.’ Geralt looked at the sky. ‘A penguin maybe?’

The scholar glanced at him and bit his lips.

‘In all certainty it was not, however, your mythical aeschna! I have been told that witchers possess considerable knowledge about some rare species. But you, you not only repeat rumours and tales, you are also mocking me in a most crude manner . . . Are you listening to me at all?’

‘The mist isn’t going to lift,’ said Geralt quietly.

‘Huh?’

‘The wind is still weak. When we sail into the arm of the river, between the islets, it will be even weaker. It is going to be misty right up to Novigrad.’

‘I’m not going to Novigrad. I get off at Oxenfurt,’ declared Pitt dryly. ‘And the mist? It is surely not so thick as to render navigation impossible; what do you think?’

The little boy in the feathered hat ran past them and leaned far out, trying, with his stick, to fish out a rat bouncing against the boat. Geralt approached and tore the stick from him.

‘Scram. Don’t get near the side!’

‘Muuuummyyyy!’

‘Everett! Come here immediately!’

The Master Tutor pulled himself up and glared at the witcher with piercing eyes.

‘It seems you really do believe we are in some danger?’

‘Master Pitt,’ said Geralt as calmly as he could, ‘two weeks ago something pulled two people off the deck of one of the Company’s barges. In the mist. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was your hyphydra or whatever its name is. Maybe it was a long-barbel gudgeon. But I think it was an aeschna.

The scholar pouted. ‘Conjecture,’ he declared, ‘should always be based on solid scientific foundations, not on rumours and gossip. I told you, the hyphydra, which you persist in calling an aeschna, does not appear in the waters of the Delta. It was wiped out a good half-century ago, due – incidentally – to the activity of individuals such as yourself who are prepared to kill anything that does not instantly look right, without forethought, tests, observation or considering its ecological niche.’

For a moment, Geralt felt a sincere desire to tell the scholar where he could put the aeschna and its niche, but he changed his mind.

‘Master Tutor,’ he said calmly, ‘one of those pulled from the deck was a young pregnant girl. She wanted to cool her swollen feet in the water. Theoretically, her child could, one day, have become chancellor of your college. What do you have to say to such an approach to ecology?’

‘It is unscientific; it is emotional and subjective. Nature is governed by its own rules and although these rules are cruel and ruthless, they should not be amended. It is a struggle for survival !’ The Master Tutor leaned over the railing and spat into the water. ‘And nothing can justify the extermination of a species, even a predatory one. What do you say to that?’

‘I say that it’s dangerous to lean out like that. There might be an aeschna in the vicinity. Do you want to try out the aeschna’s struggle for survival on your own skin?’

Linus Pitt let go of the railing and abruptly jumped away. He turned a little pale but immediately regained his self-assurance and pursed his lips again.

‘No doubt you know a great deal about these fantastical aeschna, witcher?’

‘Certainly less than you. So maybe we should make use of the opportunity? Enlighten me, Master Tutor, expound a little upon your knowledge of aquatic predators. I’ll willingly listen, and the journey won’t seem so long.’

‘Are you making fun of me?’

‘Not at all. I would honestly like to fill in the gaps in my education.’

‘Hmmm . . . If you really . . . Why not? Listen then to me. The Hyphydridae family, belonging to the Amphipoda order, includes four species known to science. Two live exclusively in tropical waters. In our climate, on the other hand, one can come across – though very rarely now – the not-so-large Hyphydra longicauda and the somewhat larger Hyphydra marginata. The biotope of both species is stagnant water or water which flows very slowly. The species are, indeed, predatory, preferring to feed on warm-blooded creatures . . . Have you anything to add?’

‘Not right now. I’m listening with bated breath.’

‘Yes, hmm . . . Mention can also be found, in the great books, of the subspecies Pseudohyphydra, which lives in the marshy waters of Angren. However, the learned Bumbler of Aldersberg recently proved that this is an entirely different species, one from the Mordidae family. It feeds exclusively on fish and small amphibians. It has been named Ichtyovorax bumbleri.’

‘The monster’s lucky,’ smiled the witcher. ‘That’s the third time he was named.’

‘How come?’

‘The creature you’re talking about is an ilyocoris, called a cinerea in Elder Speech. And if the learned Bumbler states that it feeds exclusively on fish then I assume he has never bathed in a lake with an ilyocoris. But Bumbler is right on one account: the aeschna has as much in common with a cinerea as I do with a fox. We both like to eat duck.’

‘What cinerea?’ The Master Tutor bridled. ‘The cinerea is a mythical creature! Indeed, your lack of knowledge disappoints me. Truly, I am amazed—’

‘I know,’ interrupted Geralt. ‘I lose a great deal of my charm when one gets to know me better. Nevertheless I will permit myself to correct your theories a little further, Master Pitt. So, aeschnae have always lived in the Delta and continue to do so. Indeed, there was a time when it seemed that they had become extinct. For they lived off those small seals—’

‘River porpoises,’ corrected the Master Tutor. ‘Don’t be an ignoramus. Don’t mistake seals for—’

‘—they lived off porpoises and the porpoises were killed off because they looked like seals. They provided seal-like skins and fat. Then, later, canals were dug out in the upper reaches of the river, dams and barriers built. The current grew weaker; the Delta got silted up and overgrown. And the aeschnae underwent mutation. It adapted.’

‘Huh?’

‘Humans have rebuilt its food chain. They supplied warm-blooded creatures in the place of porpoises. Sheep, cattle, swine began to be transported across the Delta. The aeschnae learned in a flash that every barge, raft or barque on the Delta was, in fact, a large platter of food.’

‘And the mutation? You spoke of mutation!’

‘This liquid manure’ – Geralt indicated the green water – ‘seems to suit the aeschna. It enhances its growth. The damn thing can become so large, apparently, that it can drag a cow off a raft with no effort whatsoever. Pulling a human off a deck is nothing. Especially the deck of one of these scows the Company uses to transport passengers. You can see for yourselves how low it sits in the water.’

The Master Tutor quickly backed away from the ship’s side, as far as the carts and baggage allowed.

‘I heard a splash!’ he gasped, staring at the mist between the islets. ‘Witcher! I heard—’

‘Calm down. Apart from the splashing you can also hear oars squeaking in rowlocks. It’s the customs officers from the Redanian shore. You’ll see them in a moment and they’ll cause more of a commotion than three, or even four, aeschnae.’

Boatbug ran past. He cursed obscenely as the little boy in the feathered hat got under his feet. The passengers and messengers, all extremely nervous, were going through their possessions trying to hide any smuggled goods.

After a little while, a large boat hit the side of the barge and four lively, angry and very noisy individuals jumped on board. They surrounded the skipper, bawled threateningly in an effort to make themselves and their positions seem important, then threw themselves enthusiastically at the baggage and belongings of the travellers.

‘They check even before we land!’ complained Boatbug, coming up to the witcher and the Master Tutor. ‘That’s illegal, isn’t it? After all, we’re not on Redanian soil yet. Redania is on the right bank, half a mile from here!’

‘No,’ contradicted the Master Tutor. ‘The boundary between Redania and Temeria runs through the centre of the Pontar current.’

‘And how the shit do you measure a current? This is the Delta! Islets, shoals and skerries are constantly changing its layout – the Fairway is different every day! It’s a real curse! Hey! You little snot! Leave that boathook alone or I’ll tan your arse black and blue! Honourable lady! Watch your child! A real curse!’

‘Everett! Leave that alone or you’ll get dirty!’

‘What’s in that chest?’ shouted the customs officers. ‘Hey, untie that bundle! Whose is that cart? Any currency? Is there any currency, I say? Temerian or Nilfgaardian money?’

‘That’s what a customs war looks like,’ Linus Pitt commented on the chaos with a wise expression on his face. ‘Vizimir forced Novigrad to introduce the ius stapulae. Foltest of Temeria retaliated with a retortive, absolute ius stapulae in Wyzima and Gors Velen. That was a great blow for Redanian merchants so Vizimir increased the tax on Temerian products. He is defending the Redanian economy. Temeria is flooded with cheap goods coming from Nilfgaardian manufactories. That’s why the customs officers are so keen. If too many Nilfgaardian goods were to cross the border, the Redanian economy would collapse. Redania has practically no manufactories and the craftsmen wouldn’t be able to cope with competition.’

‘In a nutshell,’ smiled Geralt, ‘Nilfgaard is slowly taking over with its goods and gold that which it couldn’t take with arms. Isn’t Temeria defending itself? Hasn’t Foltest blocked his southern borders?’

‘How? The goods are coming through Mahakam, Brugge, Verden and the ports in Cidaris. Profit is all the merchants are interested in, not politics. If King Foltest were to block his borders, the merchants’ guilds would raise a terrible outcry—’

‘Any currency?’ snarled an approaching customs officer with bloodshot eyes. ‘Anything to declare?’

‘I’m a scholar!’

‘Be a prince if you like! I’m asking what you’re bringing in?’

‘Leave them, Boratek,’ said the leader of the group, a tall, broad-shouldered customs officer with a long, black moustache. ‘Don’t you recognise the witcher? Greetings, Geralt. Do you know him? Is he a scholar? So you’re going to Oxenfurt, are you, sir? With no luggage?’

‘Quite so. To Oxenfurt. With no luggage.’

The customs officer pulled out an enormous handkerchief and wiped his forehead, moustache and neck.

‘And how’s it going today, Geralt?’ he asked. ‘The monster show itself?’

‘No. And you, Olsen, seen anything?’

‘I haven’t got time to look around. I’m working.’

‘My daddy,’ declared Everett, creeping up without a sound, ‘is one of King Foltest’s knights! And he’s got an even bigger moustache than you!’

‘Scram, kid,’ said Olsen, then sighed heavily. ‘Got any vodka, Geralt?’

‘No.’

‘But I do.’ The learned man from the Academy, pulling a flat skin from his bag, surprised them all.

‘And I’ve got a snack,’ boasted Boatbug looming up as if from nowhere. ‘Smoked burbot!’

‘And my daddy—’

‘Scarper, little snot.’

They sat on coils of rope in the shade of the carts parked amidship, sipping from the skin and devouring the burbot in turn. Olsen had to leave them momentarily when an argument broke out. A dwarven merchant from Mahakam was demanding a lower tax and trying to convince the customs officers that the furs he was bringing in were not silver fox but exceptionally large cats. The mother of the nosey and meddlesome Everett, on the other hand, did not want to undergo an inspection at all, shrilly evoking her husband’s rank and the privileges of nobility.

The ship, trailing braids of gathered nenuphars, water lilies and pond-weed at its sides, slowly glided along the wide strait amongst shrub-covered islets. Bumble bees buzzed menacingly amongst the reeds, and tortoises whistled from time to time. Cranes, standing on one leg, gazed at the water with stoical calm, knowing there was no point in getting worked up – sooner or later a fish would swim up of its own accord.

‘And what do you think, Geralt?’ Boatbug uttered, licking the burbot’s skin clean. ‘Another quiet voyage? You know what I’d say? That monster’s no fool. It knows you’re lying in ambush. Hearken to this – at home in our village, there was a river and in that river lived an otter which would creep into the yard and strangle hens. It was so crafty that it never crept in when Father was home, or me and my brothers. It only showed up when Grandpa was left by himself. And our grandpa, hearken, was a bit feeble in the head and paralysis had taken his legs. It was as if the otter, that son-of-a-bitch, knew. Well then, one day our pa—’

‘Ten per cent ad valorem!’ yelled the dwarven merchant from amidships, waving the fox skin about. ‘That’s how much I owe you and I’m not going to pay a copper more!’

‘Then I’ll confiscate the lot!’ roared Olsen angrily. ‘And I’ll let the Novigrad guards know so you’ll go to the clink together with your “Valorem”! Boratek, charge him to the penny! Hey, have you left anything for me? Have you guzzled it down to the dregs?’

‘Sit down, Olsen.’ Geralt made room for him on the ropes. ‘Stressful job you’ve got, I see.’

‘Ah, I’ve had it up to my ears,’ sighed the customs officer, then took a swig from the skin and wiped his moustache. ‘I’m throwing it in, I’m going back to Aedirn. I’m an honest Vengerberger who followed his sister and brother-in-law to Redania but now I’m going back. You know what, Geralt? I’m set on enlisting in the army. They say King Demawend is recruiting for special troops. Half a year’s training in a camp and then it’s a soldier’s pay, three times what I get here, bribes included. This burbot’s too salty.’

‘I’ve heard about this special army,’ confirmed Boatbug. ‘It’s getting ready for the Squirrels because the legurar army can’t deal with the elven commandos. They particularly want half-elves to enlist, I hear. But that camp where they teach them to fight is real hell apparently. They leave fifty-fifty, some to get soldier’s pay, some to the burial ground, feet first.’

‘And so it should be,’ said the customs officer. ‘The special army, skipper, isn’t just any old unit. It’s not some shitty shield-bearers who just need to be shown which end of the javelin pricks. A special army has to know how to fight like nobody’s business!’

‘So you’re such a fierce warrior, are you, Olsen? And the Squirrels, aren’t you afraid of them? That they’ll spike your arse with arrows?’

‘Big deal! I know how to draw a bow too. I’ve already fought Nilfgaard, so elves are nothing to me.’

‘They say,’ Boatbug said with a shudder, ‘if someone falls into their hands alive, the Scoia’taels’ . . . It’s better they hadn’t been born. They’ll be tortured horrifically.’

‘Ah, do yourself a favour and shut your face, skipper. You’re babbling like a woman. War is war. You whack the enemy in the backside, and they whack you back. Captured elves aren’t pampered by our men either, don’t you worry.’

‘The tactic of terror.’ Linus Pitt threw the burbot’s head and backbone overboard. ‘Violence breeds violence. Hatred has grown into hearts . . . and has poisoned kindred blood . . .’

‘What?’ Olsen grimaced. ‘Use a human language!’

‘Hard times are upon us.’

‘So they are, true,’ agreed Boatbug. ‘There’s sure to be a great war. Every day the sky is thick with ravens, they smell the carrion already. And the seeress Ithlin foretold the end of the world. White Light will come to be, the White Chill will then follow. Or the other way round, I’ve forgotten how it goes. And people are saying signs were also visible in the sky—’

‘You keep an eye on the fairway, skipper, ’stead of the sky, or this skiff of yours is going to end up in the shallows. Ah, we’re already level with Oxenfurt. Just look, you can see the Cask!’

The mist was clearly less dense now so that they could see the hillocks and marshy meadows of the right bank and, rising above them, a part of the aqueduct.

‘That, gentlemen, is the experimental sewage purification plant,’ boasted the Master Tutor, refusing his turn to drink. ‘A great success for science, a great achievement for the Academy. We repaired the old elven aqueduct, canals and sediment trap and we’re already neutralising the sewers of the university, town and surrounding villages and farms. What you call the Cask is a sediment trap. A great success for science—’

‘Heads down, heads down!’ warned Olsen, ducking behind the rail. ‘Last year, when that thing exploded, the shit flew as far as Crane Islet.’

The barge sailed in between islands and the squat tower of the sediment trap and the aqueduct disappeared in the mist. Everyone sighed with relief.

‘Aren’t you sailing straight by way of the Oxenfurt arm, Boatbug?’ asked Olsen.

‘I’m putting in at Acorn Bay first. To collect fish traders and merchants from the Temerian side.’

‘Hmm . . .’ The customs officer scratched his neck. ‘At the Bay . . . Listen, Geralt, you aren’t in any conflict with the Temerians by any chance, are you?’

‘Why? Was someone asking about me?’

‘You’ve guessed it. As you see, I remember you asked me to keep an eye out for anyone interested in you. Well, just imagine, the Temerian Guards have been enquiring about you. The customs officers there, with whom I have a good understanding, told me. Something smells funny here, Geralt.’ ‘The water?’ Linus Pitt was afraid, glancing nervously at the aqueduct and the great scientific success.

‘That little snotrag?’ Boatbug pointed to Everett who was still milling around nearby.

‘I’m not talking about that.’ The customs officer winced. ‘Listen, Geralt, the Temerian customs men said these Guards were asking strange questions. They know you sail with the Malatius and Grock barges. They asked . . . if you sail alone. If you have—Bloody hell, just don’t laugh! They were going on about some underage girl who has been seen in your company, apparently.’

Boatbug chuckled. Linus Pitt looked at the witcher with eyes filled with the distaste which befitted someone looking at a white-haired man who has drawn the attention of the law on account of his preference for underage girls.

‘That’s why,’ Olsen hawked, ‘the Temerian customs officers thought it might be some private matters being settled, into which the Guards had been drawn. Like . . . Well, the girl’s family or her betrothed. So the officers cautiously asked who was behind all this. And they found out. Well, apparently it’s a nobleman with a tongue ready as a chancellor’s, neither poor nor miserly, who calls himself . . . Rience, or something like that. He’s got a red mark on his left cheek as if from a burn. Do you know anyone like that?’

Geralt got up.

‘Boatbug,’ he said. ‘I’m disembarking in Acorn Bay.’

‘How’s that? And what about the monster?’

‘That’s your problem.’

‘Speaking of problems,’ interrupted Olsen, ‘just look starboard, Geralt. Speak of the devil.’

From behind an island, from the swiftly lifting mist, loomed a lighter. A black burgee dotted with silver lilies fluttered lazily from its mast. The crew consisted of several men wearing the pointed hats of Temerian Guards.

Geralt quickly reached into his bag and pulled out both letters – the one from Ciri and the one from Yennefer. He swiftly tore them into tiny shreds and threw them into the river. The customs officer watched him in silence.

‘Whatever are you doing, may I ask?’

‘No. Boatbug, take care of my horse.’

‘You want to . . .’ Olsen frowned. ‘You intend to—’

‘What I intend is my business. Don’t get mixed up in this or there’ll be an incident. They’re sailing under the Temerian flag.’

‘Bugger their flag.’ The customs officer moved his cutlass to a more accessible place on his belt and wiped his enamelled gorget, an eagle on a red background, with his sleeve. ‘If I’m on board carrying out an inspection, then this is Redania. I will not allow—’

‘Olsen,’ the witcher interrupted, grabbing him by the sleeve, ‘don’t interfere, please. The man with a burned face isn’t on the lighter. And I have to know who he is and what he wants. I’ve got to see him face to face.’

‘You’re going to let them put you in the stocks? Don’t be a fool! If this is a private settling of scores, privately commissioned revenge, then as soon as you get past the islet, on the Whirl, you’ll fly overboard with an anchor round your neck. You’ll be face to face all right, but it’ll be with crabs at the bottom of the river!’

‘They’re Temerian Guards, not bandits.’

‘Is that so? Then just look at their mugs! Besides, I’ll know instantly who they really are. You’ll see.’

The lighter, approaching rapidly, reached the barge. One of the Guards threw the rope over while another attached the boathook to the railing.

‘I be the skipper!’ Boatbug blocked the way as three men leaped on deck. ‘This is a ship belonging to the Malatius and Grock Company! What . . .’

One of the men, stocky and bald, pushed him brusquely aside with his arm, thick as the branch of an oak.

‘A certain Gerald, called Gerald of Rivia!’ he thundered, measuring the skipper with his eyes. ‘Is such a one on board?’

‘No.’

‘I am he.’ The witcher stepped over the bundles and packages and drew near. ‘I am Geralt, and called Geralt. What is this about?’

‘I arrest you in the name of the law.’ The bald man’s eyes skimmed over the passengers. ‘Where’s the girl?’

‘I’m alone.’

‘You lie!’

‘Hold it, hold it.’ Olsen emerged from behind the witcher’s back and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Keep calm, no shouting. You’re too late, Temerians. He has already been arrested and in the name of the law at that. I caught him. For smuggling. I’m taking him to the guardhouse in Oxenfurt according to orders.’

‘What’s that?’ The bald man frowned. ‘And the girl?’

‘There is no girl here, nor has there been.’

The Guards looked at each other in uncertain silence. Olsen grinned broadly and turned up his black moustache.

‘You know what we’ll do?’ he snorted. ‘Sail with us to Oxenfurt, Temerians. We and you are simple folk, how are we to know the ins and outs of law? The commandant of the Oxenfurt guardhouse is a wise and worldly man, he’ll judge the matter. You know our commandant, don’t you? Because he knows yours, the one from the Bay, very well. You’ll present your case to him . . . Show him your orders and seals . . . You do have a warrant with all the necessary seals, don’t you, eh?’

The bald man just stared grimly at the customs officer.

‘I don’t have the time or the inclination to go to Oxenfurt!’ he suddenly bawled. ‘I’m taking the rogue to our shore and that’s that! Stran, Vitek! Get on with it, search the barge! Find me the girl, quick as a flash!’

‘One minute, slow down.’ Olsen was not perturbed by the yelling and drew out his words slowly and distinctly. ‘You’re on the Redanian side of the Delta, Temerians. You don’t have anything to declare, by any chance, do you? Or any contraband? We’ll have a look presently. We’ll do a search. And if we do find something then you will have to take the trouble to go to Oxenfurt for a while, after all. And we, if we wish to, we can always find something. Boys! Come here!’

‘My daddy,’ squeaked Everett all of a sudden, appearing at the bald man’s side as if from nowhere, ‘is a knight! He’s got an even bigger blade than you!’

In a flash, the bald man caught the boy by his beaver collar and snatched him up from the deck, knocking his feathered hat off. Wrapping his arm around the boy’s waist he put the cutlass to his throat.

‘Move back!’ he roared. ‘Move back or I’ll slash the brat’s neck!’

‘Evereeeeett!’ howled the noblewoman.

‘Curious methods,’ said the witcher slowly, ‘you Temerian Guards use. Indeed, so curious that it makes it hard to believe you’re Guards.’

‘Shut your face!’ yelled the bald one, shaking Everett, who was squealing like a piglet. ‘Stran, Vitek, get him! Fetter him and take him to the lighter ! And you, move back! Where’s the girl, I’m asking you? Give her to me or I’ll slaughter this little snot!’

‘Slaughter him then,’ drawled Olsen giving a sign to his men and pulling out his cutlass. ‘Is he mine or something? And when you’ve slaughtered him, we can talk.’

‘Don’t interfere!’ Geralt threw his sword on the deck and, with a gesture, held back the customs officers and Boatbug’s sailors. ‘I’m yours, liar-guard, sir. Let the boy go.’

‘To the lighter!’ The bald man retreated to the side of the barge without letting Everett go, and grabbed a rope. ‘Vitek, tie him up! And all of you, to the stern! If any of you move, the kid dies!’

‘Have you lost your mind, Geralt?’ growled Olsen.

‘Don’t interfere!’

‘Evereeeett!’

The Temerian lighter suddenly rocked and bounced away from the barge. The water exploded with a splash and two long green, coarse paws bristling with spikes like the limbs of a praying mantis, shot out. The paws, grabbed the Guard holding the boathook and, in the wink of an eye, dragged him under water. The bald Guard howled savagely, released Everett, and clung onto the ropes which dangled from the lighter’s side. Everett plopped into the already-reddening water. Everybody – those on the barge and those on the lighter – started to scream as if possessed.

Geralt tore himself away from the two men trying to bind him. He thumped one in the chin then threw him overboard. The other took a swing at the witcher with an iron hook, but faltered and drooped into Olsen’s hands with a cutlass buried to the hilt in his ribs.

The witcher leaped over the low railing. Before the water – thick with algae – closed in over his head, he heard Linus Pitt, the Lecturer of Natural History at the Academy of Oxenfurt, shout, ‘What is that? What species? No such animal exists!’

He emerged just by the Temerian lighter, miraculously avoiding the fishing spear which one of baldy’s men was jabbing at him. The Guard didn’t have time to strike him again before he splashed into the water with an arrow in his throat. Geralt, catching hold of the dropped spear, rebounded with his legs against the side of the boat, dived into the seething whirlpool and forcefully jabbed at something, hoping it was not Everett.

‘It’s impossible!’ he heard the Master Tutor’s cries. ‘Such an animal can’t exist! At least, it shouldn’t!’

I agree with that last statement entirely, thought the witcher, jabbing the aeschna’s armour, bristling with its hard bumps. The corpse of the Temerian Guard was bouncing up and down inertly in the sickle-shaped jaws of the monster, trailing blood. The aeschna swung its flat tail violently and dived to the bottom, raising clouds of silt.

He heard a thin cry. Everett, stirring the water like a little dog, had caught hold of baldy’s legs as he was trying to climb on to the lighter by the ropes hanging down the side. The ropes gave way and both the Guard and the boy disappeared with a gurgle under the surface of the water. Geralt threw himself in their direction and dived. The fact that he almost immediately came across the little boy’s beaver collar was nothing but luck. He tore Everett from the entangled algae, swam out on his back and, kicking with his legs, reached the barge.

‘Here, Geralt! Here!’ He heard cries and shouts, each louder than the other: ‘Give him here!’, ‘The rope! Catch hold of the rope!’, ‘Pooooox!’, ‘The rope! Geraaalt!’, ‘With the boathook, with the boathook!’, ‘My booyyyy!’.

Someone tore the boy from his arms and dragged him upwards. At the same moment, someone else caught Geralt from behind, struck him in the back of the head, covered him over with his bulk and pushed him under the water. Geralt let go of the fishing spear, turned and caught his assailant by the belt. With his other hand he tried to grab him by the hair but in vain. It was baldy.

Both men emerged, but only for an instant. The Temerian lighter had already moved a little from the barge and both Geralt and baldy, locked in an embrace, were in between them. Baldy caught Geralt by the throat; the witcher dug a thumb in his eye. The Guard yelled, let go and swam away. Geralt could not swim – something was holding him by the leg and dragging him into the depths. Next to him, half a body bounced to the surface like a cork. And then he knew what was holding him; the information Linus Pitt yelled from the barge deck was unnecessary.

‘It’s an anthropod! Order Amphipoda! Group Mandibulatissimae!’

Geralt violently thrashed his arms in the water, trying to yank his leg from the aeschna’s claws as they pulled him towards the rhythmical snap of its jaws. The Master Tutor was correct once again. The jaws were anything but small.

‘Grab hold of the rope!’ yelled Olsen. ‘The rope, grab it!’

A fishing spear whistled past the witcher’s ear and plunged with a smack into the monster’s algae-ridden armour as it surfaced. Geralt caught hold of the shaft, pressed down on it, bounced forcefully away, brought his free leg in and kicked the aeschna violently. He tore himself away from the spiked paws, leaving his boot, a fair part of his trousers and a good deal of skin behind. More fishing spears and harpoons whizzed through the air, most of them missing their mark. The aeschna drew in its paws, swished its tail and gracefully dived into the green depths.

Geralt seized the rope which fell straight onto his face. The boathook, catching him painfully in the side, caught him by the belt. He felt a tug, rode upwards and, taken up by many hands, rolled over the railing and tumbled on deck dripping with water, slime, weeds and blood. The passengers, barge crew and customs officers crowded around him. Leaning over the railings, the dwarf with the fox furs and Olsen were firing their bows. Everett, wet and green with algae, his teeth clattering, sobbed in his mother’s arms explaining to everybody that he hadn’t meant to do it.

‘Geralt!’ Boatbug yelled at his ear, ‘are you dead?’

‘Damn it . . .’ The witcher spat out seaweed. ‘I’m too old for this sort of thing . . . Too old . . .’

Nearby, the dwarf released his bowstring and Olsen roared joyously.

‘Right in the belly! Ooh-ha-ha! Great shot, my furry friend! Hey, Boratek, give him back his money! He deserves a tax reduction for that shot!’

‘Stop . . .’ wheezed the witcher, attempting in vain to stand up. ‘Don’t kill them all, damn it! I need one of them alive!’

‘We’ve left one,’ the customs officer assured him. ‘The bald one who was bickering with me. We’ve shot the rest. But baldy is over there, swimming away. I’ll fish him out right away. Give us the boathooks!’

‘Discovery! A great discovery!’ shouted Linus Pitt, jumping up and down by the barge side. ‘An entirely new species unknown to science! Absolutely unique! Oh, I’m so grateful to you, witcher! As of today, this species is going to appear in books as . . . As Geraltia maxiliosa pitti!’

‘Master Tutor,’ Geralt groaned, ‘if you really want to show me your gratitude, let that damn thing be called Everetia.’

‘Just as beautiful,’ consented the scholar. ‘Oh, what a discovery! What a unique, magnificent specimen! No doubt the only one alive in the Delta—’

‘No,’ uttered Boatbug suddenly and grimly. ‘Not the only one. Look!’

The carpet of water lilies adhering to the nearby islet trembled and rocked violently. They saw a wave and then an enormous, long body resembling a rotting log, swiftly paddling its many limbs and snapping its jaw. The bald man looked back, howled horrifically and swam away, stirring up the water with his arms and legs.

‘What a specimen, what a specimen,’ Pitt quickly noted, thrilled no end. ‘Prehensile cephalic limbs, four pairs of chelae . . . Strong tail-fan . . . Sharp claws . . .’

The bald man looked back again and howled even more horribly. And the Everetia maxiliosa pitti extended its prehensile cephalic limbs and swung its tail-fan vigorously. The bald man surged the water in a desperate, hopeless attempt to escape.

‘May the water be light to him,’ said Olsen. But he did not remove his hat.

‘My daddy,’ rattled Everett with his teeth, ‘can swim faster than that man!’

‘Take the child away,’ growled the witcher.

The monster spread its claws, snapped its jaws. Linus Pitt grew pale and turned away.

Baldy shrieked briefly, choked and disappeared below the surface. The water throbbed dark red.

‘Pox.’ Geralt sat down heavily on the deck. ‘I’m too old for this sort of thing . . . Far, far too old . . .’

What can be said? Dandilion simply adored the town of Oxenfurt.

The university grounds were surrounded by a wall and around this wall was another ring – that of the huge, loud, breathless, busy and noisy townlet. The wooden, colourful town of Oxenfurt with its narrow streets and pointed roofs. The town of Oxenfurt which lived off the Academy, off its students, lecturers, scholars, researchers and their guests, who lived off science and knowledge, off what accompanies the process of learning. In the town of Oxenfurt, from the by-products and chippings of theory, practice, business and profit were born.

The poet rode slowly along a muddy, crowded street, passing workshops, studios, stalls, shops small and large where, thanks to the Academy, tens of thousands of articles and wonderful things were produced and sold which were unattainable in other corners of the world where their production was considered impossible, or pointless. He passed inns, taverns, stands, huts, counters and portable grills from which floated the appetising aromas of elaborate dishes unknown elsewhere in the world, seasoned in ways not known elsewhere, with garnishes and spices neither known of nor used anywhere else. This was Oxenfurt, the colourful, joyful, noisy and sweet-smelling town of miracles into which shrewd people, full of initiative, had turned dry and useless theories drawn little by little from the university. It was also a town of amusements, constant festivities, permanent holidays and incessant revelry. Night and day the streets resounded with music, song, and the clinking of chalices and tankards, for it is well known that nothing is such thirsty work as the acquisition of knowledge. Although the chancellor’s orders forbade students and tutors to drink and play before dusk, drinking and playing took place around the clock in Oxenfurt, for it is well known that if there is anything that makes men thirstier than the acquisition of knowledge it is the full or partial prohibition of drinking.

Dandilion smacked his lips at his bay gelding and rode on, making his way through the crowds roaming the streets. Vendors, stall-holders and travelling charlatans advertised their wares and services loudly, adding to the confusion which reigned all around them.

‘Squid! Roast squid!’

‘Ointment for all spots’n’boils! Only sold here! Reliable, miraculous ointment!’

‘Cats, mouse-catching, magic cats! Just listen, my good people, how they miaow!’

‘Amulets! Elixirs! Philtres, love potions, guaranteed aphrodisiacs! One pinch and even a corpse will regain its vigour ! Who’ll buy, who’ll buy?’

‘Teeth extracted! Almost painless! Cheap, very cheap!’

‘What do you mean by cheap?’ Dandilion was curious as he bit into a stick-skewered squid as tough as a boot.

‘Two farthings an hour!’

The poet shuddered and spurred his gelding on. He looked back surreptitiously. Two people who had been following in his tracks since the town hall stopped at the barber-shop pretending to ponder over the price of the barber’s services displayed on a chalkboard. Dandilion did not let himself be deceived. He knew what really interested them.

He rode on. He passed the enormous building of the bawdy-house The Rosebud, where he knew refined services either unknown or simply unpopular in other corners of the world were offered. For some time his rational mind struggled against his character and that desire to enter for an hour. Reason triumphed. Dandilion sighed and rode on towards the university trying not to look in the direction of the taprooms from which issued the sounds of merriment.

Yes, what more can be said – the troubadour loved the town of Oxenfurt.

He looked around once more. The two individuals had not made use of the barber’s services, although they most certainly should have. At present they were standing outside a musical instrument shop, pretending to ponder over the clay ocarinas. The shopkeeper was falling over himself praising his goods and counting on making some money. Dandilion knew there was nothing to count on.

He directed his horse towards the Philosophers’ Gate, the main gate to the Academy. He dealt swiftly with the formalities, which consisted of signing into a guest book and someone taking his gelding to the stables.

Beyond the Philosophers’ Gate a different world greeted him. The college land was excluded from the ordinary infrastructure of town buildings; unlike the town it was not a place of dogged struggle for every square yard of space. Everything here was practically as the elves had left it. Wide lanes – laid with colourful gravel – between neat, eye-pleasing little palaces, open-work fences, walls, hedges, canals, bridges, flowerbeds and green parks had been crushed in only a few places by some huge, crude mansion constructed in later, post-elven times. Everything was clean, peaceful and dignified – any kind of trade or paid service was forbidden here, not to mention entertainment or carnal pleasures.

Students, absorbed in large books and parchments, strolled along the lanes. Others, sitting on benches, lawns and in flowerbeds, repeated their homework to each other, discussed or discreetly played at evens or odds, leapfrog, pile-up or other games demanding intelligence. Professors engrossed in conversation or debate also strolled here with dignity and decorum. Younger tutors milled around with their eyes glued to the backsides of female students. Dandilion ascertained with joy that, since his day, nothing had changed in the Academy.

A breeze swept in from the Delta carrying the faint scent of the sea and the somewhat stronger stink of hydrogen sulphide from the direction of the grand edifice of the Department of Alchemy which towered above the canal. Grey and yellow linnets warbled amongst the shrubs in the park adjacent to the students’ dormitories, while an orang-utan sat on the poplar having, no doubt, escaped from the zoological gardens in the Department of Natural History.

Not wasting any time, the poet marched briskly through the labyrinth of lanes and hedges. He knew the University grounds like the back of his hand – and no wonder, considering he had studied there for four years, then had lectured for a year in the Faculty of Trouvereship and Poetry. The post of lecturer had been offered to him when he had passed his final exams with full marks, to the astonishment of professors with whom he had earned the reputation of lazybones, rake and idiot during his studies. Then, when, after several years of roaming around the country with his lute, his fame as a minstrel had spread far and wide, the Academy had taken great pains to have him visit and give guest lectures. Dandilion yielded to their requests only sporadically, for his love of wandering was constantly at odds with his predilection for comfort, luxury and a regular income. And also, of course, with his liking for the town of Oxenfurt.

He looked back. The two individuals, not having purchased any ocarinas, pipes or violins, strode behind him at a distance, paying great attention to the treetops and façades.

Whistling lightheartedly the poet changed direction and made towards the mansion which housed the Faculty of Medicine and Herbology. The lane leading to the faculty swarmed with female students wearing characteristic pale green cloaks. Dandilion searched intently for familiar faces.

‘Shani !’

A young medical student with dark red hair cropped just below her ears raised her head from a volume on anatomy and got up from her bench.

‘Dandilion!’ She smiled, squinting her happy, hazel eyes. ‘I haven’t seen you for years! Come on, I’ll introduce you to my friends. They adore your poems—’

‘Later,’ muttered the bard. ‘Look discreetly over there, Shani. See those two?’

‘Snoops.’ The medical student wrinkled her upturned nose and snorted, amazing Dandilion – not for the first time – with how easily students could recognise secret agents, spies and informers. Students’ aversion to the secret service was legendary, if not very rational. The university grounds were extraterritorial and sacred, and students and lecturers were untouchable while there – and the service, although it snooped, did not dare to bother or annoy academics.

‘They’ve been following me since the market place,’ said Dandilion, pretending to embrace and flirt with the medical student. ‘Will you do something for me, Shani?’

‘Depends what.’ The girl tossed her shapely neck like a frightened deer. ‘If you’ve got yourself into something stupid again . . .’

‘No, no,’ he quickly reassured her. ‘I only want to pass on some information and can’t do it myself with these shits stuck to my heels—’

‘Shall I call the lads? I’ve only got to shout and you’ll have those snoops off your back.’

‘Oh, come on. You want a riot to break out? The row over the bench ghetto for non-humans has just about ended and you can’t wait for more trouble? Besides, I loathe violence. I’ll manage the snoops. However, if you could . . .’

He brought his lips closer to the girl’s hair and took a while to whisper something. Shani’s eyes opened wide.

‘A witcher? A real witcher?’

‘Quiet, for the love of gods. Will you do that, Shani?’

‘Of course.’ The medical student smiled readily. ‘Just out of curiosity to see, close up, the famous—’

‘Quieter, I asked you. Only remember: not a word to anyone.’

‘A physician’s secret.’ Shani smiled even more beautifully and Dandilion was once more filled with the desire to finally compose a ballad about girls like her – not too pretty but nonetheless beautiful, girls of whom one dreams at night when those of classical beauty are forgotten after five minutes.

‘Thank you, Shani.’

‘It’s nothing, Dandilion. See you later. Take care.’

Duly kissing each other’s cheeks, the bard and the medical student briskly moved off in opposite directions – she towards the faculty, he towards Thinkers’ Park.

He passed the modern, gloomy Faculty of Technology building, dubbed the ‘Deus ex machina’ by the students, and turned on to Guildenstern Bridge. He did not get far. Two people lurked around a corner in the lane, by the flowerbed with a bronze bust of the first chancellor of the Academy, Nicodemus de Boot. As was the habit of all snoops in the world, they avoided meeting other’s eyes and, like all snoops in the world, they had coarse, pale faces. These they tried very hard to furnish with an intelligent expression, thanks to which they resembled demented monkeys.

‘Greetings from Dijkstra,’ said one of the spies. ‘We’re off.’

‘Likewise,’ the bard replied impudently. ‘Off you go.’

The spies looked at each other then, rooted to the spot, fixed their eyes on an obscene word which someone had scribbled in charcoal on the plinth supporting the chancellor’s bust. Dandilion sighed.

‘Just as I thought,’ he said, adjusting the lute on his shoulder. ‘So am I going to be irrevocably forced to accompany you somewhere, gentlemen? Too bad. Let’s go then. You go first, I’ll follow. In this particular instance, age may go before beauty.’

Dijkstra, head of King Vizimir of Redania’s secret service, did not resemble a spy. He was far from the stereotype which dictated that a spy should be short, thin, rat-like, and have piercing eyes forever casting furtive glances from beneath a black hood. Dijkstra, as Dandilion knew, never wore hoods and had a decided preference for bright coloured clothing. He was almost seven foot tall and probably only weighed a little under two quintals. When he crossed his arms over his chest – which he did with habitual pleasure – it looked as if two cachalots had prostrated themselves over a whale. As far as his features, hair colour and complexion were concerned, he looked like a freshly scrubbed pig. Dandilion knew very few people whose appearance was as deceptive as Dijkstra’s – because this porky giant who gave the impression of being a sleepy, sluggish moron, possessed an exceptionally keen mind. And considerable authority. A popular saying at King Vizimir’s court held that if Dijkstra states it is noon yet darkness reigns all around, it is time to start worrying about the fate of the sun.

At present, however, the poet had other reasons to worry.

‘Dandilion,’ said Dijkstra sleepily, crossing the cachalots over the whale, ‘you thick-headed halfwit. You unmitigated dunce. Do you have to spoil everything you touch? Couldn’t you, just once in your life, do something right? I know you can’t think for yourself. I know you’re almost forty, look almost thirty, think you’re just over twenty and act as though you’re barely ten. And being aware of this, I usually furnish you with precise instructions. I tell you what you have to do, when you have to do it and how you’re to go about it. And I regularly get the impression that I’m talking to a stone wall.’

‘I, on the other hand,’ retorted the poet, feigning insolence, ‘regularly have the impression that you talk simply to exercise your lips and tongue. So get to the point, and eliminate the figures of speech and fruitless rhetoric. What are you getting at this time?’

They were sitting at a large oak table amongst bookshelves crammed with volumes and piled with rolls of parchment, on the top floor of the vice-chancellor’s offices, in leased quarters which Dijkstra had amusingly named the Faculty of Most Contemporary History and Dandilion called the Faculty of Comparative Spying and Applied Sabotage. There were, including the poet, four present – apart from Dijkstra, two other people took part in the conversation. One of these was, as usual, Ori Reuven, the aged and eternally sniffing secretary to the chief of Redanian spies. The other was no ordinary person.

‘You know very well what I’m getting at,’ Dijkstra replied coldly. ‘However, since you clearly enjoy playing the idiot I won’t spoil your game and will explain using simple words. Or maybe you’d like to make use of this privilege, Philippa?’

Dandilion glanced at the fourth person present at the meeting, who until then had remained silent. Philippa Eilhart must have only recently arrived in Oxenfurt, or was perhaps intending to leave at once, since she wore neither a dress nor her favourite black agate jewellery nor any sharp makeup. She was wearing a man’s short jacket, leggings and high boots – a ‘field’ outfit as the poet called it. The enchantress’s dark hair, usually loose and worn in a picturesque mess, was brushed smooth and tied back at the nape of her neck.

‘Let’s not waste time,’ she said, raising her even eyebrows. ‘Dandilion’s right. We can spare ourselves the rhetoric and slick eloquence which leads nowhere when the matter at hand is so simple and trivial.’

‘Ah, even so.’ Dijkstra smiled. ‘Trivial. A dangerous Nilfgaardian agent, who could now be trivially locked away in my deepest dungeon in Tretogor, has trivially escaped, trivially warned and frightened away by the trivial stupidity of two gentlemen known as Dandilion and Geralt. I’ve seen people wander to the scaffolds over lesser trivialities. Why didn’t you inform me about your ambush, Dandilion? Did I not instruct you to keep me informed about all the witcher’s intentions?’

‘I didn’t know anything about Geralt’s plans,’ Dandilion lied with conviction. ‘I told you that he went to Temeria and Sodden to hunt down this Rience. I also told you that he had returned. I was convinced he had given up. Rience had literally dissolved into thin air, the witcher didn’t find the slightest trail, and this – if you remember – I also told you—’

‘You lied,’ stated the spy coldly. ‘The witcher did find Rience’s trail. In the form of corpses. That’s when he decided to change his tactics. Instead of chasing Rience, he decided to wait for Rience to find him. He signed up to the Malatius and Grock Company barges as an escort. He did so intentionally. He knew that the Company would advertise it far and wide, that Rience would hear of it and then venture to try something. And so Rience did. The strange, elusive Master Rience. The insolent, self-assured Master Rience who does not even bother to use aliases or false names. Master Rience who, from a mile off, smells of Nilfgaardian chimney smoke. And of being a renegade sorcerer. Isn’t that right, Philippa?’

The magician neither affirmed nor denied it. She remained silent, watching Dandilion closely and intently. The poet lowered his eyes and hawked hesitantly. He did not like such gazes.

Dandilion divided women – including magicians – into very likeable, likeable, unlikeable and very unlikeable. The very likeable reacted to the proposition of being bedded with joyful acquiescence, the likeable with a happy smile. The unlikeable reacted unpredictably. The very unlikeable were counted by the troubadour to be those to whom the very thought of presenting such a proposition made his back go strangely cold and his knees shake.

Philippa Eilhart, although very attractive, was decidedly very unlikeable.

Apart from that, Philippa Eilhart was an important figure in the Council of Wizards, and King Vizimir’s trusted court magician. She was a very talented enchantress. Word had it that she was one of the few to have mastered the art of polymorphy. She looked thirty. In truth she was probably no less than three hundred years old.

Dijkstra, locking his chubby fingers together over his belly, twiddled his thumbs. Philippa remained silent. Ori Reuven coughed, sniffed and wriggled, constantly adjusting his generous toga. His toga resembled a professor’s but did not look as if it had been presented by a senate. It looked more as if it had been found on a rubbish heap.

‘Your witcher, however,’ suddenly snarled the spy, ‘underestimated Master Rience. He set a trap but – demonstrating a complete lack of common sense – banked on Rience troubling himself to come in person. Rience, according to the witcher’s plan, was to feel safe. Rience wasn’t to smell a trap anywhere, wasn’t to spy Master Dijkstra’s subordinates lying in wait for him. Because, on the witcher’s instructions, Master Dandilion had not squealed to Master Dijkstra about the planned ambush. But according to the instructions received, Master Dandilion was duty bound to do so. Master Dandilion had clear, explicit instructions in this matter which he deigned to ignore.’

‘I am not one of your subordinates.’ The poet puffed up with pride. ‘And I don’t have to comply with your instructions and orders. I help you sometimes but I do so out of my own free will, from patriotic duty, so as not to stand by idly in face of the approaching changes—’

‘You spy for anyone who pays you,’ Dijkstra interrupted coldly. ‘You inform on anyone who has something on you. And I’ve got a few pretty good things on you, Dandilion. So don’t be saucy.’

‘I won’t give in to blackmail!’

‘Shall we bet on it?’

‘Gentlemen.’ Philippa Eilhart raised her hand. ‘Let’s be serious, if you please. Let’s not be diverted from the matter in hand.’

‘Quite right.’ The spy sprawled out in the armchair. ‘Listen, poet.

What’s done is done. Rience has been warned and won’t be duped a second time. But I can’t let anything like this happen in the future. That’s why I want to see the witcher. Bring him to me. Stop wandering around town trying to lose my agents. Go straight to Geralt and bring him here, to the faculty. I have to talk to him. Personally, and without witnesses. Without the noise and publicity which would arise if I were to arrest the witcher. Bring him to me, Dandilion. That’s all I require of you at present.’

‘Geralt has left,’ the bard lied calmly. Dijkstra glanced at the magician. Dandilion, expecting an impulse to sound out his mind, tensed but he did not feel anything. Philippa was watching him, her eyes narrowed, but nothing indicated that she was using spells to verify his truthfulness.

‘Then I’ll wait until he’s back,’ sighed Dijkstra, pretending to believe him. ‘The matter I want to see him about is important so I’ll make some changes to my schedule and wait for the witcher. When he’s back, bring him here. The sooner the better. Better for many people.’

‘There might be a few difficulties,’ Dandilion grimaced, ‘in convincing Geralt to come here. He – just imagine it – harbours an inexplicable aversion to spies. Although to all intents and purposes he seems to understand it is a job like any other, he feels repulsion for those who execute it. Patriotic reasons, he’s wont to say, are one thing, but the spying profession attracts only out-and-out scoundrels and the lowest—’

‘Enough, enough.’ Dijkstra waved his hand carelessly. ‘No platitudes, please, platitudes bore me. They’re so crude.’

‘I think so, too,’ snorted the troubadour. ‘But the witcher’s a simple soul, a straightforward honest simpleton in his judgement, nothing like us men-of-the-world. He simply despises spies and won’t want to talk to you for anything in the world, and as for helping the secret services, there’s no question about it. And you haven’t got anything on him.’

‘You’re mistaken,’ said the spy. ‘I do. More than one thing. But for the time being that brawl on the barge near Acorn Bay is enough. You know who those men who came on board were? They weren’t Rience’s men.’

‘That’s not news to me,’ said the poet casually. ‘I’m sure they were a few scoundrels of the likes of which there is no shortage in the Temerian Guards. Rience has been asking about the witcher and no doubt offering a nice sum for any news about him. It’s obvious that the witcher is very important to him. So a few crafty dogs tried to grab Geralt, bury him in some cave and then sell him to Rience, dictating their conditions and trying to bargain as much out of him as possible. Because they would have got very little, if anything at all, for mere information.’

‘My congratulations on such perspicacity. The witcher’s, of course, not yours – it would never have occurred to you. But the matter is more complex than you think. My colleagues, men belonging to King Foltest’s secret service, are also, as it turns out, interested in Master Rience. They saw through the plan of those – as you called them – crafty dogs. It is they who boarded the barge, they who wanted to grab the witcher. Perhaps as bait for Rience, perhaps for a different end. At Acorn Bay, Dandilion, the witcher killed Temerian agents. Their chief is very, very angry. You say Geralt has left? I hope he hasn’t gone to Temeria. He might never return.’

‘And that’s what you have on him?’

‘Indeed. That’s what I have. I can pacify the Temerians. But not for nothing. Where has the witcher gone, Dandilion?’

‘Novigrad,’ the troubadour lied without thinking. ‘He went to look for Rience there.’

‘A mistake, a mistake,’ smiled the spy, pretending not to have caught the lie. ‘You see what a shame it is he didn’t overcome his repulsion and get in touch with me. I’d have saved him the effort. Rience isn’t in Novigrad. Whereas there’s no end of Temerian agents there. Probably all waiting for the witcher. They’ve caught on to something I’ve known for a long time. Namely, that Geralt, the witcher from Rivia, can answer all kinds of questions if he’s asked in the right manner. Questions which the secret services of each of the Four Kingdoms are beginning to ask themselves. The arrangement is simple: the witcher comes here, to the department, and gives me the answers to these questions. And he’ll be left in peace. I’ll calm the Temerians and guarantee his safety.’

‘What questions are you talking about? Maybe I can answer them?’

‘Don’t make me laugh, Dandilion.’

‘Yet,’ Philippa Eilhart said suddenly, ‘perhaps he can? Maybe he can save us time? Don’t forget, Dijkstra, our poet is mixed up to his ears in this affair and we’ve got him here but we haven’t got the witcher. Where is the child seen with Geralt in Kaedwen? The girl with ashen hair and green eyes? The one Rience asked you about back in Temeria when he caught and tortured you? Eh, Dandilion? What do you know about the girl? Where has the witcher hidden her? Where did Yennefer go when she received Geralt’s letter? Where is Triss Merigold hiding, and why is she hiding?’

Dijkstra did not stir, but his swift glance at the magician showed Dandilion that the spy was taken aback. The questions Philippa had raised had clearly been asked too soon. And directed to the wrong person. The questions appeared rash and careless. The trouble was that Philippa Eilhart could be accused of anything but rashness and carelessness.

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said slowly, ‘but I don’t know the answer to any of the questions. I’d help you if I could. But I can’t.’

Philippa looked him straight in the eyes.

‘Dandilion,’ she drawled. ‘If you know where that girl is, tell us. I assure you that all that I and Dijkstra care about is her safety. Safety which is being threatened.’

‘I have no doubt,’ lied the poet, ‘that’s all you care about. But I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen the child you’re so interested in. And Geralt—’

‘Geralt,’ interrupted Dijkstra, ‘never confided in you, never said a word even though, no doubt, you inundated him with questions. Why do you think that might be, Dandilion? Could it be that this simple soul, this simpleton who despises spies, sensed who you really are? Leave him alone, Philippa, it’s a waste of time. He knows shit-all, don’t be taken in by his cocksure expressions and ambiguous smirks. He can help us in only one way. When the witcher emerges from his hide-out, he’ll get in touch with him, no one else. Just imagine, he considers him to be a friend.’

Dandilion slowly raised his head.

‘Indeed,’ he confirmed. ‘He considers me to be such. And just imagine, Dijkstra, that it’s not without reason. Finally accept the fact and draw your conclusions. Have you drawn them? Right, so now you can try blackmail.’

‘Well, well,’ smiled the spy. ‘How touchy you are on that point. But don’t sulk, poet. I was joking. Blackmail between us comrades? Out of the question. And believe me, I don’t wish that witcher of yours any ill nor am I thinking of harming him. Who knows – maybe I’ll even come to some understanding with him, to the advantage of us both? But in order for that to happen I’ve got to see him. When he appears, bring him to me. I ask you sincerely, Dandilion, very sincerely. Have you understood how sincerely?’

The troubadour snorted. ‘I’ve understood how sincerely.’

‘I’d like to believe that’s true. Well, go now. Ori, show our troubadour to the door.’

‘Take care.’ Dandilion got to his feet. ‘I wish you luck in your work and your personal life. My regards, Philippa. Oh, and Dijkstra! Those agents traipsing after me. Call them off.’

‘Of course,’ lied the spy. ‘I’ll call them off. Is it possible you don’t believe me?’

‘Nothing of the kind,’ lied the poet. ‘I believe you.’

Dandilion stayed on the Academy premises until evening. He kept looking around attentively but didn’t spot any snoops following him. And that was precisely what worried him most.

At the Faculty of Trouvereship he listened to a lecture on classical poetry. Then he slept sweetly through a seminar on modern poetry. He was woken up by some tutors he knew and together they went to the Department of Philosophy to take part in a long-enduring stormy dispute on ‘The essence and origins of life’. Before it had even grown dark, half of the participants were outright drunk while the rest were preparing for blows, out-shouting each other and creating a hullabaloo hard to describe. All this proved handy for the poet.

He slipped unseen into the garret, clambered out by the window vent, slid down by way of the gutter onto the roof of the library, and – nearly breaking his leg – jumped across onto the roof of the dissecting theatre. From there he got into the garden adjacent to the wall. Amidst the dense gooseberry bushes he found a hole which he himself had made bigger when a student. Beyond the hole lay the town of Oxenfurt.

He merged into the crowd, then quickly sneaked down the backstreets, dodging like a hare chased by hounds. When he reached the coach house he waited a good half hour, hidden in the shadows. Not spotting anything suspicious, he climbed the ladder to the thatch and leaped onto the roof of the house belonging to Wolfgang Amadeus Goatbeard, a brewer he knew. Gripping the moss-covered roof tiles, he finally arrived at the window of the attic he was aiming for. An oil lamp was burning inside the little room. Perched precariously on the guttering, Dandilion knocked on the lead frames. The window was not locked and gave way at the slightest push.

‘Geralt! Hey, Geralt!’

‘Dandilion? Wait . . . Don’t come in, please . . .’

‘What’s that, don’t come in? What do you mean, don’t come in?’ The poet pushed the window. ‘You’re not alone or what? Are you bedding someone right now?’

Neither receiving nor waiting for an answer he clambered onto the sill, knocking over the apples and onions lying on it.

‘Geralt . . .’ he panted and immediately fell silent. Then cursed under his breath, staring at the light green robes of a medical student strewn across the floor. He opened his mouth in astonishment and cursed once more. He could have expected anything. But not this.

‘Shani.’ He shook his head. ‘May the—’

‘No comments, thank you very much.’ The witcher sat down on the bed. And Shani covered herself, yanking the sheet right up to her upturned nose.

‘Well, come in then.’ Geralt reached for his trousers. ‘Since you’re coming by way of the window, this must be important. Because if it isn’t I’m going to throw you straight back out through it.’

Dandilion clambered off the sill, knocking down the rest of the onions. He sat down, pulling the high-backed, wooden chair closer with his foot. The witcher gathered Shani’s clothes and his own from the floor. He looked abashed and dressed in silence. The medical student, hiding behind him, was struggling with her shirt. The poet watched her insolently, searching in his mind for similes and rhymes for the golden colour of her skin in the light of the oil lamp and the curves of her small breasts.

‘What’s this about, Dandilion?’ The witcher fastened the buckles on his boots. ‘Go on.’

‘Pack your bags,’ he replied dryly. ‘Your departure is imminent.’

‘How imminent?’

‘Exceptionally.’

‘Shani . . .’ Geralt cleared his throat. ‘Shani told me about the snoops following you. You lost them, I understand?’

‘You don’t understand anything.’

‘Rience?’

‘Worse.’

‘In that case I really don’t understand . . . Wait. The Redanians? Tretogor? Dijkstra?’

‘You’ve guessed.’

‘That’s still no reason—’

‘It’s reason enough,’ interrupted Dandilion. ‘They’re not concerned about Rience any more, Geralt. They’re after the girl and Yennefer. Dijkstra wants to know where they are. He’s going to force you to disclose it to him. Do you understand now?’

‘I do now. And so we’re fleeing. Does it have to be through the window?’

‘Absolutely. Shani? Will you manage?’

The student of medicine smoothed down her robe.

‘It won’t be my first window.’

‘I was sure of that.’ The poet scrutinised her intently, counting on seeing a blush worthy of rhyme and metaphor. He miscalculated. Mirth in her hazel eyes and an impudent smile were all he saw.

A big grey owl glided down to the sill without a sound. Shani cried out quietly. Geralt reached for his sword.

‘Don’t be silly, Philippa,’ said Dandilion.

The owl disappeared and Phillippa Eilhart appeared in its place, squatting awkwardly. The magician immediately jumped into the room, smoothing down her hair and clothes.

‘Good evening,’ she said coldly. ‘Introduce me, Dandilion.’

‘Geralt of Rivia. Shani of Medicine. And that owl which so craftily flew in my tracks is no owl. This is Philippa Eilhart from the Council of Wizards, at present in King Vizimir’s service and pride of the Tretogor court. It’s a shame we’ve only got one chair in here.’

‘It’s quite enough.’ The enchantress made herself comfortable in the high-backed chair vacated by Dandilion, and cast a smouldering glance over those present, fixing her eyes somewhat longer on Shani. The medical student, to Dandilion’s surprise, suddenly blushed.

‘In principle, what I’ve come about is the sole concern of Geralt of Rivia,’ Philippa began after a short pause. ‘I’m aware, however, that to ask anybody to leave would be tactless, and so . . .’

‘I can leave,’ said Shani hesitantly.

‘You can’t,’ muttered Geralt. ‘No one can until the situation’s made clear. Isn’t that so, my lady?’

‘Philippa to you,’ smiled the enchantress. ‘Let’s throw formalities aside. And no one has to go – no one’s presence bothers me. Astonishes me, at most, but what to do? – life is an endless train of surprises . . . as one of my friends says . . . As our mutual friend says, Geralt. You’re studying medicine, are you, Shani? What year?’

‘Third,’ grunted the girl.

‘Ah,’ Philippa Eilhart was looking not at her but at the witcher, ‘seventeen, what a beautiful age. Yennefer would give a lot to be that age again. What do you reckon, Geralt? Because I’ll ask her when I get the chance.’

The witcher smiled nastily.

‘I’ve no doubt you will ask. I’ve no doubt you’ll follow the question with a commentary. I’ve no doubt it’ll amuse you no end. Now come to the point, please.’

‘Quite right.’ The magician nodded, growing serious. ‘It’s high time. And you haven’t got much time. Dandilion has, no doubt, already informed you that Dijkstra has suddenly acquired the wish to see and talk to you to establish the location of a certain girl. Dijkstra has orders from King Vizimir in this matter and so I think he will be very insistent that you reveal this place to him.’

‘Of course. Thank you for the warning. Only one thing puzzles me a little. You say Dijkstra received instructions from the king. And you didn’t receive any? After all, you hold a prominent seat in Vizimir’s council.’

‘Indeed.’ The magician was not perturbed by the gibe. ‘I do. I take my responsibilities seriously, and they consist of warning the king against making mistakes. Sometimes – as in this particular instance – I am not allowed to tell the king outright that he is committing a mistake, or to dissuade him from a hasty action. I simply have to render it impossible for him to make a mistake. You understand what I’m saying?’

The witcher confirmed with a nod. Dandilion wondered whether he really did understand, because he knew that Philippa was lying through her teeth.

‘So I see,’ said Geralt slowly, proving that he understood perfectly well, ‘that the Council of Wizards is also interested in my ward. The wizards wish to find out where my ward is. And they want to get to her before Vizimir or anybody else does. Why, Philippa? What is it about my ward? What makes her so very interesting?’

The magician’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you know?’ she hissed. ‘Do you know so little about her? I wouldn’t like to draw any hasty conclusions but such a lack of knowledge would indicate that your qualifications as her guardian amount to nothing. In truth, I’m surprised that being so unaware and so lacking in information, you decided to look after her. And not only that – you decided to deny the right to look after her to others, others who have both the qualifications and the right. And, on top of that, you ask why? Careful, Geralt, or your arrogance will be the end of you. Watch out. And guard that child, damn it! Guard that girl as though she’s the apple of your eye! And if you can’t do so yourself, ask others to!’

For a moment Dandilion thought the witcher was going to mention the role undertaken by Yennefer. He would not be risking anything, and would flatten Philippa’s arguments. But Geralt said nothing. The poet guessed why. Philippa knew everything. Philippa was warning him. And the witcher understood her warning.

He concentrated on observing their eyes and faces, wondering whether by any chance something in the past had tied the two together. Dandilion knew that similar duels of words and allusions – demonstrating a mutual fascination – waged between the witcher and enchantresses very often ended in bed. But observation, as usual, gave him nothing. There was only one way to find out whether something had tied the witcher to anyone – one had to enter through the window at the appropriate moment.

‘To look after someone,’ the enchantress continued after a while, ‘means to take upon oneself the responsibility for the safety of a person unable to assure that safety for herself. If you expose your ward . . . If she comes to any misfortune, the responsibility falls on you, Geralt. Only you.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m afraid you still know too little.’

‘So enlighten me. What makes so many people suddenly want to free me from the burden of that responsibility, want to take on my duties and care for my ward? What does the Council of Wizards want from Ciri? What do Dijkstra and King Vizimir want from her? What do the Temerians want from her? What does a certain Rience, who has already murdered three people in Sodden and Temeria who were in touch with me and the girl two years ago, want from her? Who almost murdered Dandilion trying to extract information about her? Who is this Rience, Philippa?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the magician. ‘I don’t know who Rience is. But, like you, I’d very much like to find out.’

‘Does this Rience – ’ Shani unexpectedly – ‘have a third-degree burn on his face? If so, then I know who he is. And I know where he is.’

In the silence which fell the first drops of rain knocked on the gutter outside the window.

Murder is always murder, regardless of motive or circumstance. Thus those who murder or who prepare to murder are malefactors and criminals, regardless of who they may be: kings, princes, marshals or judges. None who contemplates and commits violence has the right to consider himself better than an ordinary criminal. Because it is in the nature of all violence to lead inevitably to crime.

Nicodemus de Boot, Meditations on Life, Happiness and Prosperity

CHAPTER SIX

‘Let us not commit a mistake,’ said Vizimir, King of Redania, sliding his ringed fingers through the hair at his temples. ‘We can’t afford to make a blunder or mistake now.’

Those assembled said nothing. Demawend, ruler of Aedirn, sprawled in his armchair staring at the tankard of beer resting on his belly. Foltest, the Lord of Temeria, Pontar, Mahakam and Sodden, and recently Senior Protector of Brugge, presented his noble profile to everyone by turning his head towards the window. At the opposite side of the table sat Henselt, King of Kaedwen, running his small, piercing eyes – glistening from a face as bearded as a brigand’s – over the other participants of the council. Meve, Queen of Lyria, toyed pensively with the enormous rubies in her necklace, occasionally twisting her beautiful full lips into an ambiguous grimace.

‘Let us not commit a mistake,’ repeated Vizimir, ‘because a mistake could cost us too much. Let us make use of the experience of others. When our ancestors landed on the beaches five hundred years ago the elves also hid their heads in the sand. We tore the country away from them piece by piece, and they retreated, thinking all the while that this would be the last border, that we would encroach no further. Let us be wiser! Because now it is our turn. Now we are the elves. Nilfgaard is at the Yaruga and I hear: “So, let them stay there”. I hear: “They won’t come any further”. But they will, you’ll see. So I repeat, let us not make the same mistake as the elves!’

Raindrops knocked against the window panes and the wind howled eerily. Queen Meve raised her head. She thought she heard the croaking of ravens and crows, but it was only the wind. The wind and rain.

‘Do not compare us to the elves,’ said Henselt of Kaedwen. ‘You dishonour us with such a comparison. The elves did not know how to fight – they retreated before our ancestors and hid in the mountains and forests. The elves did not treat our ancestors to a Sodden. But we showed the Nilfgaardians what it means to pick a quarrel with us. Do not threaten us with Nilfgaard, Vizimir, don’t sow the seeds of propaganda. Nilfgaard, you say, is at the Yaruga? I say that Nilfgaard is sitting as quiet as a church mouse beyond the river. Because we broke their spine at Sodden. We broke them militarily, and above all we broke their morale. I don’t know whether it is true that Emhyr var Emreis was, at the time, against aggression on such a scale, that the attack on Cintra was the work of some party hostile to him – I take it that if they had defeated us, he would be applauding, and distributing privileges and endowments amongst them. But after Sodden it suddenly turns out he was against it, and that everything which occurred was due to his marshals’ insubordination. And heads fell. The scaffolds flowed with blood. These are certain facts, not rumours. Eight solemn executions, and many more modest ones. Several apparently natural yet mysterious deaths, a good many cases of people suddenly choosing to retire. I tell you, Emhyr fell into a rage and practically finished off his own commanders. So who will lead their army now? The sergeants?’

‘No, not the sergeants,’ said Demawend of Aedirn coldly. ‘It will be young and gifted officers who have long waited for such an opportunity and have been trained by Emhyr for an equally long time. Those whom the older marshals stopped from taking command, prevented from being promoted. The young, gifted commanders about whom we already hear. Those who crushed the uprisings in Metinna and Nazair, who rapidly broke up the rebels in Ebbing. Commanders who appreciate the roles of outflanking manoeuvres, of far-reaching cavalry raids, of swift infantry marches and of landing operations from the sea. They use the tactics of crushing assaults in specific directions, they use the newest siege techniques instead of relying on the uncertainties of magic. They must not be underestimated. They are itching to cross the Yaruga and prove that they have learned from the mistakes of their old marshals.’

‘If they have truly learned anything,’ Henselt shrugged, ‘they will not cross the Yaruga. The river estuary on the border between Cintra and Verden is still controlled by Ervyll and his three strongholds: Nastrog, Rozrog and Bodrog. They cannot be seized just like that – no new technology is going to help them there. Our flank is defended by Ethain of Cidaris’s fleet, and thanks to it we control the shore. And also thanks to the pirates of Skellige. Jarl Crach an Craite, if you remember, didn’t sign a truce with Nilfgaard, and regularly bites them, attacking and setting fire to their maritime settlements and forts in the Provinces. The Nilfgaardians have nicknamed him Tirth ys Muire, Sea Boar. They frighten children with him!’

‘Frightening Nilfgaardian children,’ smiled Vizimir wryly, ‘will not ensure our safety.’

‘No,’ agreed Henselt. ‘Something else will. Without control of the estuary or the shore and with a flank exposed, Emhyr var Emreis will be in no position to ensure provisions reach any detachments he might care to send across the Yaruga. What swift marches, what cavalry raids? Ridiculous. The army will come to a standstill within three days of crossing the river. Half will lay siege to the stronghold and the rest will be slowly dispersed to plunder the region in search of fodder and food. And when their famed cavalry has eaten most of its own horses, we’ll give them another Sodden. Damn it, I’d like them to cross the river! But don’t worry, they won’t.’

‘Let us say,’ Meve of Lyria said suddenly, ‘that they do not cross the Yaruga. Let us say that Nilfgaard will simply wait. Now let us consider: who would that suit, them or us? Who can let themselves wait and do nothing and who can’t?’

‘Exactly!’ picked up Vizimir. ‘Meve, as usual, does not say much but she hits the nail on the head. Emhyr has time on his hands, gentlemen, but we don’t. Can’t you see what is happening? Three years ago, Nilfgaard disturbed a small stone on the mountainside and now they are calmly waiting for an avalanche. They can simply wait while new stones keep pouring down the slope. Because, to some, that first small stone looked like a boulder which would be impossible to move. And since it turned out that a mere touch sufficed to set it rolling, others appeared for whom an avalanche would prove convenient. From the Grey Mountains to Bremervoord, elven commandos rove the forests – this is no longer a small group of guerrilla fighters, this is war. Just wait and we’ll see the free elves of Dol Blathanna rising to fight. In Mahakam the dwarves are rebelling, the dryads of Brokilon are growing bolder and bolder. This is war, war on a grand scale. Civil war. Domestic. Our own. While Nilfgaard waits . . . Whose side you think time is on? The Scoia’tael commandos have thirty-or forty-year old elves fighting for them. And they live for three hundred years! They have time, we don’t!’

‘The Scoia’tael,’ admitted Henselt, ‘have become a real thorn in the backside. They’re paralysing my trade and transport, terrorising the farmers . . . we have to put an end to this!’

‘If the non-humans want war, they will get it,’ threw in Foltest of Temeria. ‘I have always been an advocate of mutual agreement and co-existence but if they prefer a test of strength then we will see who is the stronger. I am ready. I undertake to put an end to the Squirrels in Temeria and Sodden within six months. Those lands have already run with elven blood once, shed by our ancestors. I consider the blood-letting a tragedy, but I do not see an alternative – the tragedy will be repeated. The elves have to be pacified.’

‘Your army will march against the elves if you give the order,’ nodded Demawend. ‘But will it march against humans? Against the peasantry from which you muster your infantry? Against the guilds? Against the free towns? Speaking of the Scoia’tael, Vizimir described only one stone in the avalanche. Yes, yes, gentlemen, do not gape at me like that! Word is already going round the villages and towns that on the lands already taken by the Nilfgaard, peasants, farmers and craftsmen are having an easier life, freer and richer, and that merchants’ guilds have more privileges . . . We are inundated with goods from Nilfgaardian manufactories. In Brugge and Verden their coin is ousting local currency. If we sit and do nothing we will be finished, at odds with our neighbours, embroiled in conflict, tangled up in trying to quell rebellions and riots, and slowly subdued by the economic strength of the Nilfgaardians. We will be finished, suffocating in our own stuffy parochial corner because – understand this – Nilfgaard is cutting off our route to the South and we have to develop, we have to be expansive, otherwise there won’t be enough room here for our grandchildren!’

Those gathered said nothing. Vizimir of Redania sighed deeply, grabbed one of the chalices standing on the table and took a long draught. Rain battered against the windows throughout the prolonged silence, and the wind howled and pounded against the shutters.

‘All the worries of which we talk,’ said Henselt finally, ‘is the work of Nilfgaard. It is Emhyr’s emissaries who are inciting the non-humans, spreading propaganda and calling for riots. It is they who are throwing gold around and promising privileges to corporations and guilds, assuring barons and dukes they will receive high positions in the provinces they plan to create in place of our kingdoms. I don’t know what it’s like in your countries, but in Kaedwen we’ve been inundated with clerics, preachers, fortune-tellers and other shitty mystics all appearing out of the blue, all preaching the end of the world . . .’

‘It’s the same in my country,’ agreed Foltest. ‘Damn it, for so many years there was peace. Ever since my grandfather showed the clerics their place and decimated their ranks, those who remained stuck to useful tasks. They studied books and instilled knowledge in children, treated the sick, took care of the poor, the handicapped and the homeless. They didn’t get mixed up in politics. And now all of a sudden they’ve woken up and are yelling nonsense to the rabble – and the rabble is listening and believes they know, at last, why their lives are so hard. I put up with it because I’m less impetuous than my grandfather and less sensitive about my royal authority and dignity than he was. What sort of dignity or authority would it be, anyway, if it could be undermined by the squealings of some deranged fanatic. But my patience is coming to an end. Recently the main topic of preaching has been of a Saviour who will come from the south. From the south! From beyond the Yaruga!’

‘The White Flame,’ muttered Demawend. ‘White Chill will come to be, and after it the White Light. And then the world will be reborn through the White Flame and the White Queen . . . I’ve heard it, too. It’s a travesty of the prophecy of Ithlinne aep Aevenien, the elven seeress. I gave orders to catch one cleric who was going on about it in the Vengerberg market place and the torturer asked him politely and at length how much gold the prophet had received from Emhyr for doing it . . . But the preacher only prattled on about the White Flame and the White Queen . . . the same thing, to the very end.’

‘Careful, Demawend,’ grimaced Vizimir. ‘Don’t make any martyrs. That‘s exactly what Emhyr is after. Catch all the Nilfgaardian agents you please, but do not lay hands on clerics, the consequences are too unpredictable. They still are held in regard and have an important influence on people. We have too much trouble with the Squirrels to risk riots in our towns or war against our own peasants.’

‘Damn it!’ snorted Foltest, ‘let’s not do this, let’s not risk that, we mustn’t this, we mustn’t that . . . Have we gathered here to talk about all we can’t do? Is that why you dragged us all to Hagge, Demawend, to cry our hearts out and bemoan our weakness and helplessness? Let us finally do something! Something must be done! What is happening has to be stopped!’

‘I’ve been saying that from the start.’ Vizimir pulled himself up. ‘I propose action.’

‘What sort of action?’

‘What can we do?’

Silence fell again. The wind blustered, the shutters banged against the castle wall.

‘Why,’ said Meve suddenly, ‘are you all looking at me?’

‘We’re admiring your beauty,’ Henselt mumbled from the depths of his tankard.

‘That too,’ seconded Vizimir. ‘Meve, we all know you can find a solution to everything. You have a woman’s intuition, you’re a wise wo—’

‘Stop flattering me.’ The Queen of Lyria clasped her hands in her lap and fixed her gaze on the darkened tapestries with their depictions of hunting scenes. Hounds, extended in a leap, were turning their muzzles up towards the flanks of a fleeing white unicorn. I’ve never seen a live unicorn, thought Meve. Never. And I probably never will.

‘The situation in which we find ourselves,’ she said after a while, tearing her eyes away from the tapestry, ‘reminds me of long, winter evenings in Rivian Castle. Something always hung in the air. My husband would be contemplating how to get his hands on yet another maid-of-honour. The marshal would be working out how to start a war which would make him famous. The wizard would imagine he was king. The servants wouldn’t feel like serving, the jester would be sad, gloomy and excruciatingly dull, the dogs would howl with melancholy and the cats sleep, careless of any mice that might be scuttling around on the table. Everybody was waiting for something. Everyone was scowling at me. And I . . . then I . . . I showed them. I showed them all what I was capable of, in a way that made the very walls shake and the local grizzly bears wake in their winter lairs. And any silly thoughts disappeared from their heads in a trice. Suddenly everyone knew who ruled.’

No one uttered a word. The wind howled a little louder. The guards on the buttresses outside hailed each other casually. The patter of drops on the panes in the lead window frames grew to a frenzied staccato.

‘Nilfgaard is watching and waiting,’ continued Meve slowly, toying with her necklace. ‘Nilfgaard is observing us. Something is hanging in the air, silly thoughts are springing up in many heads. So let us show them what we are capable of. Let us show them who is really king here. Let us shake the walls of this great castle plunged into a winter torpor!’l’

‘Eradicate the Squirrels,’ said Henselt quickly. ‘Start a huge joint military operation. Treat the non-humans to a blood bath. Let the Pontar, Gwenllech and Buina flow with elven blood from source to estuary!’

‘Send a penal expedition to smother the free elves of Dol Blathanna,’ added Demawend, frowning. ‘March an interventionary force into Mahakam. Allow Ervyll of Verden a chance, at last, to get at the dryads in Brokilon. Yes, a blood bath! And any survivors – to the reservations!’

‘Set Crach an Craite at the Nilfgaardian shores,’ picked up Vizimir. ‘Support him with Ethain of Cidaris’s fleet, let them go ravaging from the Yaruga to Ebbing! A show of strength—’

‘Not enough.’ Foltest shook his head. ‘All of that is still not enough. We need . . . I know what we need.’

‘So tell us!’

‘Cintra.’

‘What?’

‘To take Cintra back from the Nilfgaardians. Let us cross the Yaruga, be the first to attack. Now, while they don’t expect it. Let us throw them out, back beyond the Marnadal.’

‘How? We’ve just said that it’s impossible for an army to cross the Yaruga—’

‘Impossible for Nilfgaard. But we have control of the river. We hold the estuary in our grasp, and the supply routes, and our flank is protected by Skellige, Cidaris and the strongholds in Verden. For Nilfgaard, getting forty or fifty thousand men across the river is a considerable effort. We can get far more across to the left bank. Don’t gape, Vizimir. You wanted something to put an end to the waiting? Something spectacular? Something which will make us true kings again? That something is Cintra. Cintra will bind us and our rule together because Cintra is a symbol. Remember Sodden! If it were not for the massacre of that town and Calanthe’s martyrdom, there would not have been such a victory then. The forces were equal – no one counted on our crushing them like that. But our armies threw themselves at their throats like wolves, like rabid dogs, to avenge the Lioness of Cintra. And there are those whose fury was not quelled by the blood spilt on the field of Sodden. Remember Crach an Craite, the Wild Boar of the Sea!’

‘That is true,’ nodded Demawend. ‘Crach swore bloody vengeance on Nilfgaard. For Eist Tuirseach, killed at Marnadal. And for Calanthe. If we were to strike at the left bank, Crach would back us up with all the strength of Skellige. By the gods, this has a chance at success! I back Foltest! Let us not wait, let us strike first, let us liberate Cintra and chase those sons-of-bitches beyond the Amell pass!’

‘Slow down,’ snarled Henselt. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry to tug the lion’s whiskers, because this lion is not dead yet. That is for starters. Secondly, if we are the first to strike, we will put ourselves in the position of aggressors. We will be breaking the truce to which we all put our seals. We will not be backed by Niedamir and his League, we will not be backed by Esterad Thyssen. I don’t know how Ethain of Cidaris will react. An aggressive war will also be opposed by our guilds, merchants, nobles . . . And above all, the wizards. Do not forget the wizards!’

‘The wizards won’t back an assault on the left bank,’ confirmed Vizimir. ‘The peace agreement was the work of Vilgefortz of Roggeveen. It is well known that his plan was for the armistice to gradually turn into permanent peace. Vilgefortz will not back a war. And the Chapter, believe me, will do whatever Vilgefortz wishes. After Sodden he has become the most important person in the Chapter – let other magicians say what they will, Vilgefortz plays first fiddle there.’

‘Vilgefortz, Vilgefortz,’ bridled Foltest. ‘He has grown too large for us, that magician. Taking into account Vilgefortz’s and the Chapter’s plans – plans which I am not acquainted with anyway, and which I do not understand at that – is beginning to annoy me. But there is a way around that, too, gentlemen. What if it were Nilfgaard who was the aggressor ? At Dol Angra for example? Against Aedirn and Lyria? We could arrange that somehow . . . could stage some tiny provocation . . . A border incident caused by them? An attack on a border fort, let us say? We will, of course, be prepared – we will react decisively and forcefully, with everybody’s full acceptance, including that of Vilgefortz and the entire Chapter of Wizards. And when Emhyr var Emreis turns his eyes from Sodden and Transriver, the Cintrians will demand their country back – all those the emigrants and refugees who are gathering themselves in Brugge under Vissegerd’s leadership. Nearly eight thousand of them are armed. Could there be a better spearhead ? They live in the hope of regaining the country they were forced to flee. They are burning to fight. They are ready to strike the left bank. They await only the battle cry.’

‘The battle cry,’ bore out Meve, ‘and the promise that we will back them up. Because Emhyr can command eight thousand men at his border garrison; with that strength he won’t even have to send for relief troops. Vissegerd knows this very well and won’t move until he has the assurance that your armies, Foltest, reinforced by Redanian corps, will disembark on the left bank at his heels. But above all Vissegerd is waiting for the Lion Cub of Cintra. Apparently the queen’s granddaughter survived the slaughter. Allegedly, she was seen amongst the refugees, but the child mysteriously disappeared. The emigrants persist in their search for her . . . Because they need someone of royal blood to sit on their regained throne. Someone of Calanthe’s blood.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Foltest coldly. ‘More than two years have passed. If the child has not been found by now, she’s dead. We can forget that myth. Calanthe is no more and there is no Lion Cub, no royal blood to whom the throne belongs. Cintra . . . will never again be what it was during the Lioness’s lifetime. Obviously, we cannot say that to Vissegerd’s emigrants.’

‘So you are going to send Cintrian guerrillas to their deaths?’ Meve narrowed her eyes. ‘In the line of attack? Not telling them that Cintra can only be reborn as a vassal country under your protectorship? You are proposing, to all of us, an attack on Cintra for your own gain? You have suborned Sodden and Brugge for yourself, are sharpening your teeth on Verden and now you have caught a whiff of Cintra, is that right?’

‘Admit it, Foltest,’ snapped Henselt. ‘Is Meve right? Is that why you are inciting us to this affair?’

‘Come on, leave it.’ The ruler of Temeria furrowed his noble brow and bristled angrily. ‘Don’t make me out as some conqueror dreaming of an empire. What are you talking about? Sodden and Brugge? Ekkehard of Sodden was my mother’s half-brother. Are you surprised that following his death the Free States brought the crown to me, his relative? Blood not water! And yes Venzlav of Brugge paid me homage as a vassal – but without coercion! He did it to protect his country because, on a fine day, he can see Nilfgaardian lances flashing on the left bank of the Yaruga!’

‘And we are talking about the left bank,’ drawled out the Queen of Lyria. ‘The bank we are to strike. And the left bank is Cintra. Destroyed, burned out, ruined, decimated and occupied . . . but still Cintra. The Cintrians won’t bring you their crown, Foltest, nor will they pay you homage. Cintra will not agree to be a vassal state. Blood, not water!’

‘Cintra, if we . . . When we liberate it, should it become our joint protectorate,’ said Demawend of Aedirn. ‘Cintra is at the mouth of the Yaruga, in too important a strategic position to allow ourselves to lose control over it.’

‘It has to be a free country,’ objected Vizimir. ‘Free, independent and strong. A country which will be an iron gateway, a bulwark to the north, and not a strip of burned ground over which the Nilfgaardian cavalry will be able to gather speed!’

‘Is it possible to rebuild such a Cintra? Without Calanthe?’

‘Don’t get all worked up, Foltest,’ pouted Meve. ‘I’ve already told you, the Cintrians will never accept a protectorate or foreign blood on their throne. If you try to force yourself on them as their lord the tables will be turned. Vissegerd will again prepare his troops for battle, but this time under Emhyr’s wings. And one day those detachments are going to assail us in the vanguard of a Nilfgaardian onslaught. As the spear point, as you just vividly described it.’

‘Foltest knows that,’ snorted Vizimir. ‘That’s why he’s searching so hard for this Lion Cub, for Calanthe’s granddaughter. Don’t you understand? Blood not water, the crown through marriage. It’s enough for him to find the girl and force her to marry—’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ choked out the King of Temeria. ‘The Lion Cub is dead! I’m not looking for the girl at all, but if I were . . . It has not even occurred to me to force her to do such a thing—’

‘You wouldn’t have to force her,’ interrupted Meve, smiling charmingly. ‘You are still a strapping, handsome man, cousin. And Calanthe’s blood runs through the Lion Cub. Very hot blood. I knew Cali when she was young. When she saw a fellow she liked, she leaped up and down so fast that if you put dry twigs beneath her feet they would have caught real fire. Her daughter, Pavetta, the Lion Cub’s mother, was exactly the same. So, no doubt, the Lion Cub has not fallen far from the apple tree. A bit of effort, Foltest, and the girl would not be long in resisting. That is what you are counting on, admit it.’

‘Of course he’s counting on it,’ chuckled Demawend. ‘Our king has thought up a cunning little plan for himself! We assail the left bank and before we realise it our Foltest will have found the girl, won her heart and have a young wife whom he will place on the throne of Cintra while her people cry for joy and pee in their knickers for happiness. For they will have their queen, blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of Calanthe. They will have a queen . . . albeit one who comes with a king. King Foltest.’

‘What rubbish!’ yelled Foltest, turning red then white in turn. ‘What’s got into you? There’s not a grain of sense in your prattling!’

‘There is a whole lot of sense,’ said Vizimir dryly. ‘Because I know that someone is searching for the child very earnestly. Who, Foltest?’

‘It’s obvious! Vissegerd and the Cintrians!’

‘No, it’s not them. At least, not just them. Someone else is, too. Someone who is leaving a trail of corpses behind them. Someone who does not shrink from blackmail, bribery or torture . . . While we are on the subject, is a gentleman by the name of Rience in any of your services? Ah, I see from your expressions that either he isn’t or you won’t admit it – which comes to the same thing. I repeat: they are searching for Calanthe’s granddaughter, and searching in such a way as to make you think twice about their intentions. Who is looking for her, I ask?’

‘Hell !’ Foltest thumped his fist on the table. ‘It’s not me! It never occurred to me to marry some child for some throne! After all, I—’

‘After all, you have been secretly sleeping with the Baroness La Valette for the past four years.’ Meve smiled again. ‘You love each other like two turtle doves and just wait for the old baron to finally kick the bucket. What are you staring at? We all know about it. What do you think we pay our spies for? But for the throne of Cintra, cousin, many a king would be prepared to sacrifice his personal happiness—’

‘Hold on.’ Henselt scratched his beard with a rasp. ‘Many a king, you say. Then leave Foltest in peace for a moment. There are others. In her time, Calanthe wanted to give her granddaughter’s hand to Ervyll of Verden’s son. Ervyll, too, might have caught a whiff of Cintra. And not just him . . .’

‘Hmm . . .’ muttered Vizimir. ‘True. Ervyll has three sons . . . And what about those present here who also have male descendants? Huh? Meve? Are you not, by any chance, pulling wool over our eyes?’

‘You can count me out.’ The Queen of Lyria smiled even more charmingly. ‘It is true, two of my offspring are roaming the world – the fruits of delightful abandon – if they have not been brought to the gallows yet. I doubt that either of them would suddenly desire to be king. They were neither predisposed nor inclined that way. Both were even stupider than their father, may he rest in peace. Whoever knew my deceased husband will understand what I mean.’

‘That’s a fact,’ agreed the King of Redania. ‘I knew him. Are your sons really more stupid? Damn it, I thought it wasn’t possible to get any more stupid . . . Forgive me, Meve . . .’

‘It’s nothing, Vizimir.’

‘Who else has sons?’

‘You do, Henselt.’

‘My son is married!’

‘And what is poison for? For the throne of Cintra, as someone here so wisely said, many would sacrifice their personal happiness. It would be worth it!’

‘I will not permit such insinuations! And leave me alone! Others have sons, too!’

‘Niedamir of Hengfors has two. And is a widower himself. And he isn’t old. And don’t forget Esterad Thyssen of Kovir.’

‘I would count those out.’ Vizimir shook his head. ‘The Hengfors League and Kovir are planning a dynastic union with each other. They are not interested in Cintra or the south. Hmm . . . But Ervyll of Verden . . . It’s not so far from him.’

‘There is someone else who is just as near,’ remarked Demawend suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘Emhyr var Emreis. He is not married. And he is younger than you, Foltest.’

‘Bloody hell.’ The King of Redania frowned. ‘If that were true . . . Emhyr would bugger us without grease! It’s obvious that the people and nobility of Cintra will follow Calanthe’s blood. Imagine what would happen if Emhyr were to get his hands on the Lion Cub? Damn it, that’s all we need! Queen of Cintra, and Empress of Nilfgaard!’

‘Empress!’ snorted Henselt. ‘You exaggerate, Vizimir. What does Emhyr need the girl for, what the hell does he need to get married for? The throne of Cintra? Emhyr already has Cintra! He conquered the country and made it a province of Nilfgaard ! He’s got his whole butt on the throne and still has enough room to wriggle about!’

‘Firstly,’ noted Foltest, ‘Emhyr grips Cintra by law, or rather by an aggressor’s lawlessness. If he had the girl and married her, he could rule legally. You understand? Nilfgaard bound in marriage to Calanthe’s blood is no longer Nilfgaard the invader, at which the entire north bares its teeth. It is Nilfgaard the neighbour whom one has to take into account. How would you want to force such a Nilfgaard beyond Marnadal, beyond the Amell passes? Attacking a kingdom whose throne is legally occupied by the Lion Cub, granddaughter of the Lioness of Cintra? Pox! I don’t know who’s looking for that child. I’m not looking for her. But I declare that now I’m going to start to. I still believe the girl is dead, but we can’t take the risk. It looks as if she is too important. If she survived then we must find her!’

‘And shall we decide now who she will marry when we find her?’ Henselt grimaced. ‘Such matters should not be left to chance. We could, for that matter, hand her over to Vissegerd’s guerrillas as a battle standard, tied to a long pole – they could carry her before the front line as they attack the left bank. But if the recaptured Cintra is to be useful to us all . . . Surely you see what I mean? If we attack Nilfgaard and retrieve Cintra, the Lion Cub can be put on the throne. But the Lion Cub can have only one husband. One who will look after our interests at the mouth of the Yaruga. Who of those present is going to volunteer?’

‘Not me,’ joked Meve. ‘I waive the privilege.’

‘I wouldn’t exclude those who aren’t present here,’ said Demawend seriously. ‘Neither Ervyll, nor Niedamir, nor the Thyssens. And bear in mind that Vissegerd could surprise you and put the standard attached to a long pole to unexpected use. You’ve heard about morganatic marriages? Vissegerd is old and as ugly as cow’s dung but with enough decoctions of absinthe and damiana down her throat, the Lion Cub might unexpectedly fall in love with him! Is King Vissegerd included in our plans?’

‘No,’ muttered Foltest, ‘not in mine.’

‘Hmm . . .’ Vizimir hesitated. ‘Nor in mine. Vissegerd is a tool, not a partner, that’s the role he is to play in our plans for attacking Nilfgaard – that and no other. Besides, if the one who is so earnestly seeking the Lion Cub is indeed Emhyr var Emreis, we cannot take the risk.’

‘Absolutely not,’ seconded Foltest. ‘The Lion Cub cannot fall into Emhyr’s hands. She cannot fall into anybody’s—Into the wrong hands . . . Alive.’

‘Infanticide?’ Meve grimaced. ‘An ugly solution, my kings. Unworthy. And surely unnecessarily drastic. First of all, let us find the girl – because we still don’t have her. And when we have found her, give her to me. I’ll keep her in some castle in the mountains for a couple of years, and marry her off to one of my knights. When you see her again, she will already have two children and a belly out here.’

‘Leading to, if I count correctly, at least three future eventual pretenders and usurpers?’ Vizimir nodded. ‘No, Meve. It is ugly, indeed, but the Lion Cub, if she has survived, must now die. For reasons of state. Gentlemen?’

The rain hammered against the windows. The gale howled among the towers of Hagge castle.

The kings grew silent.

‘Vizimir, Foltest, Demawend, Henselt and Meve,’ repeated the marshal. ‘They met in a secret council in Hagge Castle on the Pontar. They conferred in privacy.’

‘How symbolic,’ said the slender, black-haired man wearing an elk tunic marked with the imprints of armour and rust stains, without looking round. ‘After all, it was at Hagge, not forty years ago, that Virfuril defeated Medell’s armies, strengthened his control over the Pontar Valley and established today’s borders between Aedirn and Temeria. And today Demawend, Virfuril’s son, invites Foltest, Medell’s son, to Hagge, summoning Vizimir of Tretogor, Henselt of Ard Carraigh and the merry widow Meve of Lyria to complete the set. They are meeting now and holding council in secrecy. Can you guess what they are discussing, Coehoorn?’

‘I can,’ the marshal replied succinctly. He did not say a word more. He knew that the man with his back turned hated anyone to display any eloquence or comment on obvious facts in his presence.

‘They did not invite Ethain of Cidaris.’ The man in the elk tunic turned away from the window, clasped his hands behind his back and strolled slowly from the window to the table and then back again. ‘Nor Ervyll of Verden. They did not invite Esterad Thyssen or Niedamir. Which means they are either very sure of themselves, or very unsure. They did not invite anyone from the Chapter of Wizards. Which is interesting, and significant. Coehoorn, try to see to it that the wizards learn of this council. Let them know that their monarchs do not treat them as equals. It seems to me that the wizards of the Chapter have had some doubts in this respect. Disperse them.’

‘It’s an order.’

‘Any news from Rience?’

‘None.’

The man paused at the window and stood there for a long while gazing at the hills drenched in rain. Coehoorn waited, restlessly clenching and unclenching his fist around the pommel of his sword. He was afraid he would be forced to listen to a long monologue. The marshal knew that the man standing at the window considered his monologues a conversation, and viewed conversation as a privilege and proof of trust. He knew this, but still didn’t like listening to the monologues.

‘How do you find the country, Governor? Have you grown to like your new province?’

He shuddered, taken unawares. He did not expect the question. But he did not ponder the answer for long. Insincerity and indecisiveness could cost him a great deal.

‘No, your Highness. I haven’t. That country is so . . . gloomy.’

‘It was different once,’ the man replied without looking round. ‘And it will be different again. You will see. You will still see a beautiful, happy Cintra, Coehoorn. I promise you. But don’t be saddened, I shan’t keep you here long. Someone else will take over the governorship of the province. I’ll be needing you in Dol Angra. You’ll leave immediately once the rebellion is quashed. I need someone responsible in Dol Angra. Someone who will not allow himself to be provoked. The merry widow of Lyria or Demawend . . . will want to provoke us. You’ll take the young officers in hand. Cool their hot heads. You will let yourselves be provoked only when I give the order. No sooner.’

‘Yes, sir!’l’

The clatter of arms and spurs and the sound of raised voices came from the antechamber. Someone knocked on the door. The man in the elk tunic turned away from the window and nodded his head in consent. The marshal bowed a little and left.

The man returned to the table, sat down and lowered his head over some maps. He studied them for a long time then finally rested his brow on his interlocked hands. The enormous diamond in his ring sparkled in the candlelight as if a thousand flames.

‘Your Highness?’ The door squeaked faintly.

The man did not change his position. But the marshal noticed that his hands twitched. He spotted it by the flash of the diamond. He closed the door carefully and quietly behind him.

‘News, Coehoorn? From Rience maybe?’

‘No, your Highness. But good news. The rebellion in the province has been quelled. We have broken up the rebels. Only a few managed to escape to Verden. And we’ve caught their leader, Duke Windhalm of Attre.’

‘Good,’ said the man after a while, still not raising his head from his hands. ‘Windhalm of Attre . . . Order him to be beheaded. No . . . Not beheaded. Executed in some other way. Spectacularly, lengthily and cruelly. And publicly, it goes without saying. A terrifying example is necessary. Something that will frighten others. Only please, Coehoorn, spare me the details. You don’t have to bother with a vivid description in your report. I take no pleasure from it.’

The marshal nodded, then swallowed hard. He too found no pleasure in it. No pleasure whatsoever. He intended to leave the preparation and performance of the execution to the specialists, and he did not have the least intention of asking those specialists for details. And, above all, he did not intend to be there.

‘You will be present at the execution.’ The man raised his head, picked a letter up from the table and broke the seal. ‘Officially. As the Governor of the Province of Cintra. You will stand in for me. I don’t intend to watch it. That’s an order, Coehoorn.’

‘Yes, sir!’ The marshal did not even try to hide his embarrassment and discomfort. The man who had given the order did not allow anything to be kept from him. And rarely did anyone succeed in doing so.

The man glanced at the open letter and almost immediately threw it into the fire, into the hearth.

‘Coehoorn.’

‘Yes, your Highness?’

‘I am not going to wait for Rience’s report. Set the magicians to work and have them prepare a telecommunication link with their point of contact in Redania. Let them pass on my verbal orders, which must immediately be sent to Rience. The order is to run as follows: Rience is to stop pussyfooting around, and to stop playing with the witcher. Else it could end badly. No one toys with the witcher. I know him, Coehoorn. He is too clever to lead Rience to the Trail. I repeat, Rience is to organise the assassination immediately, to take the witcher out of the game at once. He’s to kill him, and then disappear, bide his time and await my orders. If he comes across the enchantress’s trail before that he is to leave her alone. Not a hair on Yennefer’s head is to be harmed. Have you remembered that, Coehoorn?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The communiqué is to be coded and firmly secured against any magical deciphering. Forewarn the wizards about this. If they bungle it, if any undesirables learn of my order, I will hold them responsible.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The marshal hawked and pulled himself up straight.

‘What else, Coehoorn?’

‘The count . . . He is here already, your Highness. He came at your command.’

‘Already?’ He smiled. ‘Such speed is worthy of admiration. I hope he didn’t exhaust that black horse of his everyone envies so much. Have him come in.’

‘Am I to be present during the conversation, your Highness?’

‘Of course, Governor of Cintra.’

Summoned from the antechambers, the knight entered the chamber with an energetic, strong and noisy stride, his black armour grating. He stopped short, drew himself up proudly, threw his wet, muddy black cloak back from his shoulder, and laid his hand on the hilt of his mighty sword. He leaned his black helmet, adorned with wings of a bird of prey, on his hip. Coehoorn looked at the knight’s face. He saw there the hard pride of a warrior, and impudence. He did not see any of the things that should have been visible in the face of one who had spent the past two years incarcerated in a place from which – as everything had indicated – he would only leave for the scaffold. A faint smile touched the marshal’s lips. He knew that the disdain for death and crazy courage of youngsters stemmed from a lack of imagination. He knew that perfectly well. He had once been such a youngster himself.

The man sitting at the table rested his chin on his interlaced fingers and looked at the knight intently. The youngster pulled himself up taut as a string.

‘In order for everything to be perfectly clear,’ the man behind the table addressed him, ‘you should understand that the mistake you made in this town two years ago has not been forgiven. You are getting one more chance. You are getting one more order. My decision as to your ultimate fate depends on the way in which you carry it out.’

The young knight’s face did not twitch, and nor did a single feather on the wings adorning the helmet at his hip.

‘I never deceive anyone, I never give anyone false illusions,’ continued the man. ‘So let it be known that, naturally, the prospect of saving your neck from the executioner’s axe exists only if you do not make a mistake this time. Your chances of a full pardon are small. Your chances of my forgiving and forgetting are . . . non-existent. ’

The young knight in the black armour did not flinch this time either, but Coehoorn detected the flash in his eyes. He doesn’t believe him, he thought. He doesn’t believe him and is deluding himself. He is making a great mistake.

‘I command your full attention,’ continued the man behind the table. ‘Yours, too, Coehoorn, because the orders I am about to give concern you too. They come in a moment, for I have to give some thought to their substance and delivery.’

Marshal Menno Coehoorn, Governor of the Province of Cintra and future Commander-in-Chief of the Dol Angra army, lifted his head and stood to attention, his hand on the pommel of his sword. The same attitude was assumed by the knight in black armour with the bird-of-prey-winged helmet. They both waited. In silence. Patiently. The way one should wait for orders, the substance and presentation of which were being pondered by the Emperor of Nilfgaard, Emhyr var Emreis, Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd, the White Flame Dancing on the Grave-Mounds of Enemies.

Ciri woke.

She was lying, or rather half-sitting, with her head resting high on several pillows. The compresses on her forehead had grown warm and only slightly damp. She threw them off, unable to bear their unpleasant weight and their stinging against her skin. She found it hard to breathe. Her throat was dry and her nose almost completely blocked with clots of blood. But the elixirs and spells had worked – the pain which had exploded within her skull and dimmed her sight a few hours ago had disappeared and given way to a dull throbbing and a sensation of pressure on her temples.

Carefully she touched her nose with the back of her hand. It was no longer bleeding.

What a strange dream I had, she thought. The first dream for many days. The first where I wasn’t afraid. The first which wasn’t about me. I was an . . . observer. I saw everything as if from above, from high up . . . As if I were a bird . . . A night bird . . .

A dream in which I saw Geralt.

In the dream it was night. And the rain, which furrowed the surface of the canal, spattered on the shingle roofs and thatches of sheds, glistened on the planks of foot-bridges and the decks of boats and barges . . . And Geralt was there. Not alone. There was a man with him in a funny hat with a feather, limp from the damp. And a slim girl in a green cloak with a hood . . . All three were walking slowly and carefully along a wet foot-bridge . . . And I saw them from above. As if I were a bird. A night bird . . .

Geralt had stopped short. ‘Is it still far?’ he had asked. ‘No,’ the slim girl had answered, shaking the water off her green cloak. ‘We’re almost there . . . Hey, Dandilion, don’t lag behind or you’ll get lost in these cul-de-sacs . . . And where the hell is Philippa? I saw her a moment ago, she was flying alongside the canal . . . What foul weather . . . Let’s go. Lead on, Shani. And between you and me, where do you know this charlatan from? What have you got to do with him?’

‘I sometimes sell him medicaments looted from the college workshop. What are you staring at me like that for? My stepfather can barely pay for my tuition . . . I sometimes need a little money . . . And the charlatan, having real medicaments, treats people . . . Or at least he doesn’t poison them . . . Well, let’s get going.’

Strange dream, thought Ciri. Shame I woke up. I’d like to have seen what was going to happen . . . I’d like to know what they were doing there. Where they were going . . .

From the chamber next door came the sound of voices, the voices which had woken her. Mother Nenneke was speaking quickly, clearly worked up, agitated and angry. ‘You betrayed my trust,’ she was saying. ‘I shouldn’t have allowed it. I might have guessed that your dislike of her would lead to disaster. I shouldn’t have allowed you to—Because, after all, I know you. You’re ruthless, you’re cruel, and to make matters worse, it turns out you’re also irresponsible and careless. You’re torturing that child mercilessly, forcing her to try things which she can’t possibly do. You’ve no heart.

‘You really have no heart, Yennefer.’

Ciri pricked up her ears, wanting to hear the enchantress’s reply, her cold, hard and melodious voice. Wanting to hear how she reacted, how she sneered at the high priestess, how she ridiculed her over-protectiveness. She wanted to hear her say what she usually said – that using magic is no joke, that it isn’t an occupation for young ladies made of porcelain, for dolls blown from thin glass. But Yennefer answered quietly, so quietly that the girl could neither understand nor even make out the individual words.

I’ll fall asleep, she thought, carefully and delicately feeling her nose which was still tender, painful and blocked with clotted blood. I’ll go back to my dream. I’ll see what Geralt is doing there, in the night, in the rain, by the canal . . .

Yennefer was holding her by the hand. They were both walking down a long, dark corridor, between stone columns or, perhaps, statues. Ciri could not make out their forms in the thick darkness. But there was someone there, in that darkness, someone hiding and observing them as they walked. She heard whispers, quiet as the rustle of the wind.

Yennefer was holding her by the hand, walking briskly and assuredly, full of decisiveness, so much so that Ciri could barely keep up with her. Doors opened before them in succession, one after another. An infinite number of doors with gigantic, heavy leaves opened up before them noiselessly.

The darkness thickened. Ciri saw yet another great door in front of her. Yennefer did not slow her stride but Ciri suddenly knew that this door would not open of its own accord. And she suddenly had an overwhelming certainty that this door must not be opened. That she must not go through it. That, behind this door, something was waiting for her . . .

She stopped short, tried to pull away, but Yennefer’s hand was strong and unyielding and unrelentingly dragged her forward. And Ciri finally understood that she had been betrayed, deceived, sold out. That, ever since the first meeting, from the very beginning, from the first day, she had been no more than a marionette, a puppet on a string. She tugged harder, tore herself away from that grip. The darkness undulated like smoke and the whispering in the dark, all of a sudden, died away. The magician took a step forward, stopped, turned round and looked at her.

If you’re afraid, turn back.

That door mustn’t be opened. You know that.

I do.

But you’re still leading me there.

If you’re afraid, turn back. You still have time to turn back. It’s not too late.

And you?

For me, it is.

Ciri looked around. Despite the omnipresent darkness she saw the door which they had passed through – and a long, distant vista. And there, from a distance, from the darkness, she heard . . .

The clatter of hooves. The grating of black armour. And the flutter of the wings of a bird of prey. And the voice. That quiet voice, boring into her skull . . .

You have made a mistake. You mistook the stars reflected in the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.

She woke and lifted her head abruptly, displacing the compress, fresh because it was still cool and wet. She was drenched in sweat; the dull pain was ringing and throbbing in her temples again. Yennefer was sitting beside on the bed. Her head was turned away so that Ciri did not see her face. She saw only the tempest of black hair.

‘I had a dream . . .’ whispered Ciri. ‘In the dream . . .’

‘I know,’ the magician said in a strange voice not her own. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’m beside you.’

Beyond the window, in the darkness, the rain rustled in the leaves of the trees.

‘Damn it,’ snarled Dandilion, shaking water from the brim of his hat, soggy from the rain. ‘It’s a veritable fortress, not a house. What’s that fraud frightened of, fortifying himself like that?’

Boats and barges moored to the bank rocked lazily on water furrowed by the rain, bumping against each other, creaking and rattling their chains.

‘It’s the port,’ explained Shani. ‘There’s no shortage of thugs and scum, both local and just passing through. Quite a few people visit Myhrman, bringing money . . . Everybody knows that. And that he lives alone. So he’s secured himself. Are you surprised?’

‘Not in the least.’ Geralt looked at the mansion built on stakes dug into the bottom of the canal some ten yards from the shore. ‘I’m trying to work out how to get to that islet, to that waterside cottage. We’ll probably have to borrow one of those boats on the quiet—’

‘No need,’ said the student of medicine. ‘There’s a drawbridge.’

‘And how are you going to persuade that charlatan to lower it? Besides, there’s also the door, and we didn’t bring a battering ram with us—’

‘Leave it to me.’

An enormous grey owl landed soundlessly on the deck’s railing, fluttered its wings, ruffled its feathers and turned into Philippa Eilhart, equally ruffled and wet.

‘What am I doing here?’ the magician mumbled angrily. ‘What am I doing here with you, damn it? Balancing on a wet bar . . . And on the edge of betraying the state. If Dijktra finds out I was helping you . . . And on top of it all, this endless drizzle! I hate flying in the rain. Is this it? This is Myhrman’s house?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Geralt. ‘Listen, Shani, we’ll try . . .’

They bunched together and started whispering, concealed in the dark under the eaves of a hut’s reed roof. A strip of light fell on the water from the tavern on the opposite side of the canal. Singing, laughter and yelling resounded. Three bargemen rolled out on to the shore. Two were arguing, tugging, shoving each other and repeatedly swearing the same curses to the point of boredom. The third, leaning against a stake, was peeing into the canal and whistling. He was out of tune.

Dong, metallically reverberated the iron sheet tied by a strap to a pole by the deck. Dong.

The charlatan Myhrman opened a tiny window and peered out. The lantern in his hand only blinded him, so he set it aside.

‘Who the devil is ringing at this time of the night?’ he bawled furiously. ‘Whack yourself in that empty head of yours, you shit, you lame dick, when you get the urge to knock! Get out, get lost you old soaks, right now! I’ve got my crossbow at the ready here! Does one of you want six inches of crossbow bolt in their arse?’

‘Master Myhrman! It’s me, Shani!’

‘Eh?’ The charlatan leaned out further. ‘Miss Shani? Now, in the night? How come?’

‘Lower the bridge, Master Myhrman! I’ve brought you what you asked for!’

‘Right now, in the dark? Couldn’t you do it during the day, miss?’

‘Too many eyes here, during the day.’ A slim outline in a green cloak loomed on the deck. ‘If words gets out about what I’m bringing you they’ll throw me out of the Academy. Lower the bridge, I’m not going to stand around in the rain, I’m soaked!’

‘You’re not alone, miss,’ the charlatan noted suspiciously. ‘You usually come alone. Who’s there with you?’

‘A friend, a student like me. Was I supposed to come alone, at night, to this forsaken neighbourhood of yours? What, you think I don’t value my maidenhood or something? Let me in, damn it!’

Muttering under his breath, Myhrman released the stopper on the winch and the bridge creaked down, hitting the planks of the deck. The old fraud minced to the door and pulled back the bolts and locks. Without putting his crossbow aside, he carefully peered out.

He didn’t notice the fist clad in a black silver-studded glove as it flew towards the side of his head. But although the night was dark, the moon was new and the sky overcast, he suddenly saw ten thousand dazzlingly bright stars.

Toublanc Michelet drew the whetstone over the blade of his sword once more, looking totally engrossed in this activity.

‘So we are to kill one man for you.’ He set the stone aside, wiped the blade with a piece of greased rabbit skin and closely examined the blade. ‘An ordinary fellow who walks around the streets of Oxenfurt by himself, without a guard, an escort or bodyguards. Doesn’t even have any knaves hanging about. We won’t have to clamber into any castles, town halls, mansion houses or garrisons to get at him . . . Is that right, honourable Rience? Have I understood you correctly?’

The man with a face disfigured by a burn nodded, narrowing his moist eyes with their unpleasant expression a little.

‘On top of that,’ Toublanc continued, ‘after killing this fellow we won’t be forced to remain hidden somewhere for the next six months because no one is going to chase or follow us. No one is going to set a posse or reward seekers on us. We won’t get drawn into any blood feuds or vendettas. In other words, Master Rience, we’re to finish off an ordinary, common fool of no importance to you?’

The man with the scar did not reply. Toublanc looked at his brothers sitting motionless and stiff on the bench. Rizzi, Flavius and Lodovico, as usual, said nothing. In the team they formed, it was they who killed, Toublanc who talked. Because only Toublanc had attended the Temple school. He was as efficient at killing as his brothers but he could also read and write. And talk.

‘And in order to kill such an ordinary dunce, Master Rience, you’re hiring not just any old thug from the port but us, the Michelet brothers? For a hundred Novigrad crowns?’

‘That is your usual rate,’ drawled the man with the scar, ‘correct?’

‘Incorrect,’ contradicted Toublanc coldly. ‘Because we’re not for the killing of ordinary fools. But if we do . . . Master Rience, this fool you want to see made a corpse is going to cost you two hundred. Two hundred untrimmed, shining crowns with the stamp of the Novigrad mint on them. Do you know why? Because there’s a catch here, honourable sir. You don’t have to tell us what it is, we can manage without that. But you will pay for it. Two hundred, I say. You shake on that price and you can consider that no-friend of yours dead. You don’t want to agree, find someone else for the job.’

Silence fell in the cellar reeking of mustiness and soured wine. A cockroach, briskly moving its limbs, scudded along the dirt floor. Flavius Michelet, moving his leg in a flash, flattened it with a crunch – hardly changing his position and not changing his expression in the least.

‘Agreed,’ said Rience. ‘You get two hundred. Let’s go.’

Toublanc Michelet, professional killer from the age of fourteen, did not betray his surprise with so much as the flicker of an eyelid. He had not counted on being able to bargain for more than a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty at the most. Suddenly he was sure that he had named too low a price for the snag hidden in his latest job.

Charlatan Myhrman came to on the floor of his own room. He was lying on his back, trussed up like a sheep. The back of his head was excruciatingly painful and he recalled that, in falling, he had thumped his head on the door-frame. The temple, where he had been struck, also hurt. He could not move because his chest was being heavily and mercilessly crushed by a high boot fastened with buckles. The old fraud, squinting and wrinkling up his face, looked up. The boot belonged to a tall man with hair as white as milk. Myhrman could not see his face – it was hidden in a darkness not dispersed by the lantern standing on the table.

‘Spare my life . . .’ he groaned. ‘Spare me, I swear by the gods . . . I’ll hand you my money . . . Hand you everything . . . I’ll show you where it’s hidden . . .’

‘Where’s Rience, Myhrman?’

The charlatan shook at the sound of the voice. He was not a fearful man; there were not many things of which he was afraid. But the voice of the white-haired man contained them all. And a few others in addition.

With a superhuman effort of the will, he overcame the fear crawling in his viscera like some foul insect.

‘Huh?’ He feigned astonishment. ‘What? Who? What did you say?’

The man bent over and Myhrman saw his face. He saw his eyes. And the sight made his stomach slip right down to his rectum.

‘Don’t beat about the bush, Myhrman, don’t twist up your tail.’ The familiar voice of Shani, the medical student came from the shadows. ‘When I was here three days ago, here, in this high-backed chair, at this table, sat a gentleman in a cloak lined with musk-rat. He was drinking wine, and you never entertain anybody – only the best of friends. He flirted with me, brazenly urged me to go dancing at the Three Little Bells. I even had to slap his hand because he was starting to fondle me, remember ? And you said: “Leave her alone, Master Rience, don’t frighten her, I needs must be on good terms with the little academics and do business”. And you both chuckled, you and your Master Rience with the burned face. So don’t start playing dumb now because you’re not dealing with someone dumber than yourself. Talk while you’re still being asked politely.’

Oh, you cocksure little student, thought the charlatan. You treacherous creep, you red-haired hussy, I’m going to find you and pay you back . . . Just let me get myself out of this.

‘What Rience?’ he yelped, writhing, trying in vain to free himself from the heel pressing down on his breast-bone. ‘And how am I to know who he is and where he is? All sorts come here, what am I—?’

The white-haired man leaned over further, slowly pulling the dagger from his other boot while pressing down harder on the charlatan’s chest with his first.

‘Myrhman,’ he said quietly, ‘believe me or don’t – as you like. But if you don’t immediately tell me where Rience is . . . If you don’t immediately reveal how you contact him . . . Then I will feed you, piece by piece, to the eels in the canal. Starting with your ears.’

There was something in the white-haired man’s voice which made the charlatan believe his every word. He stared at the stiletto blade and knew that it was sharper than the knives with which he punctured ulcers and boils. He started to shake so hard that the boot resting on his chest bounced nervously. But he did not say anything. He could not say anything. Not for the time being. Because if Rience were to return and ask why he had betrayed him, Myhrman would have to be able to show him why. One ear, he thought, one ear I have to endure. Then I’ll tell him . . .

‘Why waste time and mess about with blood?’ A woman’s soft alto suddenly resounded from the semi-darkness. ‘Why risk him twisting the truth and lying? Allow me to take care of him my way. He’ll talk so fast he’ll bite his own tongue. Hold him down.’

The charlatan howled and struggled against his fetters but the white-haired man crushed him to the floor with his knee, grabbed him by the hair and twisted his head. Someone knelt down next to them. He smelled perfume and wet bird feathers, felt the touch of fingers on his temple. He wanted to scream but terror choked him – all he managed was a croak.

‘You want to scream already?’ The soft alto right next to his ear purred like a cat. ‘Too soon, Myhrman, too soon. I haven’t started yet. But I will in a moment. If evolution has traced any groove at all in your brain then I’m going to plough it somewhat deeper. And then you’ll see what a scream can really be.’

‘And so,’ said Vilgefortz, having heard the report, ‘our kings have started to think independently. They have started to plan independently, in an amazingly short time evolving from thinking on a tactical level to a strategic one? Interesting. Not so long ago – at Sodden – all they could do was gallop around with savage cries and swords raised at the van of their company without even looking around to check their company hadn’t by chance been left behind, or wasn’t galloping in an entirely different direction. And today, there they are – in Hagge Castle – deciding the fate of the world. Interesting. But to be honest, I expected as much.’

‘We know,’ confirmed Artaud Terranova. ‘And we remember, you warned us about it. That’s why we’re telling you about it.’

‘Thank you for remembering,’ smiled the wizard, and Tissaia de Vries was suddenly sure that he had already been aware of each of the facts just presented to him, and had been for a long time. She did not say a word. Sitting upright in her armchair, she evened up her lace cuffs as the left fell a little differently from the right. She felt Terranova’s unfavourable gaze and Vilgefortz’s amused eyes on her. She knew that her legendary pedantism either annoyed or amused everybody. But she did not care in the least.

‘What does the Chapter say to all this?’

‘First of all,’ retorted Terranova, ‘we would like to hear your opinion, Vilgefortz.’

‘First of all,’ smiled the wizard, ‘let us have something to eat and drink. We have enough time – allow me to prove myself a good host. I can see you are frozen through and tired from your journeys. How many changes of portals, if I may ask?’

‘Three.’ Tissaia de Vries shrugged.

‘It was nearer for me,’ added Artaud. ‘Two proved enough. But still complicated, I must admit.’

‘Such foul weather everywhere?’

‘Everywhere.’

‘So let us fortify ourselves with good fare and an old red wine from Cidaris. Lydia, would you be so kind?’

Lydia van Bredevoort, Vilgefortz’s assistant and personal secretary, appeared from behind the curtain like an ethereal phantom and smiled with her eyes at Tissaia de Vries. Tissaia, controlling her face, replied with a pleasant smile and bow of her head. Artaud Terranova stood up and bowed with reverence. He, too, controlled his expression very well. He knew Lydia.

Two servants, bustling around and rustling their skirts, swiftly lay out the tableware, plates and platters. Lydia van Bredevoort, delicately conjuring up a tiny flame between her thumb and index finger, lit the candles in the candelabras. Tissaia saw traces of oil paint on her hand. She filed it in her memory so later, after supper, she could ask the young enchantress to show her her latest work. Lydia was a talented artist.

They supped in silence. Artaud Terranova did not stint himself and reached without embarrassment for the platters and – probably a little too frequently, and without his host’s encouragement – clanged the silver top of the carafe of red wine. Tissaia de Vries ate slowly, devoting more attention to arranging her plates, cutlery and napkins symmetrically – although, in her opinion, they still lay irregularly and hurt her predilection for order and her aesthetic sensibility – than to the fare. She drank sparingly. Vilgefortz ate and drank even more sparingly. Lydia, of course, did not drink or eat at all.

The candle flames undulated in long red and golden whiskers of fire. Drops of rain tinkled against the stained glass of the windows.

‘Well, Vilgefortz,’ said Terranova finally, rummaging in a platter with his fork in search of an adequately fatty piece of game. ‘What is your position regarding our monarchs’ behaviour ? Hen Gedymdeith and Francesca sent us here because they want to know your opinion. Tissaia and I are also interested. The Chapter wants to assume a unanimous stand in this matter. And, should it come to action, we also want to act unanimously. So what do you advise?’

‘It flatters me greatly’ – with a gesture, Vilgefortz thanked Lydia, who was offering to put more broccoli on his plate – ‘that my opinion in this matter should be decisive for the Chapter.’

‘No one said that.’ Artaud poured himself some more wine. ‘We’re going to make a collective decision anyway, when the Chapter meets. But we wish to let everybody have the opportunity to express themselves beforehand so we can have an idea of all the various views. We’re listening, therefore.’

If we’ve finished supping, let us go through into the workshop, Lydia proposed telepathically, smiling with her eyes. Terranova looked at her smile and quickly downed what he had in his chalice. To the dregs.

‘Good idea.’ Vilgefortz wiped his fingers on a napkin. ‘We’ll be more comfortable there. My protection against magical eavesdropping is stronger there, too. Let us go. You can bring the carafe, Artaud.’

‘I won’t say no. It’s my favourite vintage.’

They went through to the workshop. Tissaia could not stop herself from casting an eye over the workbench weighed down with retorts, crucibles, test-tubes, crystals and numerous magical utensils. All were enveloped in a screening spell, but Tissaia de Vries was an Archmage – there was no screen she could not penetrate. And she was a little curious as to what the mage had been doing of late. She worked out the configuration of the recently used apparatus in a flash. It served for the detection of persons who had disappeared while enabling a psychic vision by means of the ‘crystal, metal, stone’ method. The wizard was either searching for someone or resolving a theoretical, logistical problem. Vilgefortz of Roggeveen was well known for his love of solving such problems.

They sat down in carved ebony armchairs. Lydia glanced at Vilgefortz, caught the sign transmitted by his eye and immediately left. Tissaia sighed imperceptibly.

Everyone knew that Lydia van Bredevoort was in love with Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, that she had loved him for years with a silent, relentless and stubborn love. The wizard, it is to be understood, also knew about this but pretended not to. Lydia made it easier for him by never betraying her feelings to him – she never took the slightest step or made the slightest gesture, transmitted no sign by thought and, even if she could speak, would never have said a word. She was too proud. Vilgefortz, too, did nothing because he did not love Lydia. He could, of course, simply have made her his lover, tied her to him even more strongly and, who knows, maybe even made her happy. There were those who advised him to do so. But Vilgefortz did not. He was too proud and too much a man of principle. The situation, therefore, was hopeless but stable, and this patently satisfied them both.

‘So.’ The young wizard broke the silence. ‘The Chapter are racking their brains about what to do about the initiatives and plans of our kings? Quite unnecessarily. Their plans must simply be ignored.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Artaud Terranova froze with the chalice in his left hand, the carafe in his right. ‘Did I understand you correctly? We are to do nothing? We’re to let—’

‘We already have,’ interrupted Vilgefortz. ‘Because no one asked us for our permission. And no one will. I repeat, we ought to pretend that we know nothing. That is the only rational thing to do.’

‘The things they have thought up threaten war, and on a grand scale at that.’

‘The things they have thought up have been made known to us thanks to enigmatic and incomplete information, which comes from a mysterious and highly dubious source. So dubious that the word “disinformation” stubbornly comes to mind. And even if it were true, their designs are still at the planning stage and will remain so for a long while yet. And if they move beyond that stage . . . Well, then we will act accordingly.’

‘You mean to say,’ Terranova screwed up his face, ‘we will dance to the tune they play?’

‘Yes, Artaud.’ Vilgefortz looked at him and his eyes flashed. ‘You will dance to the tune they play. Or you will take leave of the dance-floor. Because the orchestra’s podium is too high for you to climb up there and tell the musicians to play some other tune. Realise that at last. If you think another solution is possible, you are making a mistake. You mistake the stars reflected in the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.’

The Chapter will do as he says, disguising his order as advice, thought Tissaia de Vries. We are all pawns on his chess board. He’s moved up, grown, obscured us with his brightness, subordinated us to him. We’re pawns in his game. A game the rules of which we do not know.

Her left cuff had once again arranged itself differently from the right. The enchantress adjusted it with care.

‘The kings’ plans are already at the stage of practical realisation,’ she said slowly. ‘In Kaedwen and Aedirn an offensive against the Scoia’tael has begun. The blood of young elves is flowing. It is reaching the point of persecution and pogroms against non-humans. There is talk of an attack on the free elves of Dol Blathanna and the Grey Mountains. This is mass murder. Are we to say to Gedymdeith and Enid Findabair that you advise us to stand idly by, to watch and do nothing? Pretending we can’t see anything?’

Vilgefortz turned his head towards her. Now you’re going to change tactics, thought Tissaia. You’re a player, you can hear which way the dice roll on the table. You’re going to change tactics. You’re going to strike a different note.

Vilgefortz did not lower his eyes from hers.

‘You are right,’ he said curtly. ‘You are right, Tissaia. War with Nilfgaard is one thing but we must not look on idly at the massacre of non-humans and do nothing. I suggest we call a convention, a general convention of everyone up to and including Masters of the Third Degree, including those who have been sitting on royal councils since Sodden. At the convention we will make them see reason and order them to keep their monarchs in check.’

‘I second this proposition,’ said Terranova. ‘Let us call a convention and remind them to whom they owe first loyalty. Note that even some members of our Council now advise kings. The kings are served by Carduin, Philippa Eilhart, Fercart, Radcliffe, Yennefer—’

At the last name Vilgefortz twitched internally. But Tissaia de Vries was an Archmage. Tissaia sensed the thought, the impulse leaping from the workbench and magical apparatus to the two volumes lying on the table. Both books were invisible, enveloped in magic. The magician focused herself and penetrated the screen.

Aen Ithlinnespeath, the prophecy foretold by Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien, the elven seeress. The prophecy of the end of civilisation, the prophecy of annihilation, destruction and the return of barbarianism which are to come with the masses of ice pressing down from the borders of the eternal freeze. And the other book . . . Very old . . . Falling apart . . . Aen Hen Ichaer . . . The Elder Blood . . . The Blood of Elves?’

‘Tissaia? And what do you think?’

‘I second it.’ The enchantress adjusted her ring which had turned the wrong way round. ‘I second Vilgefortz’s plan. Let us call a convention. As soon as possible.’

Metal, stone, crystal, she thought. Are you looking for Yennefer? Why? And what does she have to do with Ithlin’s prophecy? Or with the Elder Blood of the Elves? What are you brewing, Vilgefortz?

I’m sorry, said Lydia van Bredevoort telepathically, coming in without a sound. The wizard stood up.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but this is urgent. I’ve been waiting for this letter since yesterday. It will only take a minute.’

Artaud yawned, muffled a belch and reached for the carafe. Tissaia looked at Lydia. Lydia smiled. With her eyes. She could not do so any other way.

The lower half of Lydia van Bredevoort’s face was an illusion.

Four years ago, on Vilgefortz’s – her master’s – recommendation, Lydia had taken part in experiments concerning the properties of an artefact found amongst the excavations of an ancient necropolis. The artefact turned out to be cursed. It activated only once. Of the five wizards taking part in the experiment, three died on the spot. The fourth lost his eyes, both hands and went mad. Lydia escaped with burns, a mangled jaw and a mutation of the larynx and throat which, to this day, effectively resisted all efforts at regeneration. A powerful illusion was therefore drawn so that people did not faint at the sight of Lydia’s face. It was a very strong, very efficiently placed illusion, difficult for even the Chosen Ones to penetrate.

‘Hmm . . .’ Vilgefortz put the letter aside. ‘Thank you, Lydia.’

Lydia smiled. The messenger is waiting for a reply, she said.

‘There will be no reply.’

I understand. I have given orders to prepare chambers for your guests.

‘Thank you. Tissaia, Artaud, I apologise for the short delay. Let us continue. Where were we?’

Nowhere, thought Tissaia de Vries. But I’m listening carefully to you. Because at some stage you’ll finally mention the thing which really interest you.

‘Ah,’ began Vilgefortz slowly. ‘Now I know what I wanted to say. I’m thinking about those members of the Council who have had the least experience. Fercart and Yennefer. Fercart, as far as I know, is tied to Foltest of Temeria and sits on the king’s council with Triss Merigold. But who is Yennefer tied to? You said, Artaud, that she is one of those who are serving kings.’

‘Artaud exaggerated,’ said Tissaia calmly. ‘Yennefer is living in Vengerberg so Demawend sometimes turns to her for help, but they do not work together all the time. It cannot be said for certain that she is serving Demawend.’

‘How is her sight? Everything is all right, I hope?’

‘Yes. Everything’s all right.’

‘Good. Very good. I was worried . . . You know, I wanted to contact her but it turned out she had left. No one knew where for.’

Stone, metal, crystal, thought Tissaia de Vries. ‘Everything that Yennefer wears is active and cannot be detected using psychic visions. You won’t find her that way, my dear. If Yennefer does not wish anyone to know where she is, no one will find out.

‘Write to her,’ she said calmly, straightening out her cuffs. ‘And send the letter in the ordinary way. It will get there without fail. And Yennefer, wherever she is, will reply. She always does.’

‘Yennefer,’ threw in Artaud, ‘frequently disappears, sometimes for entire months. The reasons tend to be quite trivial . . .’

Tissaia looked at him, pursing her lips. The wizard fell silent. Vilgefortz smiled faintly.

‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘That is just what I thought. At one time she was closely tied to . . . a certain witcher. Geralt, if I’m not mistaken. It seems it wasn’t just an ordinary passing affair. It appeared Yennefer was quite strongly involved . . .’

Tissaia de Vries sat up straight and gripped the armrests of her chair.

‘Why are you asking about that? They’re personal matters. It is none of our business.’

‘Of course.’ Vilgefortz glanced at the letter lying discarded on the pulpit. ‘It is none of our business. But I’m not being guided by unhealthy curiosity but concern about the emotional state of a member of the Council. I am wondering about Yennefer’s reaction to the news of . . . of Geralt’s death. I presume she would get over it, come to terms with it, without falling into a depression or exaggerated mourning?’

‘No doubt, she would,’ said Tissaia coldly. ‘Especially as such news has been reaching her every now and again – and always proving to be a rumour.’

‘That’s right,’ confirmed Terranova. ‘This Geralt, or whatever he’s called, knows how to fend for himself. And why be surprised? He is a mutant, a murdering machine, programmed to kill and not let himself be killed. And as for Yennefer, let us not exaggerate her alleged emotions. We know her. She does not give in to emotions. She toyed with the witcher, that’s all. She was fascinated with death, which this character constantly courts. And when he finally brings it onto himself, that will be the end of it.’

‘For the time being,’ remarked Tissaia de Vries dryly, ‘the witcher is alive.’

Vilgefortz smiled and once more glanced at the letter lying in front of him.

‘Is that so?’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’

Geralt flinched a little and swallowed hard. The initial shock of drinking the elixir had passed and the second stage was beginning to take effect, as indicated by a faint but unpleasant dizziness which accompanied the adaptation of his sight to darkness.

The adaptation progressed quickly. The deep darkness of the night paled; everything around him started to take on shades of grey, shades which were at first hazy and unclear then increasingly contrasting, distinct and sharp. In the little street leading to the canal bank which, a moment ago, had been as dark as the inside of a tar barrel, Geralt could now make out the rats roaming through the gutters, and sniffing at puddles and gaps in the walls.

His hearing, too, had been heightened by the witchers’ decoction. The deserted tangle of lanes where, only a moment ago, there had been the sound of rain against guttering, began to come to life, to throb with sounds. He heard the cries of cats fighting, dogs barking on the other side of the canal, laughter and shouting from the taprooms and inns of Oxenfurt, yelling and singing from the bargemen’s tavern, and the distant, quiet warble of a flute playing a jaunty tune. The dark, sleepy houses came to life as well – Geralt could make out the snoring of slumbering people, the thuds of oxen in enclosures, the snorting of horses in stables. From one of the houses in the depths of the street came the stifled, spasmodic moans of a woman in the throes of lovemaking.

The sounds increased, grew louder. He now made out the obscene lyrics of the carousing songs, learned the name of the moaning woman’s lover. From Myhrman’s homestead on the canal came the broken, uncoordinated gibberish of the charlatan who had been put, by Philippa Eilhart’s treatment, into a state of complete and, no doubt, permanent idiocy.

Dawn was approaching. It had finally stopped raining, a wind started up which blew the clouds away. The sky in the east was clearly paling.

The rats in the lane suddenly grew uneasy, scattered in all directions and hid amongst the crates and rubbish.

The witcher heard footsteps. Four or five men; he could not as yet say exactly how many. He looked up but did not see Philippa.

Immediately he changed tactic. If Rience was amongst those approaching he had little chance of grabbing him. He would first have to fight his escort and he did not want to do so. Firstly, as he was under the influence of the elixir, those men would have to die. Secondly, Rience would then have the opportunity to flee.

The footsteps grew nearer. Geralt emerged from the shadows.

Rience loomed out of the lane. The witcher recognised the sorcerer instantly and instinctively, although he had never seen him before. The burn, a gift from Yennefer, was masked by the shadow of his hood.

He was alone. His escort did not reveal themselves, remaining hidden in the little street. Geralt immediately understood why. Rience knew who was waiting for him by the charlatan’s house. Rience had suspected an ambush, yet he had still come. The witcher realised why. And that was even before he had heard the quiet grating of swords being drawn from their scabbards. Fine, he thought. If that’s what you want, fine.

‘It is a pleasure hunting for you,’ said Rience quietly. ‘You appear where you’re wanted of your own accord.’

‘The same can be said of you,’ calmly retorted the witcher. ‘You appeared here. I wanted you here and here you are.’

‘You must have pushed Myhrman hard to tell you about the amulet, to show you where it is hidden. And how to activate it to send out a message. But Myhrman didn’t know that the amulet informs and warns at the same time, and so he could not have told you even if roasted on red coals. I have distributed a good many of these amulets. I knew that sooner or later you would come across one of them.’

Four men emerged from around a corner of the little street. They moved slowly, deftly and noiselessly. They still kept to the areas of darkness and wielded their drawn swords in such a way as not to be betrayed by a flash of blades. The witcher, obviously, saw them clearly. But he did not reveal the fact. Fine, murderers, he thought. If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.

‘I waited,’ continued Rience without moving from the spot, ‘and here you are. I intend to finally rid the earth of your burden, you foul changling.’

‘You intend? You overrate yourself. You are nothing but a tool. A thug hired by others to deal with their dirty work. Who hired you, stooge?’

‘You want to know too much, mutant. You call me a stooge? And do you know what you are? A heap of dung on the road which has to be removed because someone prefers not to soil their boots. No, I am not going to disclose who that person is to you, although I could. But I will tell you something else so you have something to think about on your way to hell. I already know where to find the little bastard you were looking after. And I know where to find that witch of yours, Yennefer. My patrons don’t care about her but I bear the whore a personal grudge. As soon as I’ve finished with you, I’m going after her. I’ll see to it that she regrets her tricks with fire. Oh, yes, she is going to regret them. For a very long time.’

‘You shouldn’t have said that.’ The witcher smiled nastily, feeling the euphoria of battle aroused by the elixir, reacting with adrenalin. ‘Before you said that, you still had a chance to live. Now you don’t.’

A powerful oscillation of his witcher’s medallion warned him of a sudden assault. He jumped aside and, drawing his sword in a flash, deflected and annihilated the violent, paralysing wave of magical energy directed at him with his rune-covered blade. Rience backed away, raised his arm to make a move but at the last moment took fright. Not attempting a second spell, he swiftly retreated down the lane. The witcher could not run after him – the four men who thought they were concealed in the shadows threw themselves at him. Swords flashed.

They were professionals. All four of them. Experienced, skilled professionals working as a team. They came at him in pairs, two on the left, two on the right. In pairs – so that one always covered the other’s back. The witcher chose those on the left. On top of the euphoria produced by the elixir came fury.

The first thug attacked with a feint from dextra only to jump aside and allow the man behind him to execute a deceptive thrust. Geralt spun in a pirouette, evaded and passed by them and with the very tip of his sword slashed the other one from behind across the occiput, shoulders and back. He was angry and hit hard. A fountain of blood spurted on the wall.

The first man backed away with lightning speed, making room for the next pair. These separated for the attack, slashing their swords from two directions in such a way that only one blow could be parried, the other having to meet its aim. Geralt did not parry and, whirling in a pirouette, came between them. In order not to collide, they both had to break their teamed rhythm, their rehearsed steps. One of them managed to turn in a soft, feline feint and leaped away dextrously. The other did not have time. He lost his balance and stumbled backwards. The witcher, turning in a reverse pirouette, used his momentum to slash him across the lower back. He was angry. He felt his sharp witcher’s blade sever the spine. A terrifying howl echoed down the streets. The two remaining men immediately attacked him, showering him with blows which he parried with the greatest of difficulties. He went into a pirouette and tore himself from beneath the flashing blades. But instead of leaning his back against the wall and defending himself, he attacked.

They were not expecting it, did not have time to leap away and apart. One of them countered but the witcher evaded the counterattack, spun, slashed from behind – blindly – counting on the rush of air. He was angry. He aimed low, at the belly. And hit his mark. He heard a stifled cry but did not have time to look back. The last of the thugs was already at his side, already striking a nasty sinistra with a quarte. Geralt parried at the last moment, statically, without a turn, with a quarte from dextra. The thug, making use of the impetus of the parry, unwound like a spring and slashed from a half-turn, wide and hard. Too hard. Geralt was already spinning. The killer’s blade, considerably heavier than the witcher’s, cut the air and the thug had to follow the blow. The impetus caused him to turn. Geralt slipped out of the half-turn just beside him, very close. He saw his contorted face, his horrified eyes. He was angry. He struck. Short but powerful. And sure. Right in the eyes.

He heard Shani’s terrified scream as she tried to pull herself free of Dandilion on the bridge leading to the charlatan’s house.

Rience retreated into the depths of the lane, raising and spreading both arms in front of him, a magical light already beginning to exude from them. Geralt grasped his sword with both hands and without second thoughts ran towards him. The sorcerer’s nerves could not take it. Without completing his spell, he began to run away, yelling incomprehensibly. But Geralt understood. He knew that Rience was calling for help. Begging for help.

And help arrived. The little street blazed with a bright light and on the dilapidated, sullied walls of a house, flared the fiery oval of a portal. Rience threw himself towards it. Geralt jumped. He was furious.

Toublanc Michelet groaned and curled up, clutching his riven belly. He felt the blood draining from him, flowing rapidly through his fingers. Not far from him lay Flavius. He had still been twitching a moment ago, but now he lay motionless. Toublanc squeezed his eyelids shut, then opened them. But the owl sitting next to Flavius was clearly not a hallucination – it did not disappear. He groaned again and turned his head away.

Some wench, a young one judging by her voice, was screaming hysterically.

‘Let me go! There are wounded there! I’ve got to . . . I’m a medical student, Dandilion! Let me go, do you hear?’

‘You can’t help them,’ replied Dandilion in a dull voice. ‘Not after a witcher’s sword . . . Don’t even go there. Don’t look . . . I beg you, Shani, don’t look.’

Toublanc felt someone kneel next to him. He detected the scent of perfume and wet feathers. He heard a quiet, gentle, soothing voice. It was hard to make out the words, the annoying screams and sobs of the young wench interfered. Of that . . . medical student. But if it was the medical student who was yelling then who was kneeling next to him? Toublanc groaned.

‘. . . be all right. Everything will be all right.’

‘The son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch,’ he grunted. ‘Rience . . . He told us . . . An ordinary fool . . . But it . . . was a witcher . . . Caa . . . tch . . . Heee . . . elp . . . My . . . guts . . .’

‘Quiet, quiet, my son. Keep calm. It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt any more. Isn’t that right, it doesn’t hurt? Tell me who called you up here? Who introduced you to Rience? Who recommended him? Who got you into this? Tell me, please, my son. And then everything will be all right. You’ll see, it’ll be all right. Tell me, please.’

Toublanc tasted blood in his mouth. But he did not have the strength to spit it out. His cheek pressing into the wet earth, he opened his mouth and blood poured out.

He no longer felt anything.

‘Tell me,’ the gentle voice kept repeating. ‘Tell me, my son.’

Toublanc Michelet, professional murderer since the age of fourteen, closed his eyes and smiled a bloodied smile. And whispered what he knew.

And when he opened his eyes, he saw a stiletto with a narrow blade and a tiny golden hilt.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ said the gentle voice as the point of the stiletto touched his temple. ‘This won’t hurt.’

Indeed, it did not hurt.

He caught up with the sorcerer at the last moment, just in front of the portal. Having already thrown his sword aside, his hands were free and his fingers, extended in a leap, dug into the edge of Rience’s cloak. Rience lost his balance; the tug had bent him backwards, forcing him to totter back. He struggled furiously, violently ripped the cloak from clasp to clasp and freed himself. Too late.

Geralt spun him round by hitting him in the shoulder with his right hand, then immediately struck him in the neck under the ear with his left. Rience reeled but did not fall. The witcher, jumping softly, caught up with him and forcefully dug his fist under his ribs. The sorcerer moaned and drooped over the fist. Geralt grabbed him by the front of his doublet, spun him and threw him to the ground. Pressed down by the witcher’s knee, Rience extended his arm and opened his mouth to cast a spell. Geralt clenched his fist and thumped him from above. Straight in the mouth. His lips split like blackcurrants.

‘You’ve already received a present from Yennefer,’ he uttered in a hoarse voice. ‘Now you’re getting one from me.’

He struck once more. The sorcerer’s head bounced up; blood spurted onto the witcher’s forehead and cheeks. Geralt was slightly surprised – he had not felt any pain but had, no doubt, been injured in the fight. It was his blood. He did not bother nor did he have time to look for the wound and take care of it. He unclenched his fist and walloped Rience once more. He was angry.

‘Who sent you? Who hired you?’

Rience spat blood at him. The witcher struck him yet again.

‘Who?’

The fiery oval of the portal flared more strongly; the light emanating from it flooded the entire lane. The witcher felt the power throbbing from the oval, had felt it even before his medallion had begun to oscillate violently, in warning.

Rience also felt the energy streaming from the portal, sensed help approaching. He yelled, struggling like an enormous fish. Geralt buried his knees in the sorcerer’s chest, raised his arm, forming the Sign of Aard with his fingers, and aimed at the flaming portal. It was a mistake.

No one emerged from the portal. Only power radiated from it and Rience had taken the power.

From the sorcerer’s outstretched fingers grew six-inch steel spikes. They dug into Geralt’s chest and shoulder with an audible crack. Energy exploded from the spikes. The witcher threw himself backwards in a convulsive leap. The shock was such that he felt and heard his teeth, clenched in pain, crunch and break. At least two of them.

Rience attempted to rise but immediately collapsed to his knees again and began to struggle to the portal on all fours. Geralt, catching his breath with difficulty, drew a stiletto from his boot. The sorcerer looked back, sprung up and reeled. The witcher was also reeling but he was quicker. Rience looked back again and screamed. Geralt gripped the knife. He was angry. Very angry.

Something grabbed him from behind, overpowered him, immobilised him. The medallion on his neck pulsated acutely; the pain in his wounded shoulder throbbed spasmodically.

Some ten paces behind him stood Philippa Eilhart. From her raised arms emanated a dull light – two streaks, two rays. Both were touching his back, squeezing his arms with luminous pliers. He struggled, in vain. He could not move from the spot. He could only watch as Rience staggered up to the portal, which pulsated with a milky glow.

Rience, in no hurry, slowly stepped into the light of the portal, sank into it like a diver, blurred and disappeared. A second later, the oval went out, for a moment plunging the little street into impenetrable, dense, velvety blackness.

Somewhere in the lanes fighting cats yowled. Geralt looked at the blade of the sword he had picked up on his way towards the magician.

‘Why, Philippa? Why did you do it?’

The magician took a step back. She was still holding the knife which a moment earlier had penetrated Toublanc Michelet’s skull.

‘Why are you asking? You know perfectly well.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Now I know.’

‘You’re wounded, Geralt. You can’t feel the pain because you’re intoxicated with the witchers’ elixir but look how you’re bleeding. Have you calmed down sufficiently for me to safely approach and take a look at you? Bloody hell, don’t look at me like that! And don’t come near me. One more step and I’ll be forced to . . . Don’t come near me! Please! I don’t want to hurt you but if you come near—’

‘Philippa!’ shouted Dandilion, still holding the weeping Shani. ‘Have you gone mad?’

‘No,’ said the witcher with some effort. ‘She’s quite sane. And knows perfectly well what she’s doing. She knew all along what she was doing. She took advantage of us. Betrayed us. Deceived—’

‘Calm down,’ repeated Philippa Eilhart. ‘You won’t understand and you don’t have to understand. I did what I had to do. And don’t call me a traitor. Because I did this precisely so as not to betray a cause which is greater than you can imagine. A great and important cause, so important that minor matters have to be sacrificed for it without second thoughts, if faced with such a choice. Geralt, damn it, we’re nattering and you’re standing in a pool of blood. Calm down and let Shani and me take care of you.’

‘She’s right!’ shouted Dandilion, ‘you’re wounded, damn it! Your wound has to be dressed and we’ve got to get out of here! You can argue later!’

‘You and your great cause . . .’ The witcher, ignoring the troubadour, staggered forward. ‘Your great cause, Philippa, and your choice, is a wounded man, stabbed in cold blood once he told you what you wanted to know, but what I wasn’t to find out. Your great cause is Rience, whom you allowed to escape so that he wouldn’t by any chance reveal the name of his patron. So that he can go on murdering. Your great cause is those corpses which did not have to be. Sorry, I express myself poorly. They’re not corpses, they’re minor matters!’

‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Indeed, I don’t. I never will. But I do know what it’s about. Your great causes, your wars, your struggle to save the world . . . Your end which justifies the means . . . Prick up your ears, Philippa. Can you hear those voices, that yowling? Those are cats fighting for a great cause. For indivisible mastery over a heap of rubbish. It’s no joking matter – blood is being spilled and clumps of fur are flying. It’s war. But I care incredibly little about either of these wars, the cats’ or yours.’

‘That’s only what you imagine,’ hissed the magician. ‘All this is going to start concerning you – and sooner than you think. You’re standing before necessity and choice. You’ve got yourself mixed up in destiny, my dear, far more than you’ve bargained for. You thought you were taking a child, a little girl, into your care. You were wrong. You’ve taken in a flame which could at any moment set the world alight. Our world. Yours, mine, that of the others. And you will have to choose. Like I did. Like Triss Merigold. Choose, as your Yennefer had to. Because Yennefer has already chosen. Your destiny is in her hands, witcher. You placed it in those hands yourself.’

The witcher staggered. Shani yelled and tore herself away from Dandilion. Geralt held her back with a gesture, stood upright and looked straight into the dark eyes of Philippa Eilhart.

‘My destiny,’ he said with effort. ‘My choice . . . I’ll tell you, Philippa, what I’ve chosen. I won’t allow you to involve Ciri in your dirty machinations. I am warning you. Whoever dares harm Ciri will end up like those four lying there. I won’t swear an oath. I have nothing by which to swear. I simply warn you. You accused me of being a bad guardian, that I don’t know how to protect the child. I will protect her. As best I can. I will kill. I will kill mercilessly . . .’

‘I believe you,’ said the magician with a smile. ‘I believe you will. But not today, Geralt. Not now. Because in a minute you’re going to faint from loss of blood. Shani, are you ready?’

No one is born a wizard. We still know too little about genetics and the mechanisms of heredity. We sacrifice too little time and means on research. Unfortunately, we constantly try to pass on inherited magical abilities in, so to say, a natural way. Results of these pseudo-experiments can be seen all too often in town gutters and within temple walls. We see too many of them, and too frequently come across morons and women in a catatonic state, dribbling seers who soil themselves, seeresses, village oracles and miracle-workers, cretins whose minds are degenerate due to the inherited, uncontrolled Force.

These morons and cretins can also have offspring, can pass on abilities and thus degenerate further. Is anyone in a position to foresee or describe how the last link in such a chain will look?

Most of us wizards lose the ability to procreate due to somatic changes and dysfunction of the pituitary gland. Some wizards – usually women – attune to magic while still maintaining efficiency of the gonads. They can conceive and give birth – and have the audacity to consider this happiness and a blessing. But I repeat: no one is born a wizard. And no one should be born one! Conscious of the gravity of what I write, I answer the question posed at the Congress in Cidaris. I answer most emphatically: each one of us must decide what she wants to be – a wizard or a mother.

I demand all apprentices be sterilised. Without exception.

Tissaia de Vries, The Poisoned Source

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘I’m going to tell you something,’ said Iola the Second suddenly, resting the basket of grain on her hip. ‘There’s going to be a war. That’s what the duke’s greeve who came to fetch the cheeses said.’

‘A war?’ Ciri shoved her hair back from her forehead. ‘With who? Nilfgaard?’

‘I didn’t hear,’ the novice admitted. ‘But the greeve said our duke had received orders from King Foltest himself. He’s sending out a call to arms and all the roads are swarming with soldiers. Oh dear! What’s going to happen?’

‘If there’s going to be a war,’ said Eurneid, ‘then it’ll most certainly be with Nilfgaard. Who else? Again! Oh gods, that’s terrible!’

‘Aren’t you exaggerating a bit with this war, Iola?’ Ciri scattered some grains for the chickens and guinea-hens crowding around them in a busy, noisy whirl. ‘Maybe it’s only another raid on the Scoia’tael?’

‘Mother Nenneke asked the greeve the same thing,’ declared Iola the Second. ‘And the greeve said that no, this time it wasn’t about the Squirrels. Castles and citadels have apparently been ordered to store supplies in case of a siege. But elves attack in forests, they don’t lay siege to castles! The greeve asked whether the Temple could give more cheese and other things. For the castle stores. And he demanded goose feathers. They need a lot of goose feathers, he said. For arrows. To shoot from bows, understand ? Oh, gods! We’re going to have masses of work! You’ll see! We’ll be up to our ears in work!’

‘Not all of us,’ said Eurneid scathingly. ‘Some aren’t going to get their little hands dirty. Some of us only work two days a week. They don’t have any time for work because they are, apparently, studying witchery. But in actual fact they’re probably only idling or skipping around the park thrashing weeds with a stick. You know who I’m talking about, Ciri, don’t you?’

‘Ciri will leave for the war no doubt,’ giggled Iola the Second. ‘After all, she is apparently the daughter of a knight! And herself a great warrior with a terrible sword! At last she’ll be able to cut real heads off instead of nettles!’

‘No, she is a powerful wizard!’ Eurneid wrinkled her little nose. ‘She’s going to change all our enemies into field mice. Ciri! Show us some amazing magic. Make yourself invisible or make the carrots ripen quicker. Or do something so that the chickens can feed themselves. Well, go on, don’t make us ask! Cast a spell!’

‘Magic isn’t for show,’ said Ciri angrily. ‘Magic is not some street market trick.’

‘But of course, of course,’ laughed the novice. ‘Not for show. Eh, Iola? It’s exactly as if I were hearing that hag Yennefer talk!’

‘Ciri is getting more and more like her,’ appraised Iola, sniffing ostentatiously. ‘She even smells like her. Huh, no doubt some magical scent made of mandrake or ambergris. Do you use magical scents, Ciri?’

‘No! I use soap! Something you rarely use!’

‘Oh ho.’ Eurneid twisted her lips. ‘What sarcasm, what spite! And what airs!’

‘She never used to be like this,’ Iola the Second puffed up. ‘She became like this when she started spending time with that witch. She sleeps with her, eats with her, doesn’t leave her side. She’s practically stopped attending lessons at the Temple and no longer has a moment to spare for us!’

‘And we have to do all the work for her! Both in the kitchen and in the garden! Look at her little hands, Iola! Like a princess!’

‘That’s the way it is!’ squeaked Ciri. ‘Some have brains, so they get a book! Others are feather-brained, so they get a broom!’

‘And you only use a broom for flying, don’t you? Pathetic wizard!’

‘You’re stupid!’

‘Stupid yourself!’

‘No, I’m not!’

‘Yes, you are! Come on, Iola, don’t pay any attention to her. Sorceresses are not our sort of company.’

‘Of course they aren’t!’ yelled Ciri and threw the basket of grain on the ground. ‘Chickens are your sort of company!’

The novices turned up their noses and left, passing through the hoard of cackling fowl.

Ciri cursed loudly, repeating a favourite saying of Vesemir’s which she did not entirely understand. Then she added a few words she had heard Yarpen Zigrin use, the meanings of which were a total mystery to her. With a kick, she dispersed the chickens swarming towards the scattered grain, picked up the basket, turned it upside down, then twirled in a witcher’s pirouette and threw the basket like a discus over the reed roof of the henhouse. She turned on her heel and set off through the Temple park at a run.

She ran lightly, skilfully controlling her breath. At every other tree she passed, she made an agile half-turn leap, marking slashes with an imaginary sword and immediately following them with dodges and feints she had learned. She jumped deftly over the fence, landing surely and softly on bent knees.

‘Jarre!’ she shouted, turning her head up towards a window gaping in the stone wall of the tower. ‘Jarre, are you there? Hey! It’s me!’

‘Ciri?’ The boy leaned out. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Can I come up and see you?’

‘Now? Hmm . . . Well, all right then . . . Please do.’

She flew up the stairs like a hurricane, catching the novice unexpectedly just as, with his back turned, he was quickly adjusting his clothes and hiding some parchments on the table under other parchments. Jarre ran his fingers through his hair, cleared his throat and bowed awkwardly. Ciri slipped her thumbs into her belt and tossed her ashen fringe.

‘What’s this war everybody’s talking about?’ she fired. ‘I want to know!’

‘Please, have a seat.’

She cast her eyes around the chamber. There were four large tables piled with large books and scrolls. There was only one chair. Also piled high.

‘War?’ mumbled Jarre. ‘Yes, I’ve heard those rumours . . . Are you interested in it? You, a g—? No, don’t sit on the table, please, I’ve only just got all the documents in order . . . Sit on the chair. Just a moment, wait, I’ll take those books . . . Does Lady Yennefer know you’re here?’

‘No.’

‘Hmm . . . Or Mother Nenneke?’

Ciri pulled a face. She knew what he meant. The sixteen-year-old Jarre was the high priestess’s ward, being prepared by her to be a cleric and chronicler. He lived in Ellander where he worked as a scribe at the municipal tribunal, but he spent more time in Melitele’s sanctuary than in the town, studying, copying and illuminating volumes in the Temple library for whole days and sometimes even nights. Ciri had never heard it from Nenneke’s lips but it was well known that the high priestess absolutely did not want Jarre to hang around her young novices. And vice-versa. But the novices, however, did sneak keen glances at the boy and chatted freely, discussing the various possibilities presented by the presence on the Temple grounds of something which wore trousers. Ciri was amazed because Jarre was the exact opposite of everything which, in her eyes, should represent an attractive male. In Cintra, as she remembered, an attractive man was one whose head reached the ceiling, whose shoulders were as broad as a doorway, who swore like a dwarf, roared like a buffalo and stank at thirty paces of horses, sweat and beer, regardless of what time of day or night it was. Men who did not correspond to this description were not recognised by Queen Calanthe’s chambermaids as worthy of sighs and gossip. Ciri had also seen a number of different men – the wise and gentle druids of Angren, the tall and gloomy settlers of Sodden, the witchers of Kaer Morhen. Jarre was different. He was as skinny as a stick-insect, ungainly, wore clothes which were too large and smelled of ink and dust, always had greasy hair and on his chin, instead of stubble, there were seven or eight long hairs, about half of which sprang from a large wart. Truly, Ciri did not understand why she was so drawn to Jarre’s tower. She enjoyed talking to him, the boy knew a great deal and she could learn much from him. But recently, when he looked at her, his eyes had a strange, dazed and cloying expression.

‘Well.’ She grew impatient. ‘Are you going to tell me or not?’

‘There’s nothing to say. There isn’t going to be any war. It’s all gossip.’

‘Aha,’ she snorted. ‘And so the duke is sending out a call to arms just for fun? The army is marching the highways out of boredom? Don’t twist things, Jarre. You visit the town and castle, you must know something!’

‘Why don’t you ask Lady Yennefer about it?’

‘Lady Yennefer has more important things to worry about!’ Ciri spat, but then immediately had second thoughts, smiled pleasantly and fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Oh, Jarre, tell me, please! You’re so clever! You can talk so beautifully and learnedly, I could listen to you for hours! Please, Jarre!’

The boy turned red and his eyes grew unfocused and bleary. Ciri sighed surreptitiously.

‘Hmm . . .’ Jarre shuffled from foot to foot and moved his arms undecidedly, evidently not knowing what to do with them. ‘What can I tell you? It’s true, people are gossiping in town, all excited by the events in Dol Angra . . . But there isn’t going to be a war. That’s for sure. You can believe me.’

‘Of course, I can,’ she snorted. ‘But I’d rather know what you base this certainty on. You don’t sit on the duke’s council, as far as I know. And if you were made a voivode yesterday, then do tell me about it. I’ll congratulate you.’

‘I study historical treatises,’ Jarre turned crimson, ‘and one can learn more from them than sitting on a council. I’ve read The History of War by Marshal Pelligram, Duke de Ruyter’s Strategy, Bronibor’s The Victorious Deeds of Redania’s Gallant Cavalrymen . . . And I know enough about the present political situation to be able to draw conclusions through analogy. Do you know what an analogy is?’

‘Of course,’ lied Ciri, picking a blade of grass from the buckle of her shoe.

‘If the history of past wars’ – the boy stared at the ceiling – ‘were to be laid over present political geography, it is easy to gauge that minor border incidents, such as the one in Dol Angra, are fortuitous and insignificant. You, as a student of magic, must, no doubt, be acquainted with the present political geography?’

Ciri did not reply. Lost in thought, she skimmed through the parchments lying on the table and turned a few pages of the huge leather-bound volume.

‘Leave that alone. Don’t touch it.’ Jarre was worried. ‘It’s an exceptionally valuable and unique work.’

‘I’m not going to eat it.’

‘Your hands are dirty.’

‘They’re cleaner than yours. Listen, do you have any maps here?’

‘I do, but they’re hidden in the chest,’ said the boy quickly, but seeing Ciri pull a face, he sighed, pushed the scrolls of parchment off the chest, lifted the lid and started to rummage through the contents. Ciri, wriggling in the chair and swinging her legs, carried on flicking through the book. From between the pages suddenly slipped a loose page with a picture of a woman, completely naked with her hair curled into ringlets, entangled in an embrace with a completely naked bearded man. Her tongue sticking out, the girl spent a long time turning the etching around, unable to make out which way up it should be. She finally spotted the most important detail in the picture and giggled. Jarre, walking up with an enormous scroll under his arm, blushed violently, took the etching from her without a word and hid it under the papers strewn across the table.

‘An exceptionally valuable and unique work,’ she gibed. ‘Are those the analogies you’re studying? Are there any more pictures like that in there? Interesting, the book is called Healing and Curing. I’d like to know what diseases are cured that way.’

‘You can read the First Runes?’ The boy was surprised and cleared his throat with embarrassment. ‘I didn’t know . . .’

‘There’s still a lot you don’t know.’ She turned up her nose. ‘And what do you think? I’m not just some novice feeding hens for eggs. I am . . . a wizard. Well, go on. Show me that map!’

They both knelt on the floor, holding down the stiff sheet, which was stubbornly trying to roll up again, with their hands and knees. Ciri finally weighed down one corner with a chair leg and Jarre pressed another down with a hefty book entitled The Life and Deeds of Great King Radovid.

‘Hmm . . . This map is so unclear! I can’t make head or tail of it . . . Where are we? Where is Ellander?’

‘Here.’ He pointed. ‘Here is Temeria, this space. Here is Wyzima, our King Foltest’s capital. Here, in Pontar Valley, lies the duchy of Ellander. And here . . . Yes, here is our Temple.’

‘And what’s this lake? There aren’t any lakes around here.’

‘That isn’t a lake. It’s an ink blot . . .’

‘Ah. And here . . . This is Cintra. Is that right?’

‘Yes. South of Transriver and Sodden. This way, here, flows the River Yaruga, flowing into the sea right at Cintra. That country, I don’t know if you know, is now dominated by the Nilfgaardians—’

‘I do know,’ she cut him short, clenching her fist. ‘I know very well. And where is this Nilfgaard? I can’t see a country like that here. Doesn’t it fit on this map of yours, or what? Get me a bigger one!’

‘Hmm . . .’ Jarre scratched the wart on his chin. ‘I don’t have any maps like that . . . But I do know that Nilfgaard is somewhere further towards the south . . . There, more or less there. I think.’

‘So far?’ Ciri was surprised, her eyes fixed on the place on the floor which he indicated. ‘They’ve come all the way from there? And on the way conquered those other countries?’

‘Yes, that’s true. They conquered Metinna, Maecht, Nazair, Ebbing, all the kingdoms south of the Amell Mountains. Those kingdoms, like Cintra and Upper Sodden, the Nilfgaardians now call the Provinces. But they didn’t manage to dominate Lower Sodden, Verden and Brugge. Here, on the Yaruga, the armies of the Four Kingdoms held them back, defeating them in battle—’

‘I know, I studied history.’ Ciri slapped the map with her open palm. ‘Well, Jarre, tell me about the war. We’re kneeling on political geography. Draw conclusions through analogy and through anything you like. I’m all ears.’

The boy blushed, then started to explain, pointing to the appropriate regions on the map with the tip of a quill.

‘At present, the border between us and the South – dominated by Nilfgaard – is demarcated, as you can see, by the Yaruga River. It constitutes an obstacle which is practically insurmountable. It hardly ever freezes over, and during the rainy season it can carry so much water that its bed is almost a mile wide. For a long stretch, here, it flows between precipitous, inaccessible banks, between the rocks of Mahakam . . .’

‘The land of dwarves and gnomes?’

‘Yes. And so the Yaruga can only be crossed here, in its lower reaches, in Sodden, and here, in its middle reaches, in the valley of Dol Angra . . .’

‘And it was exactly in Dol Angra, that inci—Incident?’

‘Wait. I’m just explaining to you that, at the moment, no army could cross the Yaruga River. Both accessible valleys, those along which armies have marched for centuries, are very heavily manned and defended, both by us and by Nilfgaard. Look at the map. Look how many strongholds there are. See, here is Verden, here is Brugge, here the Isles of Skellige . . .’

‘And this, what is this? This huge white mark?’

Jarre moved closer; she felt the warmth of his knee.

‘Brokilon Forest,’ he said, ‘is forbidden territory. The kingdom of forest dryads. Brokilon also defends our flank. The dryads won’t let anyone pass. The Nilfgaardians either . . .’

‘Hmm . . .’ Ciri leaned over the map. ‘Here is Aedirn . . . And the town of Vengerberg . . . Jarre! Stop that immediately!’

The boy abruptly pulled his lips away from her hair and went as red as a beetroot.

‘I do not wish you to do that to me!’

‘Ciri, I—’

‘I came to you with a serious matter, as a wizard to a scholar,’ she said icily and with dignity, in a tone of voice which exactly copied that of Yennefer. ‘So behave!’

The ‘scholar’ blushed an even deeper shade and had such a stupid expression on his face that the ‘wizard’ could barely keep herself from laughing. He leaned over the map once more.

‘All this geography of yours,’ she continued, ‘hasn’t led to anything yet. You’re telling me about the Yaruga River but the Nilfgaardians have, after all, already crossed to the other side once. What’s stopping them now?’

‘That time,’ hawked Jarre, wiping the sweat which had all of a sudden appeared on his brow, ‘they only had Brugge, Sodden and Temeria against them. Now, we’re united in an alliance. Like at the battle of Sodden. The Four Kingdoms. Temeria, Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen . . .’

‘Kaedwen,’ said Ciri proudly. ‘Yes, I know what that alliance is based on. King Henselt of Kaedwen offers special, secret aid to King Demawend of Aedirn. That aid is transported in barrels. And when King Demawend suspects someone of being a traitor, he puts stones in the barrels. Sets a trap—’

She broke off, recalling that Geralt had forbidden her to mention the events in Kaedwen. Jarre stared at her suspiciously.

‘Is that so? And how can you know all that?’

‘I read about it in a book written by Marshal Pelican,’ she snorted. ‘And in other analogies. Tell me what happened in Dol Angra or whatever it’s called. But first, show me where it is.’

‘Here. Dol Angra is a wide valley, a route leading from the south to the kingdoms of Lyria and Rivia, to Aedirn, and further to Dol Blathanna and Kaedwen . . . And through Pontar Valley to us, to Temeria.’

‘And what happened there?’

‘There was fighting. Apparently. I don’t know much about it, but that’s what they’re saying at the castle.’

‘If there was fighting,’ frowned Ciri, ‘there’s a war already! So what are you talking about?’

‘It’s not the first time there’s been fighting,’ clarified Jarre, but the girl saw that he was less and less sure of himself. ‘Incidents at the border are very frequent. But they’re insignificant.’

‘And how come?’

‘The forces are balanced. Neither we nor the Nilfgaardians can do anything. And neither of the sides can give their opponent a casus belli—’

‘Give what?’

‘A reason for war. Understand? That’s why the armed incidents in Dol Angra are most certainly fortuitous matters, probably attacks by brigands or skirmishes with smugglers . . . In no way can they be the work of regular armies, neither ours nor those of Nilfgaard . . . Because that would be precisely a casus belli . . .’

‘Aha. Jarre, tell me—’

She broke off. She raised her head abruptly, quickly touched her temples with her fingers and frowned.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Lady Yennefer is calling me.’

‘You can hear her?’ The boy was intrigued. ‘At a distance? How . . .’

‘I’ve got to go,’ she repeated, getting to her feet and brushing the dust off her knees. ‘Listen, Jarre. I’m leaving with Lady Yennefer, on some very important matters. I don’t know when we’ll be back. I warn you they are secret matters which concern only wizards, so don’t ask any questions.’

Jarre also stood up. He adjusted his clothing but still did not know what to do with his hands. His eyes glazed over sickeningly.

‘Ciri . . .’

‘What?’

‘I . . . I . . .’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said impatiently, glaring at him with her huge, emerald eyes. ‘Nor do you, obviously. I’m off. Take care, Jarre.’

‘Goodbye . . . Ciri. Have a safe journey. I’ll . . . I’ll be thinking of you . . .'.

Ciri sighed.

‘I’m here, Lady Yennefer!’

She flew into the chamber like a shot from a catapult and the door thumped open, slamming against the wall. She could have broken her legs on the stool standing in her way but Ciri jumped over it deftly, gracefully executed a half-pirouette feigning the slash of a sword, and joyfully laughed at her successful trick. Despite running briskly, she did not pant but breathed evenly and calmly. She had mastered breath control to perfection.

‘I’m here!’ she repeated.

‘At last. Get undressed, and into the tub. Quick.’

The enchantress did not look round, did not turn away from the table, looked at Ciri in the mirror. Slowly. She combed her damp, black curls which straightened under the pressure of the comb only to spring back a moment later into shiny waves.

The girl unbuckled her boots in a flash, kicked them off, freed herself of her clothes and with a splash landed in the tub. Grabbing the soap, she started to energetically scrub her forearms.

Yennefer sat motionless, staring at the window and toying with her comb. Ciri snorted, spluttered and spat because soap had got into her mouth. She tossed her head wondering whether a spell existed which could make washing possible without water, soap and wasting time.

The magician put the comb aside but, lost in thought, kept gazing through the window at the swarms of ravens and crows croaking horrifically as they flew east. On the table, next to the mirror and an impressive array of bottled cosmetics, lay several letters. Ciri knew that Yennefer had been waiting for them a long time and that the day on which they were to leave the Temple depended on her receiving these letters. In spite of what she had told Jarre, the girl had no idea where and why they were leaving. But in those letters . . .

Splashing with her left hand so as to mislead, she arranged the fingers of her right in a gesture, concentrated on a formula, fixed her eyes on the letters and sent out an impulse.

‘Don’t you even dare,’ said Yennefer, without turning around.

‘I thought . . .’ She cleared her throat. ‘I thought one of them might be from Geralt . . .’

‘If it was, I’d have given it to you.’ The magician turned in her chair and sat facing her. ‘Are you going to be long washing?’

‘I’ve finished.’

‘Get up, please.’

Ciri obeyed. Yennefer smiled faintly.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you’ve finished with childhood. You’ve rounded out where necessary. Lower your hands. I’m not interested in your elbows. Well, well, don’t blush, no false shyness. It’s your body, the most natural thing in the world. And the fact that you’re developing is just as natural. If your fate had turned out differently . . . If it weren’t for the war, you’d have long been the wife of some duke or prince. You realise that, don’t you? We’ve discussed matters concerning your gender often enough and in enough detail for you to know that you’re already a woman. Physiologically, that is to say. Surely you’ve not forgotten what we talked about?’

‘No. I haven’t.’

‘When you visit Jarre I hope there aren’t any problems with your memory either?’

Ciri lowered her eyes, but only momentarily. Yennefer did not smile.

‘Dry yourself and come here,’ she said coolly. ‘No splashing, please.’

Wrapped in a towel, Ciri sat down on the small chair at the magician’s knees. Yennefer brushed the girl’s hair, every now and again snipping off a disobedient wisp with a pair of scissors.

‘Are you angry with me?’ asked the girl reluctantly. ‘For, for . . . going to the tower?’

‘No. But Nenneke doesn’t like it. You know that.’

‘But I haven’t . . . I don’t care about Jarre in the least.’ Ciri blushed a little. ‘I only . . .’

‘Exactly,’ muttered the enchantress. ‘You only. Don’t play the child because you’re not one any more, let me remind you. That boy slobbers and stammers at the sight of you. Can’t you see that?’

‘That’s not my fault! What am I supposed to do?’

Yennefer stopped combing Ciri’s hair and measured her with a deep, violet gaze.

‘Don’t toy with him. It’s base.’

‘But I’m not toying with him! I’m only talking to him!’

‘I’d like to believe,’ the enchantress said as she snipped her scissors, cutting yet another wisp of hair which would not allow itself to be styled for anything in the world, ‘that during these conversations, you remember what I asked you.’

‘I remember, I remember!’

‘He’s an intelligent and bright boy. One or two inadvertent words could lead him on the right track, to matters he should know nothing about. No one, absolutely no one must find out who you are.’

‘I remember,’ repeated Ciri. ‘I haven’t squealed a word to anyone, you can be sure of that. Tell me, is that why we have to leave so suddenly? Are you afraid that someone’s going to find out I’m here? Is that why?’

‘No. There are other reasons.’

‘Is it because . . . there might be a war? Everybody’s talking about another war! Everybody’s talking about it, Lady Yennefer.’

‘Indeed,’ the magician confirmed coolly, snipping her scissors just above Ciri’s ear. ‘It’s a subject which belongs to the so-called interminable category. There’s been talk about wars in the past, there is talk now and there always will be. And not without reason – there have been wars and there will be wars. Lower your head.’

‘Jarre said . . . that there’s not going to be a war with Nilfgaard. He spoke of some sort of analogies . . . Showed me a map. I don’t know what to think myself any more. I don’t know what these analogies are, probably something terribly clever . . . Jarre reads various learned books and knows it all, but I think . . .’

‘It interests me, what you think, Ciri.’

‘In Cintra . . . That time . . . Lady Yennefer, my grandmother was much cleverer than Jarre. King Eist was clever, too. He sailed the seas, saw everything, even a narwhal and sea serpent, and I bet he also saw many an analogy. And so what? Suddenly they appeared, the Nilfgaardians . . .’

Ciri raised her head and her voice stuck in her throat. Yennefer put her arms around her and hugged her tightly.

‘Unfortunately,’ she said quietly, ‘unfortunately, you’re right, my ugly one. If the ability to make use of experience and draw conclusions decided, we would have forgotten what war is a long time ago. But those whose goal is war have never been held back, nor will be, by experience or analogy.’

‘So . . . It’s true, after all. There is going to be a war. Is that why we have to leave?’

‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not worry too soon.’

Ciri sniffed.

‘I’ve already seen a war,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to see another. Never. I don’t want to be alone again. I don’t want to be frightened. I don’t want to lose everything again, like that time. I don’t want to lose Geralt . . . or you, Lady Yennefer. I don’t want to lose you. I want to stay with you. And him. Always.’

‘You will.’ The magician’s voice trembled a little. ‘And I’m going to be with you, Ciri. Always. I promise you.’

Ciri sniffed again. Yennefer coughed quietly, put down the scissors and comb, got to her feet and crossed over to the window. The ravens were still croaking in their flight towards the mountains.

‘When I arrived here,’ the lady magician suddenly said in her usual, melodious, slightly mocking voice. ‘When we first met . . . You didn’t like me.’

Ciri did not say anything. Our first meeting, she thought. I remember. I was in the Grotto with the other girls. Hrosvitha was showing us plants and herbs. Then Iola the First came in and whispered something in Hrosvitha’s ear. The priestess grimaced with animosity. And Iola the First came up to me with a strange expression of her face. ‘Get yourself together, Ciri,’ she said, ‘and go the refectory, quick. Mother Nenneke is summoning you. Someone has arrived.’

Strange, meaningful glances, excitement in their eyes. And whispers. Yennefer. ‘Magician Yennefer. Quick, Ciri, hurry up. Mother Nenneke is waiting. And she is waiting.’

I knew immediately, thought Ciri, that it was her. Because I’d seen her. I’d seen her the night before. In my dream.

Her.

I didn’t know her name then. She didn’t say anything in my dream. She only looked at me and behind her, in the darkness, I saw a closed door . . .

Ciri sighed. Yennefer turned and the obsidian star on her neck glittered with a thousand reflections.

‘You’re right,’ admitted the girl seriously, looking straight into the magician’s violet eyes. ‘I didn’t like you.’

‘Ciri,’ said Nenneke, ‘come closer. This is Lady Yennefer from Vengerberg, Mistress of Wizardry. Don’t be frightened. Lady Yennefer knows who you are. You can trust her.’

The girl bowed, interlocking her palms in a gesture of full respect. The enchantress, rustling her long, black dress, approached, took Ciri by the chin and quite off-handedly lifted her head, turning it right and left. The girl felt anger and rebellion rising within her – she was not used to being treated this way. And at the same time, she experienced a burning envy. Yennefer was very beautiful. Compared to the delicate, pale and rather common comeliness of the priestesses and novices who Ciri saw every day, the magician glowed with a conscious, even demonstrative loveliness, emphasised and accentuated in every detail. Her raven-black locks cascading down her shoulders shone, reflected the light like the feathers of a peacock, curling and undulating with every move. Ciri suddenly felt ashamed, ashamed of her grazed elbows, chapped hands, broken nails, her ashen, stringy hair. All of a sudden, she had an overwhelming desire to possess what Yennefer had – a beautiful, exposed neck and on it a lovely black velvet ribbon with a lovely glittering star. Regular eyebrows, accentuated with charcoal, and long eyelashes. Proud lips. And those two mounds which rose with every breath, hugged by black cloth and white lace . . .

‘So this is the famous Surprise.’ The magician twisted her lips a little. ‘Look me in the eyes, girl.’

Ciri shuddered and hunched her shoulders. No, she did not envy Yennefer that one thing – did not desire to have it or even look at it. Those eyes, violet, deep as a fathomless lake, strangely bright, dispassionate and malefic. Terrifying.

The magician turned towards the stout high priestess. The star on her neck flamed with reflections of the sun beaming through the window into the refectory.

‘Yes, Nenneke,’ she said. ‘There can be no doubt. One just has to look into those green eyes to know that there is something in her. High forehead, regular arch of the brows, eyes set attractively apart. Narrow nose. Long fingers. Rare hair pigment. Obvious elven blood, although there is not much of it in her. An elven great-grandfather or great-grandmother. Have I guessed correctly?’

‘I don’t know her family tree,’ the high priestess replied calmly. ‘It didn’t interest me.’

‘Tall for her age,’ continued the magician, still appraising Ciri with her eyes. The girl was boiling over with fury and annoyance, struggling with an overpowering desire to scream defiantly, scream her lungs out, stamp her feet and run off to the park, on the way knocking over the vase on the table and slamming the door so as to make the plaster crumble from the ceiling.

‘Not badly developed.’ Yennefer did not take her eyes off her. ‘Has she suffered any infectious diseases in childhood ? Ha, no doubt you didn’t ask her about that either. Has she been ill since she’s been here?’

‘No.’

‘Any migraines? Fainting? Inclination to catch cold? Painful periods?’

‘No. Only those dreams.’

‘I know.’ Yennefer gathered the hair from her cheek. ‘He wrote about that. It appears from his letter that in Kaer Morhen they didn’t try out any of their . . . experiments on her. I would like to believe that’s true.’

‘It is. They gave her only natural stimulants.’

‘Stimulants are never natural!’ The magician raised her voice. ‘Never! It is precisely the stimulants which may have aggravated her symptoms in . . . Damn it, I never suspected him of such irresponsibility!’

‘Calm down.’ Nenneke looked at her coldly and, all of a sudden, somehow oddly without respect. ‘I said they were natural and absolutely safe. Forgive me, dear, but in this respect I am a greater authority than you. I know it is exceedingly difficult for you to accept someone else’s authority but in this case I am forced to inflict it on you. And let there be no more talk about it.’

‘As you wish.’ Yennefer pursed her lips. ‘Well, come on, girl. We don’t have much time. It would be a sin to waste it.’

Ciri could barely keep her hands from shaking; she swallowed hard and looked inquiringly at Nenneke. The high priestess was serious, as if sad, and the smile with which she answered the unspoken question was unpleasantly false.

‘You’re going with Lady Yennefer now,’ she said. ‘Lady Yennefer is going to be looking after you for a while.’

Ciri bowed her head and clenched her teeth.

‘You are no doubt baffled,’ continued Nenneke, ‘that a Mistress of Wizardry is suddenly taking you into her care. But you are a reasonable girl, Ciri. You can guess why. You have inherited certain . . . attributes from your ancestors. You know what I am talking about. You used to come to me, after those dreams, after the nocturnal disturbances in the dormitory. I couldn’t help you. But Lady Yennefer—’

‘Lady Yennefer,’ interrupted the magician, ‘will do what is necessary. Let us go, girl.’

‘Go,’ nodded Nenneke, trying, in vain, to make her smile at least appear natural. ‘Go, child. Remember it is a great privilege to have someone like Lady Yennefer look after you. Don’t bring shame on the Temple and us, your mentors. And be obedient.’

I’ll escape tonight, Ciri made up her mind. Back to Kaer Morhen. I’ll steal a horse from the stables and that’s the last they’ll see of me. I’ll run away!

‘Indeed you will,’ said the magician under her breath.

‘I beg your pardon?’ the priestess raised her head. ‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ smiled Yennefer. ‘You just thought I did. Or maybe I thought I did? Just look at this ward of yours, Nenneke. Furious as a cat. Sparks in her eyes; just wait and she’ll hiss. And if she could flatten her ears, she would. A witcher-girl! I’ll have to take her firmly in hand, file her claws.’

‘Be more understanding.’ The high priestess’s features visibly hardened. ‘Please, be kind-hearted and understanding. She really is not who you take her to be.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘She’s not your rival, Yennefer.’

For a moment they measured each other with their eyes, the enchantress and the priestess, and Ciri felt the air quiver, a strange, terrible force between them growing in strength. This lasted no more than a fraction of a second after which the force disappeared and Yennefer burst out laughing, lightheartedly and sweetly.

‘I forgot,’ she said. ‘Always on his side, aren’t you, Nenneke? Always worrying about him. Like the mother he never had.’

‘And you’re always against him,’ smiled the priestess. ‘Bestowing him with strong feelings, as usual. And defending yourself as hard as you can not to call the feelings by their rightful name.’

Once again, Ciri felt fury rise up somewhere in the pit of her stomach, and her temples throbbed with spite and rebellion. She remembered how many times and under what circumstances she had heard that name. Yennefer. A name which caused unease, a name which was the symbol of some sinister secret. She guessed what that secret was.

They’re talking quite openly in front of me, without any restraint, she thought, feeling her hands start to shake with anger once more. They’re not bothered about me at all. Ignoring me completely. As if I were a child. They’re talking about Geralt in front of me, in my presence, but they can’t because I . . . I am . . .

Who?

‘You, on the other hand, Nenneke,’ retorted the magician, ‘are amusing yourself, as usual, analysing other people’s emotions, and on top of that interpreting them to suit yourself!’

‘And putting my nose into other people’s business?’

‘I didn’t want to say that.’ Yennefer tossed her black locks, which gleamed and writhed like snakes. ‘Thank you for doing so for me. And now let us change the subject, please, because the one we were discussing is exceptionally silly – disgraceful in front of our young pupil. And as for being understanding, as you ask . . . I will be. But kind-hearted – with that, there might be a problem because, after all, it is widely thought I don’t possess any such organ. But we’ll manage somehow. Isn’t that right, Surprise?’

She smiled at Ciri and, despite herself, despite her anger and annoyance, Ciri had to respond with a smile. Because the enchantress’s smile was unexpectedly pleasant, friendly and sincere. And very, very beautiful.

She listened to Yennefer’s speech with her back ostentatiously turned, pretending to bestow her full attention on the bumble bee buzzing in the flower of one of the hollyhocks growing by the temple wall.

‘No one asked me about it,’ she mumbled.

‘What didn’t anybody ask you about?’

Ciri turned in a half-pirouette and furiously whacked the hollyhock with her fist. The bumble bee flew away, buzzing angrily and ominously.

‘No one asked me whether I wanted you to teach me!’

Yennefer rested her fists on her hips; her eyes flashed.

‘What a coincidence,’ she hissed. ‘Imagine that – no one asked me whether I wanted to teach you either. Besides, wanting has got nothing to do with it. I don’t apprentice just anybody and you, despite appearances, might still turn out to be a nobody. I was asked to check how things stand with you. To examine what is inside you and how that could endanger you. And I, though not unreluctantly, agreed.’

‘But I haven’t agreed yet!’

The magician raised her arm and moved her hand. Ciri experienced a throbbing in her temples and a buzzing in her ears, as if she were swallowing but much louder. She felt drowsy, and an overpowering weakness, tiredness stiffened her neck and softened her knees.

Yennefer lowered her hand and the sensation instantly passed.

‘Listen to me carefully, Surprise,’ she said. ‘I can easily cast a spell on you, hypnotise you, or put you in a trance. I can paralyse you, force you to drink an elixir, strip you naked, lay you out on the table and examine you for hours, taking breaks for meals while you lie there, looking at the ceiling, unable to move even your eyeballs. That is what I would do with just any snotty kid. I do not want to do that to you because one can see, at first glance, that you are an intelligent and proud girl, that you have character. I don’t want to put you or myself to shame. Not in front of Geralt. Because he is the one who asked me to take care of your abilities. To help you deal with them.’

‘He asked you? Why? He never said anything to me! He never asked me—’

‘You keep going back to that,’ cut in the magician. ‘No one asked for your opinion, no one took the trouble to check what you want or don’t want. Could you have given cause for someone to consider you a contrary, stubborn, snotty kid, whom it is not worth asking questions like that? But I’m going to take the risk and am going to ask something no one has ever asked you. Will you allow yourself to be examined?’

‘And what will it involve? What are these tests? And why . . .’

‘I have already explained. If you haven’t understood, that’s too bad. I have no intention of polishing your perception or working on your intelligence. I can examine a sensible girl just as well as a stupid one.’

‘I’m not stupid! And I understood everything!’

‘All the better.’

‘But I’m not cut out to be a magician! I haven’t got any abilities! I’m never going to be a magician nor want to be one! I’m destined for Geralt . . . I’m destined to be a witcher! I’ve only come here for a short period! I’m going back to Kaer Morhen soon . . .’

‘You are persistently staring at my neckline,’ said Yennefer icily, narrowing her violet eyes a little. ‘Do you see anything unusual there or is it just plain jealousy?’

‘That star . . .’ muttered Ciri. ‘What’s it made of? Those stones move and shine so strangely . . .’

‘They pulsate,’ smiled the magician. ‘They are active diamonds, sunken in obsidian. Do you want to see them close up? Touch them?’

‘Yes . . . No!’ Ciri backed away and angrily tossed her head, trying to dispel the faint scent of lilac and gooseberries emanating from Yennefer. ‘I don’t. Why should I? I’m not interested! Not a bit! I’m a witcher! I haven’t got any magical abilities! I’m not cut out to be a magician, surely that’s clear because I’m . . . And anyway . . .’

The magician sat on the stone bench under the wall and concentrated on examining her fingernails.

‘. . . and anyway,’ concluded Ciri, ‘I’ve got to think about it.’

‘Come here. Sit next to me.’

She obeyed.

‘I’ve got to have time to think about it,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Quite right.’ Yennefer nodded, still gazing at her nails. ‘It is a serious matter. It needs to be thought over.’

Both said nothing for a while. The novices strolling through the park glanced at them with curiosity, whispered, giggled.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘Have you thought about it?’

Ciri leaped to her feet, snorted and stamped.

‘I . . . I . . .’ she panted, unable to catch her breath from anger. ‘Are you making fun of me? I need time! I need to think about it! For longer! For a whole day . . . And night!’

Yennefer looked her in the eyes and Ciri shrivelled under the gaze.

‘The saying goes,’ said the magician slowly, ‘that the night brings solutions. But in your case, Surprise, the only thing night can bring is yet another nightmare. You will wake up again, screaming and in pain, drenched in sweat. You will be frightened again, frightened of what you saw, frightened of what you won’t be able to remember. And there will be no more sleep that night. There will be fear. Until dawn.’

The girl shuddered, lowered her head.

‘Surprise.’ Yennefer’s voice changed imperceptibly. ‘Trust me.’

The enchantress’s shoulder was warm. The black velvet of her dress asked to be touched. The scent of lilac and gooseberries intoxicated delightfully. Her embrace calmed and soothed, relaxed, tempered excitement, stilled anger and rebellion.

‘You’ll submit to the tests, Surprise.’

‘I will,’ she answered, understanding that she did not really have to reply. Because it was not a question.

‘I don’t understand anything any more,’ said Ciri. ‘First you say I’ve got abilities because I’ve got those dreams. But you want to do tests and check . . . So how is it? Do I have abilities or don’t I?’

‘That question will be answered by the tests.’

‘Tests, tests.’ She pulled a face. ‘I haven’t got any abilities, I tell you. I’d know if I had them, wouldn’t I? Well, but . . . If, by some sheer chance, I had abilities, what then?’

‘There are two possibilities,’ the magician informed her with indifference as she opened the window. ‘Your abilities will either have to be extinguished or you will have to learn how to control them. If you are gifted and want to, I can try to instil in you some elementary knowledge of magic.’

‘What does “elementary” mean?’

‘Basic.’

They were alone in the large chamber next to the library in an unoccupied side wing of the building, which Nenneke had allocated to the lady magician. Ciri knew that this chamber was used by guests. She knew that Geralt, whenever he visited the Temple, stayed right here.

‘Are you going to want to teach me?’ She sat on the bed and skimmed her hand over the damask eiderdown. ‘Are you going to want to take me away from here? I’m never going to leave with you!’

‘So I’ll leave alone,’ said Yennefer coldly, untying the straps of her saddle-bags. ‘And I assure you, I’m not going to miss you. I did tell you that I’ll educate you only if you decide you want to. And I can do so here, on the spot.’

‘How long are you going to edu—Teach me for?’

‘As long as you want.’ The magician leaned over, opened the chest of drawers, pulled out an old leather bag, a belt, two boots trimmed with fur and a clay demi-john in a wicker basket. Ciri heard her curse under her breath while smiling, and saw her hide the finds back in the drawers. She guessed whose they were. Who had left them there.

‘What does that mean, as long as I want?’ she asked. ‘If I get bored or don’t like the work—’

‘We’ll put an end to it. It’s enough that you tell me. Or show me.’

‘Show you? How?’

‘Should we decide on educating you, I will demand absolute obedience. I repeat: absolute. If, on the other hand, you get tired of it, it will suffice for you to disobey. Then the lessons will instantly cease. Is that clear?’

Ciri nodded and cast a fleeting glance of her green eyes at the magician.

‘Secondly,’ continued Yennefer, unpacking her saddle-bags, ‘I will demand absolute sincerity. You will not be allowed to hide anything from me. Anything. So if you feel you have had enough, it will suffice for you to lie, pretend, feign or close in on yourself. If I ask you something and you do not answer sincerely, that will also indicate an instant end to our lessons. Have you understood?’

‘Yes,’ muttered Ciri. ‘And that . . . sincerity . . . Does that work both ways? Will I be able to . . . ask you questions?’

Yennefer looked at her and her lips twisted strangely.

‘Of course,’ she answered after a while. ‘That goes without saying. That will be the basis of the learning and protection I aim to give you. Sincerity works both ways. You are to ask me questions. At any time. And I will answer. Sincerely.’

‘Any question?’

‘Any question.’

‘As of now?’

‘Yes. As of now.’

‘What is there between you and Geralt, Lady Yennefer?’

Ciri almost fainted, horrified at her own impertinence, chilled by the silence which followed the question.

The enchantress slowly approached her, placed her hands on her shoulders, looked her in the eyes from up close – and deeply.

‘Longing,’ she answered gravely. ‘Regret. Hope. And fear. Yes, I don’t think I have omitted anything. Well, now we can get on with the tests, you little green-eyed viper. We will see if you’re cut out for this. Although after your question I would be very surprised if it turned out you aren’t. Let’s go, my ugly one.’

Ciri bridled.

‘Why do you call me that?’

Yennefer smiled with the corners of her lips.

‘I promised to be sincere.’

Ciri, annoyed, pulled herself up straight and wriggled in her hard chair which, after many hours of sitting, hurt her backside.

‘Nothing’s going to come of it!’ she snarled, wiping her charcoal-smeared fingers on the table. ‘After all this, nothing . . . Nothing works out for me! I’m not cut out to be a magician! I knew that right from the start but you didn’t want to listen to me! You didn’t pay any attention!’

Yennefer raised her eyebrows.

‘I didn’t want to listen to you, you say? That’s interesting. I usually devote my attention to every sentence uttered in my presence and note it in my memory. The one condition being that there be at least a little sense in the sentence.’

‘You’re always mocking me.’ Ciri grated her teeth. ‘And I just wanted to tell you . . . Well, about these abilities. You see in Kaer Morhen, in the mountains . . . I couldn’t form a single witcher Sign. Not one!’

‘I know.’

‘You know?’

‘I know. But that doesn’t mean anything.’

‘How’s that? Well . . . But that’s not all!’

‘I’m listening in suspense.’

‘I’m not cut out for it. Can’t you understand that? I’m . . . I’m too young.’

‘I was younger than you when I started.’

‘But I’m sure you weren’t . . .’

‘What do you mean, girl? Stop stuttering! At least one full sentence, please.’

‘Because . . .’ Ciri lowered her head and blushed. ‘Because Iola, Myrrha, Eurneid and Katye – when we were having dinner – laughed at me and said that witchcraft doesn’t have access to me and that I’m not going to perform any magic because . . . Because I’m . . . a virgin, that means—’

‘I know what it means, believe it or not,’ interrupted the magician. ‘No doubt you’ll see this as another spiteful piece of mockery but I hate to tell you that you are talking a lot of rubbish. Let us get back to the test.’

‘I’m a virgin!’ repeated Ciri aggressively. ‘Why the tests? Virgins can’t do magic!’

‘I can’t see a solution,’ Yennefer leaned back in her chair. ‘So go out and lose your virginity if it gets in your way so much. But be quick about it if you please.’

‘Are you making fun of me?’

‘You’ve noticed?’ The magician smiled faintly. ‘Congratulations. You’ve passed the preliminary test in perspicacity. And now for the real test. Concentrate, please. Look: there are four pine trees in this picture. Each one has a different number of branches. Draw a fifth to fit in with the other four and to fit in this space here.’

‘Pine trees are silly,’ decreed Ciri, sticking out her tongue and drawing a slightly crooked tree with her charcoal. ‘And boring! I can’t understand what pine trees have to do with magic? What? Lady Yennefer! You promised to answer my questions!’

‘Unfortunately,’ sighed the magician, picking up the sheet of paper and critically appraising the drawing, ‘I think I’m going to regret that promise. What do pine trees have in common with magic? Nothing. But you’ve drawn it correctly, and on time. In truth, excellent for a virgin.’

‘Are you laughing at me?’

‘No. I rarely laugh. I really need to have a good reason to laugh. Concentrate on the next page, Surprise. There are rows of stars, circles, crosses and triangles drawn on it, a different number of each shape in each row. Think and answer: how many stars should there be in the last row?’

‘Stars are silly!’

‘How many?’

‘Three!’

Yennefer did not say anything for a long time. She stared at a detail on the carved wardrobe door known only to her. The mischievous smile on Ciri’s lips started slowly to disappear until finally it disappeared altogether, without a trace.

‘No doubt you were curious to learn,’ said the magician very slowly, not ceasing to admire the wardrobe, ‘what would happen if you gave me a senseless and stupid reply. You thought perhaps that I might not notice because I am not in the least interested in your answers? You thought wrongly. You believed, perhaps, that I would simply accept that you are stupid? You were wrong. But if you are bored of being tested and wanted, for a change, to test me . . . Well, that has clearly worked, hasn’t it? Either way, this test is concluded. Return the paper.’

‘I’m sorry, Lady Yennefer.’ The girl lowered her head. ‘There should, of course, be . . . one star there. I’m very sorry. Please don’t be angry with me.’

‘Look at me, Ciri.’

The girl raised her eyes, astonished. Because for the first time the magician had called her by her name.

‘Ciri,’ said Yennefer. ‘Know that, despite appearances, I get angry just as rarely as I laugh. You haven’t made me angry. But in apologising you have proved I wasn’t wrong about you. And now take the next sheet of paper. As you can see there are five houses on it. Draw the sixth . . .’

‘Again? I really can’t understand why—’

‘. . . the sixth house.’ The lady magician’s voice changed dangerously and her eyes flashed with a violet glow. ‘Here, in this space. Don’t make me repeat myself, please.’

After apples, pine trees, stars, fishes and houses, came the turn of labyrinths through which she had to quickly find a path, wavy lines, blots which looked like squashed cockroaches, and mosaics which made her go cross-eyed and set her head spinning. Then there was a shining ball on a piece of string at which she had to stare for a long time. Staring at it was as dull as dish-water and Ciri kept falling asleep. Yennefer, surprisingly, did not care even though a few days earlier she had scolded her grimly for napping over one of the cockroach blots.

Pouring over the tests had made her neck and back ache and day by day they grew more painful. She missed movement and fresh air and, obliged to be sincere, she immediately told Yennefer. The magician took it easily, as if she had been expecting this for a long time.

For the next two days they both ran through the park, jumped over ditches and fences under the amused or pitying eyes of the priestesses and novices. They exercised and practised their balance walking along the top of the wall which encircled the orchard and farm buildings. Unlike the training in Kaer Morhen, though, the exercises with Yennefer were always accompanied by theory. The magician taught Ciri how to breathe, guiding the movement of her chest and diaphragm with strong pressure from her hand. She explained the rules of movement, how muscles and bones work, and demonstrated how to rest, release tension and relax.

During one such session of relaxation, stretched out on the grass and gazing at the sky, Ciri asked a question which was bothering her. ‘Lady Yennefer? When are we finally going to finish the tests?’

‘Do they bore you so much?’

‘No . . . But I’d like to know whether I’m cut out to be a magician.’

‘You are.’

‘You know that already?’

‘I knew from the start. Few people can detect the activity of my star. Very few. You noticed it straight away.’

‘And the tests?’

‘Concluded. I already know what I wanted to about you.’

‘But some of the tasks . . . They didn’t work out very well. You said yourself that . . . Are you really sure? You’re not mistaken? You’re sure I have the ability?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘But—’

‘Ciri.’ The enchantress looked both amused and impatient. ‘From the moment we lay down in the meadow, I have been talking to you without using my voice. It’s called telepathy, remember that. And as you no doubt noticed, it has not made our talking together any more difficult.’

‘Magic’ – Yennefer, her eyes fixed on the sky above the hills, rested her hands on the pommel of her saddle – ‘is, in some people’s opinion, the embodiment of Chaos. It is a key capable of opening the forbidden door. The door behind which lurk nightmares, fear and unimaginable horrors, behind which enemies hide and wait, destructive powers, the forces of pure Evil capable of annihilating not only the one who opens the door but with them the entire world. And since there is no lack of those who try to open the door, someone, at some point, is going to make a mistake and then the destruction of the world will be forejudged and inevitable. Magic is, therefore, the revenge and the weapon of Chaos. The fact that, following the Conjunction of the Spheres, people have learned to use magic, is the curse and undoing of the world. The undoing of mankind. And that’s how it is, Ciri. Those who believe that magic is Chaos are not mistaken.’

Spurred on by its mistress’s heels, the magician’s black stallion neighed lengthily and slowly made his way into the heather. Ciri hastened her horse, followed in Yennefer’s tracks and caught up with her. The heather reached to their stirrups.

‘Magic,’ Yennefer continued after a while, ‘is, in some people’s opinion, art. Great, elitist art, capable of creating beautiful and extraordinary things. Magic is a talent granted to only a chosen few. Others, deprived of talent, can only look at the results of the artists’ works with admiration and envy, can admire the finished work while feeling that without these creations and without this talent the world would be a poorer place. The fact that, following the Conjunction of the Spheres, some chosen few discovered talent and magic within themselves, the fact that they found Art within themselves, is the blessing of beauty. And that’s how it is. Those who believe that magic is art are also right.’

On the long bare hill which protruded from the heath like the back of some lurking predator lay an enormous boulder supported by a few smaller stones. The magician guided her horse in its direction without pausing her lecture.

‘There are also those according to whom magic is a science. In order to master it, talent and innate ability alone are not enough. Years of keen study and arduous work are essential; endurance and self-discipline are necessary. Magic acquired like this is knowledge, learning, the limits of which are constantly stretched by enlightened and vigorous minds, by experience, experiments and practice. Magic acquired in such a way is progress. It is the plough, the loom, the watermill, the smelting furnace, the winch and the pulley. It is progress, evolution, change. It is constant movement. Upwards. Towards improvement. Towards the stars. The fact that following the Conjunction of the Spheres we discovered magic will, one day, allow us to reach the stars. Dismount, Ciri.’

Yennefer approached the monolith, placed her palm on the coarse surface of the stone and carefully brushed away the dust and dry leaves.

‘Those who consider magic to be a science,’ she continued, ‘are also right. Remember that, Ciri. And now come here, to me.’

The girl swallowed and came closer. The enchantress put her arm around her.

‘Remember,’ she repeated, ‘magic is Chaos, Art and Science. It is a curse, a blessing and progress. It all depends on who uses magic, how they use it, and to what purpose. And magic is everywhere. All around us. Easily accessible. It is enough to stretch out one’s hand. See? I’m stretching out my hand.’

The cromlech trembled perceptibly. Ciri heard a dull, distant noise and a rumble coming from within the earth. The heather undulated, flattened by the gale which suddenly gusted across the hill. The sky abruptly turned dark, covered with clouds scudding across it at incredible speed. The girl felt drops of rain on her face. She narrowed her eyes against the flash of lightning which suddenly flared across the horizon. She automatically huddled up to the enchantress, against her black hair smelling of lilac and gooseberries.

‘The earth which we tread. The fire which does not go out within it. The water from which all life is born and without which life is not possible. The air we breathe. It is enough to stretch out one’s hand to master them, to subjugate them. Magic is everywhere. It is in air, in water, in earth and in fire. And it is behind the door which the Conjunction of the Spheres has closed on us. From there, from behind the closed door, magic sometimes extends its hand to us. For us. You know that, don’t you? You have already felt the touch of that magic, the touch of the hand from behind that door. That touch filled you with fear. Such a touch fills everyone with fear. Because there is Chaos and Order, Good and Evil in all of us. But it is possible and necessary to control it. This has to be learnt. And you will learn it, Ciri. That is why I brought you here, to this stone which, from time immemorial, has stood at the crossing of veins of power pulsating with force. Touch it.’

The boulder shook, vibrated, and with it the entire hill vibrated and shook.

‘Magic is extending its hand towards you, Ciri. To you, strange girl, Surprise, Child of the Elder Blood, the Blood of Elves. Strange girl, woven into Movement and Change, into Annihilation and Rebirth. Destined and destiny. Magic extends its hand towards you from behind the closed door, towards you, a tiny grain of sand in the workings of the Clock of Fate. Chaos extends its talons towards you, still uncertain if you will be its tool or an obstacle in its design. That which Chaos shows you in your dreams is this very uncertainty. Chaos is afraid of you, Child of Destiny. But it wants you to be the one who feels fear.’

There was a flash of lightning and a long rumble of thunder. Ciri trembled with cold and dread.

‘Chaos cannot show you what it really is. So it is showing you the future, showing you what is going to happen. It wants you to be afraid of the coming days, so that fear of what is going to happen to you and those closest to you will start to guide you, take you over completely. That is why Chaos is sending you those dreams. Now, you are going to show me what you see in your dreams. And you are going to be frightened. And then you will forget and master your fear. Look at my star, Ciri. Don’t take your eyes from it!’

A flash. A rumble of thunder.

‘Speak! I command you!’

Blood. Yennefer’s lips, cut and crushed, move silently, flow with blood. White rocks flitter past, seen from a gallop. A horse neighs. A leap. Valley, abyss. Screaming. Flight, an endless flight. Abyss . . .

In the depth of the abyss, smoke. Stairs leading down.

Va’esse deireádh aep eigean . . . Something is coming to an end . . . What?

Elaine blath, Feainnewedd . . . Child of the Elder Blood? Yennefer’s voice seems to come from somewhere afar, is dull, awakens echoes amidst the stone walls dripping with damp. Elaine blath—

‘Speak!’

The violet eyes shine, burn in the emaciated, shrivelled face, blackened with suffering, veiled with a tempest of dishevelled, dirty black hair. Darkness. Damp. Stench. The excruciating cold of stone walls. The cold of iron on wrists, on ankles . . .

Abyss. Smoke. Stairs leading down. Stairs down which she must go. Must because . . . Because something is coming to an end. Because Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End, the Time of the Wolf’s Blizzard is approaching. The Time of the White Chill and White Light . . .

The Lion Cub must die! For reasons of state!

‘Let’s go,’ says Geralt. ‘Down the stairs. We must. It must be so. There is no other way. Only the stairs. Down!’

His lips are not moving. They are blue. Blood, blood everywhere . . . The whole stairs in blood . . . Mustn’t slip . . . Because the witcher trips just once . . . The flash of a blade. Screams. Death. Down. Down the stairs.

Smoke. Fire. Frantic galloping, hooves thundering. Flames all around. ‘Hold on! Hold on, Lion Cub of Cintra!’

The black horse neighs, rears. ‘Hold on!’

The black horse dances. In the slit of the helmet adorned with the wings of a bird of prey shine and burn merciless eyes.

A broad sword, reflecting the glow of the fire, falls with a hiss. Dodge, Ciri! Feign! Pirouette, parry! Dodge! Dodge! Too sloooowwww!

The blow blinds her with its flash, shakes her whole body, the pain paralyses her for a moment, dulls, deadens, and then suddenly explodes with a terrible strength, sinks its cruel, sharp fangs into her cheek, yanks, penetrates right through, radiates into the neck, the shoulders, chest, lungs . . .

‘Ciri!’

She felt the coarse, unpleasant, still coolness of stone on her back and head. She did not remember sitting down. Yennefer was kneeling next to her. Gently, but decisively, she straightened her fingers, pulled her hand away from her cheek. The cheek throbbed, pulsated with pain.

‘Mama . . .’ groaned Ciri. ‘Mama . . . How it hurts! Mama . . .’

The magician touched her face. Her hand was as cold as ice. The pain stopped instantly.

‘I saw . . .’ the girl whispered, closing her eyes, ‘the things I saw in the dreams . . . A black knight . . . Geralt . . . And also . . . You . . . I saw you, Lady Yennefer!’

‘I know.’

‘I saw you . . . I saw how—’

‘Never more. You will never see that again. You won’t dream about it any more. I will give you the force to push those nightmares away. That is why I have brought you here, Ciri – to show you that force. Tomorrow, I am going to start giving it to you.’

Long, arduous days followed, days of intensive study and exhausting work. Yennefer was firm, frequently stern, sometimes masterfully formidable. But she was never boring. Previously, Ciri could barely keep her eyes open in the Temple school and would sometimes even doze off during a lesson, lulled by the monotonous, gentle voice of Nenneke, Iola the First, Hrosvitha or some other teacher. With Yennefer, it was impossible. And not only because of the timbre of the lady magician’s voice and the short, sharply accentuated sentences she used. The most important element was the subject of her studies. The study of magic. Fascinating, exciting and absorbing study.

Ciri spent most of the day with Yennefer. She returned to the dormitory late at night, collapsed into bed like a log and fell asleep immediately. The novices complained that she snored very loudly and tried to wake her. In vain.

Ciri slept deeply.

With no dreams.

‘Oh, gods.’ Yennefer sighed in resignation and, ruffling her black hair with both hands, lowered her head. ‘But it’s so simple! If you can’t master this move, what will happen with the harder ones?’

Ciri turned away, mumbled something in a raspy voice and massaged her stiff hand. The magician sighed once more.

‘Take another look at the etching. See how your fingers should be spread. Pay attention to the explanatory arrows and runes describing how the move should be performed.’

‘I’ve already looked at the drawing a thousand times! I understand the runes! Vort, cáelme. Ys, veloë. Away from oneself, slowly. Down, quickly. The hand . . . like this?’

‘And the little finger?’

‘It’s impossible to position it like that without bending the ring finger at the same time!’

‘Give me your hand.’

‘Ouuuch!’

‘Not so loud, Ciri, otherwise Nenneke will come running again, thinking that I’m skinning you alive or frying you in oil. Don’t change the position of your fingers. And now perform the gesture. Turn, turn the wrist! Good. Now shake the hand, relax the fingers. And repeat. No, no! Do you know what you did? If you were to cast a real spell like that, you’d be wearing your hand in splints for a month! Are your hands made of wood?’

‘My hand’s trained to hold a sword! That’s why!’

‘Nonsense. Geralt has been brandishing his sword for his whole life and his fingers are agile and . . . mmmm . . . very gentle. Continue, my ugly one, try again. See? It’s enough to want to. It’s enough to try. Once more. Good. Shake your hand. And once again. Good. Are you tired?’

‘A little . . .’

‘Let me massage your hand and arm. Ciri, why aren’t you using the ointment I gave you? Your hands are as rough as crocodile skin . . . But what’s this? A mark left by a ring, am I right? Was I imagining it or did I forbid you to wear any jewellery?’

‘But I won the ring from Myrrha playing spinning tops! And I only wore it for half a day—’

‘That’s half a day too long. Don’t wear it any more, please.’

‘I don’t understand, why aren’t I allowed—’

‘You don’t have to understand,’ the magician said cutting her short, but there was no anger in her voice. ‘I’m asking you not to wear any ornaments like that. Pin a flower in your hair if you want to. Weave a wreath for your hair. But no metal, no crystals, no stones. It’s important, Ciri. When the time comes, I will explain why. For the time being, trust me and do as I ask.’

‘You wear your star, earrings and rings! And I’m not allowed? Is that because I’m . . . a virgin?’

‘Ugly one,’ Yennefer smiled and stroked her on the head, ‘are you still obsessed with that? I have already explained to you that it doesn’t matter whether you are or not. Not in the least. Wash your hair tomorrow; it needs it, I see.’

‘Lady Yennefer?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I . . . As part of the sincerity you promised . . . May I ask you something?’

‘You may. But, by all the gods, not about virginity, please.’

Ciri bit her lip and did not say anything for a long time.

‘Too bad,’ sighed Yennefer. ‘Let it be. Ask away.’

‘Because, you see . . .’ Ciri blushed and licked her lips, ‘the girls in the dormitory are always gossiping and telling all sorts of stories . . . About Belleteyn’s feast and others like that . . . And they say I’m a snotty kid, a child because it’s time . . . Lady Yennefer, how does it really work? How can one know that the time has come . . .’

‘. . . to go to bed with a man?’

Ciri blushed a deep shade of crimson. She said nothing for a while then raised her eyes and nodded.

‘It’s easy to tell,’ said Yennefer, naturally. ‘If you are beginning to think about it then it’s a sign the time has come.’

‘But I don’t want to!’

‘It’s not compulsory. You don’t want to, then you don’t.’

‘Ah.’ Ciri bit her lip again. ‘And that . . . Well . . . Man . . . How can you tell it’s the right one to . . .’

‘. . . go to bed with?’

‘Mmmh.’

‘If you have any choice at all,’ the enchantress twisted her lips in a smile, ‘but don’t have much experience, you first appraise the bed.’

Ciri’s emerald eyes turned the shape and size of saucers.

‘How’s that . . . The bed?’

‘Precisely that. Those who don’t have a bed at all, you eliminate on the spot. From those who remain, you eliminate the owners of any dirty or slovenly beds. And when only those who have clean and tidy beds remain, you choose the one you find most attractive. Unfortunately, the method is not a hundred per cent foolproof. You can make a terrible mistake.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘No. I’m not joking, Ciri. As of tomorrow, you are going to sleep here with me. Bring your things. From what I hear, too much time is wasted in the novices’ dormitory on gabbling, time which would be better spent resting and sleeping.’

After mastering the basic positions of the hands, the moves and gestures, Ciri began to learn spells and their formulae. The formulae were easier. Written in Elder Speech, which the girl already knew to perfection, they sank easily into her memory. Nor did she have any problems enunciating the frequently complicated intonations. Yennefer was clearly pleased and, from day to day, was becoming more pleasant and sympathetic. More and more frequently, taking breaks in the studies, both gossiped and joked about any old thing; both even began to amuse themselves by delicately poking fun at Nenneke who often ‘visited’ their lectures and exercises – bristling and puffed up like a brooding hen – ready to take Ciri under her protective wing, to protect and save her from the magician’s imagined severity and the ‘inhuman tortures’ of her education.

Obeying instructions, Ciri moved to Yennefer’s chamber. Now they were together not only by day but also by night. Sometimes, their studies would take place during the night – certain moves, formulae and spells could not be performed in daylight.

The magician, pleased with the girl’s progress, slowed the speed of her education. They had more free time. They spent their evenings reading books, together or separately. Ciri waded through Stammelford’s Dialogues on the Nature of Magic, Giambattista’s Forces of the Elements and Richert and Monck’s Natural Magic. She also flicked through – because she did not manage to read them in their entirety – such works as Jan Bekker’s The Invisible World and Agnes of Glanville’s The Secret of Secrets. She dipped into the ancient, yellowed Codex of Mirthe, Ard Aercane, and even the famous, terrible Dhu Dwimmermorc, full of menacing etchings.

She also reached for other books which had nothing to do with magic. She read The History of the World and A Treatise on Life. Nor did she leave out lighter works from the Temple library. Blushing, she devoured Marquis La Creahme’s Gambols and Anna Tiller’s The King’s Ladies. She read The Adversities of Loving and Time of the Moon, collections of poems by the famous troubadour Dandilion. She shed tears over the ballads of Essi Daven, subtle, infused with mystery, and collected in a small, beautifully bound volume entitled The Blue Pearl.

She made frequent use of her privilege to ask questions. And she received answers. More and more frequently, however, she was the one being questioned. In the beginning it had seemed that Yennefer was not at all interested in her lot, in her childhood in Cintra or the later events of war. But in time her questions became more and more concrete. Ciri had to reply and did so very unwillingly because every question the magician asked opened a door in her memory which she had promised herself never to open, which she wanted to keep forever locked. Ever since she had met Geralt in Sodden, she had believed she had begun ‘another life’, that the other life – the one in Cintra – had been irrevocably wiped out. The witchers in Kaer Morhen never asked her about anything and, before coming to the temple, Geralt had even prevailed upon her not to say a word to anyone about who she was. Nenneke, who, of course knew about everything, saw to it that to the other priestesses and the novices Ciri was exceptionally ordinary, an illegitimate daughter of a knight and a peasant woman, a child for whom there had been no place either in her father’s castle or her mother’s cottage. Half of the novices in Melitele’s Temple were just such children.

And Yennefer too knew the secret. She was the one who ‘could be trusted’. Yennefer asked. About it. About Cintra.

‘How did you get out of the town, Ciri? How did you slip past the Nilfgaardians?’

Ciri did not remember. Everything broke off, was lost in obscurity and smoke. She remembered the siege, saying goodbye to Queen Calanthe, her grandmother; she remembered the barons and knights forcibly dragging her away from the bed where the wounded, dying Lioness of Cintra lay. She remembered the frantic escape through flaming streets, bloody battle and the horse falling. She remembered the black rider in a helmet adorned with the wings of a bird of prey.

And nothing more.

‘I don’t remember. I really don’t remember, Lady Yennefer.’

Yennefer did not insist. She asked different questions. She did so gently and tactfully and Ciri grew more and more at ease. Finally, she started to speak herself. Without waiting to be asked, she recounted her years as a child in Cintra and on the Isles of Skellige. About how she learned about the Law of Surprise and that fate had decreed her to be the destiny of Geralt of Rivia, the white-haired witcher. She recalled the war, her exile in the forests of Transriver, her time among the druids of Angren and the time spent in the country. How Geralt had found her there and taken her to Kaer Morhen, the Witchers’ Keep, thus opening a new chapter in her short life.

One evening, of her own initiative, unasked, casually, joyfully and embellishing a great deal, she told the enchantress about her first meeting with the witcher in Brokilon Forest, amongst the dryads who had abducted her and wanted to force her to stay and become one of them.

‘Oh!’ said Yennefer on listening to the story, ‘I’d give a lot to see that – Geralt, I mean. I’m trying to imagine the expression on his face in Brokilon, when he saw what sort of Surprise destiny had concocted for him! Because he must have had a wonderful expression when he found out who you were?’

Ciri giggled and her emerald eyes lit up devilishly.

‘Oh, yes!’ she snorted. ‘What an expression! Do you want to see? I’ll show you. Look at me!’

Yennefer burst out laughing.

That laughter, thought Ciri watching swarms of black birds flying eastwards, that laughter, shared and sincere, really brought us together, her and me. We understood – both she and I – that we can laugh and talk together about him. About Geralt. Suddenly we became close, although I knew perfectly well that Geralt both brought us together and separated us, and that that’s how it would always be.

Our laughter together brought us closer to each other.

As did the events two days later. In the forest, on the hills. She was showing me how to find . . .

‘I don’t understand why I have to look for these . . . I’ve forgotten what they’re called again . . .’

‘Intersections,’ prompted Yennefer, picking off the burrs which had attached themselves to her sleeve as they crossed the scrubs. ‘I am showing you how to find them because they’re places from which you can draw the force.’

‘But I know how to draw the force already! And you taught me yourself that the force is everywhere. So why are we roaming around in the bushes? After all, there’s a great deal of force in the Temple!’

‘Yes, indeed, there is a fair amount there. That’s exactly why the Temple was built there and not somewhere else. And that’s why, on Temple grounds, drawing it seems so easy to you.’

‘My legs hurt! Can we sit down for a while?’

‘All right, my ugly one.’

‘Lady Yennefer?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why do we always draw the force from water veins? Magical energy, after all, is everywhere. It’s in the earth, isn’t it? In air, in fire?’

‘True.’

‘And earth . . . Here, there’s plenty of earth around here. Under our feet. And air is everywhere! And should we want fire, it’s enough to light a bonfire and . . .’

‘You are still too weak to draw energy from the earth. You still don’t know enough to succeed in drawing anything from air. And as for fire, I absolutely forbid you to play with it. I’ve already told you, under no circumstances are you allowed to touch the energy of fire!’

‘Don’t shout. I remember.’

They sat in silence on a fallen dry tree trunk, listening to the wind rustling in the tree tops, listening to a woodpecker hammering away somewhere close-by. Ciri was hungry and her saliva was thick from thirst, but she knew that complaining would not get her anywhere. In the past, a month ago, Yennefer had reacted to such complaints with a dry lecture on how to control such primitive instincts; later, she had ignored them in contemptuous silence. Protesting was just as useless and produced as few results as sulking over being called ‘ugly one’.

The magician plucked the last burr from her sleeve. She’s going to ask me something in a moment, thought Ciri, I can hear her thinking about it. She’s going to ask about something I don’t remember again. Or something I don’t want to remember. No, it’s senseless. I’m not going to answer. All of that is in the past, and there’s no returning to the past. She once said so herself.

‘Tell me about your parents, Ciri.’

‘I can’t remember them, Lady Yennefer.’

‘Please try to.’

‘I really don’t remember my papa . . .’ she said in a quiet voice, succumbing to the command. ‘Except . . . Practically nothing. My mama . . . My mama, I do. She had long hair, like this . . . And she was always sad . . . I remember . . . No, I don’t remember anything . . .’

‘Try to remember, please.’

‘I can’t!’

‘Look at my star.’

Seagulls screamed, diving down between the fishing boats where they caught scourings and tiny fish emptied from the crates. The wind gently fluttered the lowered sails of the drakkars, and smoke, quelled by drizzle, floated above the landing-stage. Triremes from Cintra were sailing into the port, golden lions glistening on blue flags. Uncle Crach, who was standing next to her with his hand – as large as the paw of a grizzly bear – on her shoulder, suddenly fell to one knee. Warriors, standing in rows, rhythmically struck their shields with their swords.

Along the gang-plank towards them came Queen Calanthe. Her grandmother. She who was officially called Ard Rhena, the Highest Queen, on the Isles of Skellige. But Uncle Crach an Craite, the Earl of Skellige, still kneeling with bowed head, greeted the Lioness of Cintra with a title which was less official but considered by the islanders to be more venerable.

‘Hail, Modron.’

‘Princess,’ said Calanthe in a cold and authoritative voice, without so much as a glance at the earl, ‘come here. Come here to me, Ciri.’

Her grandmother’s hand was as strong and hard as a man’s, her rings cold as ice.

‘Where is Eist?’

‘The King . . .’ stammered Crach. ‘Is at sea, Modron. He is looking for the remains . . . And the bodies. Since yesterday . . .’

‘Why did he let them?’ shouted the queen. ‘How could he allow it? How could you allow it, Crach? You’re the Earl of Skellige! No drakkar is allowed to go out to sea without your permission! Why did you allow it, Crach?’

Uncle Crach bowed his head even lower.

‘Horses!’ said Calanthe. ‘We’re going to the fort. And tomorrow, at dawn, I am setting sail. I am taking the princess to Cintra. I will never allow her to return here. And you . . . You have a huge debt to repay me, Crach. One day I will demand repayment.’

‘I know, Modron.’

‘If I do not claim it, she will do so.’ Calanthe looked at Ciri. ‘You will repay the debt to her, Earl. You know how.’

Crach an Craite got to his feet, straightened himself and the features of his weatherbeaten face hardened. With a swift move, he drew from its sheath a simple, steel sword devoid of ornaments and pulled up the sleeve his left arm, marked with thickened white scars.

‘Without the dramatic gestures,’ snorted the queen. ‘Save your blood. I said: one day. Remember!’

‘Aen me Gláeddyv, zvaere a’Bloedgeas, Ard Rhena, Lionors aep Xintra!’ Crach an Craite, the Earl of the Isles of Skellige, raised his arms and shook his sword. The warriors roared hoarsely and beat their weapons against their shields.

‘I accept your oath. Lead the way to the fort, Earl.’

Ciri remembered King Eist’s return, his stony, pale face. And the queen’s silence. She remembered the gloomy, horrible feast at which the wild, bearded sea wolves of Skellige slowly got drunk in terrifying silence. She remembered the whispers. ‘Geas Muire . . . Geas Muire!’

She remembered the trickles of dark beer poured onto the floor, the horns smashed against the stone walls of the hall in bursts of desperate, helpless, senseless anger. ‘Geas Muire! Pavetta!’

Pavetta, the Princess of Cintra, and her husband, Prince Duny. Ciri’s parents. Perished. Killed. Geas Muire, the Curse of the Sea, had killed them. They had been swallowed up by a tempest which no one had foreseen. A tempest which should not have broken out . . .

Ciri turned her head away so that Yennefer would not see the tears swelling in her eyes. Why all this, she thought. Why these questions, these recollections? There’s no returning to the past. There’s no one there for me any more. Not my papa, nor my mama, nor my grandmother, the one who was Ard Rhena, the Lioness of Cintra. Uncle Crach an Craite, no doubt, is also dead. I haven’t got anybody any more and am someone else. There’s no returning . . .

The magician remained silent, lost in thought.

‘Is that when your dreams began?’ she asked suddenly.

‘No,’ Ciri reflected. ‘No, not then. Not until later.’

‘When?’

The girl wrinkled her nose.

‘In the summer . . . The one before . . . Because the following summer there was the war already . . .’

‘Aha. That means the dreams started after you met Geralt in Brokilon?’

She nodded. I’m not going to answer the next question, she decided. But Yennefer did not ask anything. She quickly got to her feet and looked at the sun.

‘Well, that’s enough of this sitting around, my ugly one. It’s getting late. Let’s carry on looking. Keep your hand held loosely in front of you, and don’t tense your fingers. Forward.’

‘Where am I to go? Which direction?’

‘It’s all the same.’

‘The veins are everywhere?’

‘Almost. You’re going to learn how to discover them, to find them in the open and recognise such spots. They are marked by trees which have dried up, gnarled plants, places avoided by all animals. Except cats.’

‘Cats?’

‘Cats like sleeping and resting on intersections. There are many stories about magical animals but really, apart from the dragon, the cat is the only creature which can absorb the force. No one knows why a cat absorbs it and what it does with it . . . What’s the matter?’

‘Oooo . . . There, in that direction! I think there’s something there! Behind that tree!’

‘Ciri, don’t fantasise. Intersections can only be sensed by standing over them . . . Hmmm . . . Interesting. Extraordinary, I’d say. Do you really feel the pull?’

‘Really!’

‘Let’s go then. Interesting, interesting . . . Well, locate it. Show me where.’

‘Here! On this spot!’

‘Well done. Excellent. So you feel delicate cramps in your ring finger? See how it bends downwards? Remember, that’s the sign.’

‘May I draw on it?’

‘Wait, I’ll check.’

‘Lady Yennefer ? How does it work with this drawing of the force? If I gather force into myself then there might not be enough left down below. Is it right to do that? Mother Nenneke taught us that we mustn’t take anything just like that, for the fun of it. Even the cherry has to be left on its tree for the birds, so that it can simply fall.’

Yennefer put her arm around Ciri, kissed her gently on the hair at her temple.

‘I wish,’ she muttered, ‘others could hear what you said. Vilgefortz, Francesca, Terranova . . . Those who believe they have exclusive right to the force and can use it unreservedly. I wish they could listen to the little wise ugly one from Melitele’s Temple. Don’t worry, Ciri. It’s a good thing you’re thinking about it but believe me, there is enough force. It won’t run out. It’s as if you picked one single little cherry from a huge orchard.

‘Can I draw on it now?’

‘Wait. Oh, it’s a devilishly strong pocket. It’s pulsating violently. Be careful, ugly one. Draw on it carefully and very, very slowly.

‘I’m not frightened! Pah-pah! I’m a witcher. Ha! I feel it! I feel . . . Ooouuuch! Lady . . . Ye . . . nnnne . . . feeeeer . . .’

‘Damn it! I warned you! I told you! Head up! Up, I say! Take this and put it to your nose or you’ll be covered in blood! Calmly, calmly, little one, just don’t faint. I’m beside you. I’m beside you

. . . daughter. Hold the handkerchief. I’ll just conjure up some ice . . .’

There was a great fuss about that small amount of blood. Yennefer and Nenneke did not talk to each other for a week.

For a week, Ciri lazed around, read books and got bored because the magician had put her studies on hold. The girl did not see her for entire days – Yennefer disappeared somewhere at dawn, returned in the evening, looked at her strangely and was oddly taciturn.

After a week, Ciri had had enough. In the evening, when the enchantress returned, she went up to her without a word and hugged her hard.

Yennefer was silent. For a very long time. She did not have to speak. Her fingers, clasping the girl’s shoulders tightly, spoke for her.

The following day, the high priestess and the lady magician made up, having talked for several hours.

And then, to Ciri’s great joy, everything returned to normal.

‘Look into my eyes, Ciri. A tiny light. The formula, please!’

‘Aine verseos!’

‘Good. Look at my hand. The same move and disperse the light in the air.’

‘Aine aen aenye!’

‘Excellent. And what gesture comes next? Yes, that’s the one. Very good. Strengthen the gesture and draw. More, more, don’t stop!’

‘Oooouuuch . . .’

‘Keep your back straight! Arms by your side! Hands loose, no unnecessary moves with your fingers. Every move can multiply the effect. Do you want a fire to burst out here? Strengthen it, what are you waiting for?’

‘Oouuch, no . . . I can’t—’

‘Relax and stop shaking! Draw! What are you doing? There, that’s better . . . Don’t weaken your will! That’s too fast, you’re hyperventilating! Unnecessarily getting hot! Slower, ugly one, calmer. I know it’s unpleasant. You’ll get used to it.’

‘It hurts . . . My belly . . . Down here—’

‘You’re a woman, it’s a typical reaction. Over time you’ll harden yourself against it. But in order to harden yourself you have to practise without any painkillers blocking you. It really is necessary, Ciri. Don’t be afraid of anything, I’m alert and screening you. Nothing can happen to you. But you have to endure the pain. Breathe calmly. Concentrate. The gesture, please. Perfect. And take the force, draw it, pull it in . . . Good, good . . . Just a bit more . . .’

‘O . . . O . . . Oooouuuch!’

‘There, you see? You can do it, if you want to. Now watch my hand. Carefully. Perform the same movement. Fingers! Fingers, Ciri! Look at my hand, not the ceiling! Now, that’s good, yes, very good. Tie it up. And now turn it around, reverse the move and now issue the force in the form of a stronger light.’

‘Eeeee . . . Eeeeek . . . Aiiiieee . . .’

‘Stop moaning! Control yourself! It’s just cramp! It’ll stop in a moment! Fingers wider, extinguish it, give it back, give it back from yourself ! Slower, damn it, or your blood vessels will burst again!’

‘Eeeeeek!’

‘Too abrupt, ugly one, still too abrupt. I know the force is bursting out but you have to learn to control it. You mustn’t allow outbursts like the one a moment ago. If I hadn’t insulated you, you would have caused havoc here. Now, once more. We’re starting right from the beginning. Move and formula.’

‘No! Not again! I can’t!’

‘Breathe slowly and stop shaking. It’s plain hysteria this time, you don’t fool me. Control yourself, concentrate and begin.’

‘No, please, Lady Yennefer . . . It hurts . . . I feel sick . . .’

‘Just no tears, Ciri. There’s no sight more nauseating than a magician crying. Nothing arouses greater pity. Remember that. Never forget that. One more time, from the beginning. Spell and gesture. No, no, this time without copying me. You’re going to do it by yourself. So, use your memory!’

‘Aine verseos . . . Aine aen aenye . . . Oooouuuuch!’

‘No! Too fast!’

Magic, like a spiked iron arrow, lodged in her. Wounded her deeply. Hurt. Hurt with the strange sort of pain oddly associated with bliss.

To relax, they once again ran around the park. Yennefer persuaded Nenneke to take Ciri’s sword out of storage and so enabled the girl to practise her steps, dodges and attacks – in secret, of course, to prevent the other priestesses and novices seeing her. But magic was omnipresent. Ciri learned how – using simple spells and focusing her will – to relax her muscles, combat cramps, control adrenalin, how to master her aural labyrinth and its nerve, how to slow or speed her pulse and how to cope without oxygen for short periods.

The lady magician knew a surprising amount about a witcher’s sword and ‘dance’. She knew a great deal about the secrets of Kaer Morhen; there was no doubt she had visited the Keep. She knew Vesemir and Eskel. Although not Lambert and Coën.

Yennefer used to visit Kaer Morhen. Ciri guessed why – when they spoke of the Keep – the eyes of the enchantress grew warm, lost their angry gleam and their cold, indifferent, wise depth. If the words had befitted Yennefer’s person, Ciri would have called her dreamy, lost in memories.

Ciri could guess the reason.

There was a subject which the girl instinctively and carefully avoided. But one day, she got carried away and spoke out. About Triss Merigold. Yennefer, as if casually, as if indifferently, asking as if banal, sparing questions, dragged the rest from her. Her eyes were hard and impenetrable.

Ciri could guess the reason. And, amazingly, she no longer felt annoyed.

Magic was calming.

*

* ‘The so-called Sign of Aard, Ciri, is a very simple spell belonging to the family of psychokinetic magic which is based on thrusting energy in the required direction. The force of the thrust depends on how the will of the person throwing it is focused and on the expelled force. It can be considerable. The witchers adapted the spell, making use of the fact that it does not require knowledge of a magical formula – concentration and the gesture are enough. That’s why they called it a Sign. Where they got the name from, I don’t know, maybe from the Elder Speech – the word “ard”, as you know, means “mountain”, “upper” or “the highest”. If that is truly the case then the name is very misleading because it’s hard to find an easier psychokinetic spell. We, obviously, aren’t going to waste time and energy on something as primitive as the witchers’ Sign. We are going to practise real psychokinesis. We’ll practise on . . . Ah, on that basket lying under the apple tree. Concentrate.’

‘Ready.’

‘You focus yourself quickly. Let me remind you: control the flow of the force. You can only emit as much as you draw. If you release even a tiny bit more, you do so at the cost of your constitution. An effort like that could render you unconscious and, in extreme circumstances, could even kill you. If, on the other hand, you release everything you draw, you forfeit all possibility of repeating it, and you will have to draw it again and, as you know, it’s not easy to do and it is painful.’

‘Ooooh, I know!’

‘You mustn’t slacken your concentration and allow the energy to tear itself away from you of its own accord. My Mistress used to say that emitting the force must be like blowing a raspberry in a ballroom; do it gently, sparingly, and with control. And in such a way that you don’t let those around you to know it was you. Understood?’

‘Understood!’

‘Straighten yourself up. Stop giggling. Let me remind you that spells are a serious matter. They are cast with grace and pride. The motions are executed fluently but with restraint. With dignity. You do not pull faces, grimace or stick your tongue out. You are handling a force of nature, show Nature some respect.’

‘All right, Lady Yennefer.’

‘Careful, this time I’m not screening you. You are an independent spell-caster. This is your debut, ugly one. You saw that demi-john of wine in the chest of drawers? If your debut is successful, your mistress will drink it tonight.’

‘By herself?’

‘Novices are only allowed to drink wine once they are qualified apprentices. You have to wait. You’re smart, so that just means another ten years or so, not more. Right, let’s start. Arrange your fingers. And the left hand? Don’t wave it around! Let it hang loose or rest it on your hip. Fingers! Good. Right, release.’

‘Aaaah . . .’

‘I didn’t ask you to make funny noises. Emit the energy. In silence.’

‘Haa, ha! It jumped! The basket jumped! Did you see?’

‘It barely twitched. Ciri, sparingly does not mean weakly. Psychokinesis is used with a specific goal in mind. Even witchers use the Sign of Aard to throw their opponent off his feet. The energy you emitted would not knock their hat off their head! Once more, a little stronger. Go for it!’

‘Ha! It certainly flew! It was all right that time, wasn’t it, Lady Yennefer?’

‘Hmmm . . . You’ll run to the kitchen afterwards and pinch a bit of cheese to go with our wine . . . That was almost right. Almost. Stronger still, ugly one, don’t be frightened. Lift the basket from the ground and throw it hard against the wall of that shack, make feathers fly. Don’t slouch! Head up! Gracefully, but with pride! Be bold, be bold! Oh, bloody hell!’

‘Oh, dear . . . I’m sorry, Lady Yennefer . . . I probably . . . probably used a bit too much . . .’

‘A little bit. Don’t worry. Come here. Come on, little one.’

‘And . . . and the shack?’

‘These things happen. There’s no need to take it to heart. Your debut, on the whole, should be viewed as a success. And the shack? It wasn’t too pretty. I don’t think anyone will miss its presence in the landscape. Hold on, ladies! Calm down, calm down, why this uproar and commotion, nothing has happened ! Easy, Nenneke! Really, nothing has happened. The planks just need to be cleared away. They’ll make good firewood!’

During the warm, still afternoons the air grew thick with the scent of flowers and grass; pulsating with peace and silence, broken by the buzz of bees and enormous beetles. On afternoons like this Yennefer carried Nenneke’s wicker chair out into the garden and sat in it, stretching her legs out in front of her. Sometimes she studied books, sometimes read letters which she received by means of strange couriers, usually birds. At times she simply sat gazing into the distance. With one hand, and lost in thought, she ruffled her black, shiny locks, with the other she stroked Ciri’s head as she sat on the grass, snuggled up to the magician’s warm, firm thigh.

‘Lady Yennefer?’

‘I’m here, ugly one.’

‘Tell me, can one do anything with magic?’

‘No.’

‘But you can do a great deal, am I right?’

‘You are.’ The enchantress closed her eyes for a moment and touched her eyelids with her fingers. ‘A great deal.’

‘Something really great . . . Something terrible! Very terrible?’

‘Sometimes even more so than one would have liked.’

‘Hmm . . . And could I . . . When will I be able to do something like that?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe never. Would that you don’t have to.’

Silence. No words. Heat. The scent of flowers and herbs.

‘Lady Yennefer?’

‘What now, ugly one?’

‘How old were you when you became a wizard?’

‘When I passed the preliminary exams? Thirteen.’

‘Ha! Just like I am now! And how . . . How old were you when . . . No, I won’t ask about that—’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Aha . . .’ Ciri blushed faintly and pretended to be suddenly interested in a strangely formed cloud hovering over the temple towers. ‘And how old were you . . . when you met Geralt?’

‘Older, ugly one. A bit older.’

‘You still keep on calling me ugly one! You know how I don’t like it. Why do you do it?’

‘Because I’m malicious. Wizards are always malicious.’

‘But I don’t want to . . . don’t want to be ugly. I want to be pretty. Really pretty, like you, Lady Yennefer. Can I, through magic, be as pretty as you one day?’

‘You . . . Fortunately you don’t have to . . . You don’t need magic for it. You don’t know how lucky you are.’

‘But I want to be really pretty!’

‘You are really pretty. A really pretty ugly one. My pretty little ugly one . . .’

‘Oh, Lady Yennefer!’

‘Ciri, you’re going to bruise my thigh.’

‘Lady Yennefer?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are you looking at like that?’

‘At that tree. That linden tree.’

‘And what’s so interesting about it?’

‘Nothing. I’m simply feasting my eyes on it. I’m happy that . . . I can see it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Good.’

Silence. No words. Humid.

‘Lady Yennefer!’

‘What now?’

‘There’s a spider crawling towards your leg! Look how hideous it is!’

‘A spider’s a spider.’

‘Kill it!’

‘I can’t be bothered to bend over.’

‘Then kill it with magic!’

‘On the grounds of Melitele’s Temple? So that Nenneke can throw us out head first? No, thank you. And now be quiet. I want to think.’

‘And what are you thinking about so seriously? Hmm. All right, I’m not going to say anything now.’

‘I’m beside myself with joy. I was worried you were going to ask me another one of your unequal grand questions.’

‘Why not? I like your unequal grand answers!’

‘You’re getting impudent, ugly one.’

‘I’m a wizard. Wizards are malicious and impudent.’

No words. Silence. Stillness in the air. Close humidity as if before a storm. And silence, this time broken by the distant croaking of ravens and crows.

‘There are more and more of them.’ Ciri looked upwards. ‘They’re flying and flying . . . Like in autumn . . . Hideous birds . . . The priestesses say that it’s a bad sign . . . An omen, or something. What is an omen, Lady Yennefer?’

‘Look it up in Dhu Dwimmermorc. There’s a whole chapter on the subject.’

Silence.

‘Lady Yennefer . . .’

‘Oh, hell. What is it now?’

‘It’s been so long, why isn’t Geralt . . . Why isn’t he coming?’

‘He’s forgotten about you, no doubt, ugly one. He’s found himself a prettier girl.’

‘Oh, no! I know he hasn’t forgotten! He couldn’t have! I know that, I know that for certain, Lady Yennefer!’

‘It’s good you know. You’re a lucky ugly one.’

‘I didn’t like you,’ she repeated.

Yennefer did not look at her as she stood at the window with her back turned, staring at the hills looming black in the east. Above the hills, the sky was dark with flocks of ravens and crows.

In a minute she’s going to ask why I didn’t like her, thought Ciri. No, she’s too clever to ask such a question. She’ll dryly draw my attention to my grammar and ask when I started using the past tense. And I’ll tell her. I’ll be just as dry as she is, I’ll parody her tone of voice, let her know that I, too, can pretend to be cold, unfeeling and indifferent, ashamed of my feelings and emotions. I’ll tell her everything. I want to, I have to tell her everything. I want her to know everything before we leave Melitele’s Temple. Before we part to finally meet the one I miss. The one she misses. The one who no doubt misses us both. I want to tell her that . . .

I’ll tell her. It’s enough for her to ask.

The magician turned from the window and smiled. She did not ask anything.

They left the following day, early in the morning. Both wore men’s travelling clothes, cloaks, hats and hoods which hid their hair. Both were armed.

Only Nenneke saw them off. She spoke quietly and at length with Yennefer, then they both – the magician and the priestess – shook each other’s hand, hard, like men. Ciri, holding the reins of her dapple-grey mare, wanted to say goodbye in the same way, but Nenneke did not allow it. She embraced her, hugged her and gave her a kiss. There were tears in her eyes. In Ciri’s, too.

‘Well,’ said the priestess finally, wiping her eye with the sleeve of her robe, ‘now go. May the Great Melitele protect you on your way, my dears. But the goddess has a great many things on her mind, so look after yourselves too. Take care of her, Yennefer. Keep her safe, like the apple of your eye.’

‘I hope’ – the magician smiled faintly – ‘that I’ll manage to keep her safer.’

Across the sky, towards Pontar Valley, flew flocks of crows, croaking loudly. Nenneke did not look at them.

‘Take care,’ she repeated. ‘Bad times are approaching. It might turn out to be true, what Ithlinne aep Aevenien knew, what she predicted. The Time of the Sword and Axe is approaching. The Time of Contempt and the Wolf ’s Blizzard. Take care of her, Yennefer. Don’t let anyone harm her.’

‘I’ll be back, Mother,’ said Ciri, leaping into her saddle. ‘I’ll be back for sure! Soon!’

She did not know how very wrong she was.

Time of Contempt

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

ENDNOTES

CHAPTER ONE

Blood on your hands, Falka,

Blood on your dress.

Burn, burn, Falka, and die,

Die in agony for your crimes!

Vedymins, called witchers among the Nordlings (q.v.), a mysterious and elite caste of warriorpriests, probably an offshoot of the druids (q.v.). In the folk consciousness, they are endowed with magical powers and superhuman abilities; v. were said to fight evil spirits, monsters and all manner of dark forces. In reality, since they were unparalleled in their ability to wield weapons, v. were used by the rulers of the north in the tribal fighting they waged with each other. In combat v. fell into a trance, brought on, it is believed, by autohypnosis or intoxicating substances, and fought with pure energy, being utterly invulnerable to pain or even grave wounds, which reinforced the superstitions about their superhuman powers. The theory, according to which v. were said to have been the products of mutation or genetic engineering, has not found confirmation. V. are the heroes of numerous Nordling tales (cf. F. Delannoy, Myths and Legends of the Nordlings).

Effenberg and Talbot

Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, Vol. XV

When talking to youngsters entering the service, Aplegatt usually told them that in order to make their living as mounted messengers two things would be necessary: a head of gold and an arse of iron.

A head of gold is essential, Aplegatt instructed the young messengers, since in the flat leather pouch strapped to his chest beneath his clothing the messenger only carries news of less vital importance, which could without fear be entrusted to treacherous paper or manuscript. The really important, secret tidings – those on which a great deal depended – must be committed to memory by the messenger and only repeated to the intended recipient. Word for word; and at times those words are far from simple. Difficult to pronounce, let alone remember. In order to memorise them and not make a mistake when they are recounted, one has to have a truly golden head.

And the benefits of an arse of iron, oh, every messenger will swiftly learn those for himself. When the moment comes for him to spend three days and nights in the saddle, riding a hundred or even two hundred miles along roads or sometimes, when necessary, trackless terrain, then it is needed. No, of course you don’t sit in the saddle without respite; sometimes you dismount and rest. For a man can bear a great deal, but a horse less. However, when it’s time to get back in the saddle after resting, it’s as though your arse were shouting, ‘Help! Murder!’

‘But who needs mounted messengers now, Master Aplegatt?’ young people would occasionally ask in astonishment. ‘Take Vengerberg to Vizima; no one could knock that off in less than four – or even five – days, even on the swiftest steed. But how long does a sorcerer from Vengerberg need to send news to a sorcerer from Vizima? Half an hour, or not even that. A messenger’s horse may go lame, but a sorcerer’s message always arrives. It never loses its way. It never arrives late or gets lost. What’s the point of messengers, if there are sorcerers everywhere, at every kingly court? Messengers are no longer necessary, Master Aplegatt.’

For some time Aplegatt had also been thinking he was no longer of any use to anyone. He was thirty-six and small but strong and wiry, wasn’t afraid of hard work and had – naturally – a head of gold. He could have found other work to support himself and his wife, to put a bit of money by for the dowries of his two as yet unmarried daughters and to continue helping the married one whose husband, the sad loser, was always unlucky in his business ventures. But Aplegatt couldn’t and didn’t want to imagine any other job. He was a royal mounted messenger and that was that.

And then suddenly, after a long period of being forgotten and humiliatingly idle, Aplegatt was once again needed. And the highways and forest tracks once again echoed to the sound of hooves. Just like the old days, messengers began to travel the land bearing news from town to town.

Aplegatt knew why. He saw a lot and heard even more. It was expected that he would immediately erase each message from his memory once it had been given, that he would forget it so as to be unable to recall it even under torture. But Aplegatt remembered. He knew why kings had suddenly stopped communicating with the help of magic and sorcerers. The news that the messengers were carrying was meant to remain a secret from them. Kings had suddenly stopped trusting sorcerers; stopped confiding their secrets in them.

Aplegatt didn’t know what had caused this sudden cooling off in the friendship between kings and sorcerers and wasn’t overly concerned about it. He regarded both kings and magic-users as incomprehensible creatures, unpredictable in their deeds – particularly when times were becoming hard. And the fact that times were now hard could not be ignored, not if one travelled across the land from castle to castle, from town to town, from kingdom to kingdom.

There were plenty of troops on the roads. With every step one came across an infantry or cavalry column, and every commander you met was edgy, nervous, curt and as self-important as if the fate of the entire world rested on him alone. The cities and castles were also full of armed men, and a feverish bustle went on there, day and night. The usually invisible burgraves and castellans now ceaselessly rushed along walls and through courtyards, angry as wasps before a storm, yelling, swearing and issuing orders and kicks. Day and night, lumbering columns of laden wagons rolled towards strongholds and garrisons, passing carts on their way back, moving quickly, unburdened and empty. Herds of frisky three-year-old mounts taken straight out of stables kicked dust up on the roads. Ponies not accustomed to bits nor armed riders cheerfully enjoyed their last days of freedom, giving stable boys plenty of extra work and other road users no small trouble.

To put it briefly, war hung in the hot, still air.

Aplegatt stood up in his stirrups and looked around. Down at the foot of the hill a river sparkled, meandering sharply among meadows and clusters of trees. Forests stretched out beyond it, to the south. The messenger urged his horse on. Time was running out.

He’d been on the road for two days. The royal order and mail had caught up with him in Hagge, where he was resting after returning from Tretogor. He had left the stronghold by night, galloping along the highway following the left bank of the Pontar, crossed the border with Temeria before dawn, and now, at noon of the following day, was already at the bank of the Ismena. Had King Foltest been in Vizima, Aplegatt would have delivered him the message that night. Unfortunately, the king was not in the capital; he was residing in the south of the country, in Maribor, almost two hundred miles from Vizima. Aplegatt knew this, so in the region of the White Bridge he left the westward-leading road and rode through woodland towards Ellander. He was taking a risk. The Scoia’tael[1] continued to roam the forests, and woe betide anyone who fell into their hands or came within arrowshot. But a royal messenger had to take risks. Such was his duty.

He crossed the river without difficulty – it hadn’t rained since June and the Ismena’s waters had fallen considerably. Keeping to the edge of the forest, he reached the track leading southeast from Vizima, towards the dwarven foundries, forges and settlements in the Mahakam Mountains. There were plenty of carts along the track, often being overtaken by small mounted units. Aplegatt sighed in relief. Where there were lots of humans, there weren’t any Scoia’tael. The campaign against the guerrilla elves had endured in Temeria for a year and, being harried in the forests, the Scoia’tael commandos had divided up into smaller groups. These smaller groups kept well away from well-used roads and didn’t set ambushes on them.

Before nightfall he was already on the western border of the duchy of Ellander, at a crossroads near the village of Zavada. From here he had a straight and safe road to Maribor: forty-two miles of hard, well-frequented forest track, and there was an inn at the crossroads. He decided to rest his horse and himself there. Were he to set off at daybreak he knew that, even without pushing his mount too hard, he would see the silver and black pennants on the red roofs of Maribor Castle’s towers before sundown.

He unsaddled his mare and groomed her himself, sending the stable boy away. He was a royal messenger, and a royal messenger never permits anyone to touch his horse. He ate a goodly portion of scrambled eggs with sausage and a quarter of a loaf of rye bread, washed down with a quart of ale. He listened to the gossip. Of various kinds. Travellers from every corner of the world were dining at the inn.

Aplegatt learned there’d been more trouble in Dol Angra; a troop of Lyrian cavalry had once again clashed with a mounted Nilfgaardian unit. Meve, the queen of Lyria, had loudly accused Nilfgaard of provocation – again – and called for help from King Demavend of Aedirn. Tretogor had seen the public execution of a Redanian baron who had secretly allied himself with emissaries of the Nilfgaardian emperor, Emhyr. In Kaedwen, Scoia’tael commandos, amassed into a large unit, had orchestrated a massacre in Fort Leyda. To avenge the massacre, the people of Ard Carraigh had organised a pogrom, murdering almost four hundred non-humans residing in the capital.

Meanwhile the merchants travelling from the south described the grief and mourning among the Cintran emigrants gathered in Temeria, under the standard of Marshal Vissegerd. The dreadful news of the death of Princess Cirilla, the Lion Cub, the last of the bloodline of Queen Calanthe, had been confirmed.

Some even darker, more foreboding gossip was told. That in several villages in the region of Aldersberg cows had suddenly begun to squirt blood from their udders while being milked, and at dawn the Virgin Bane, harbinger of terrible destruction, had been seen in the fog. The Wild Hunt, a spectral army galloping across the firmament, had appeared in Brugge, in the region of Brokilon Forest, the forbidden kingdom of the forest dryads; and the Wild Hunt, as is generally known, always heralds war. And a spectral ship had been spotted off Cape Bremervoord with a ghoul on board: a black knight in a helmet adorned with the wings of a bird of prey . . .

The messenger stopped listening; he was too tired. He went to the common sleeping chamber, dropped onto his pallet and fell fast asleep.

He arose at daybreak and was a little surprised as he entered the courtyard – he was not the first person preparing to leave, which was unusual. A black gelding stood saddled by the well, while nearby a woman in male clothing was washing her hands in the trough. Hearing Aplegatt’s footsteps she turned, gathered her luxuriant black hair in her wet hands, and tossed it back. The messenger bowed. The woman gave a faint nod.

As he entered the stable he almost ran into another early riser, a girl in a velvet beret who was just leading a dapple grey mare out into the courtyard. The girl rubbed her face and yawned, leaning against her horse’s withers.

‘Oh my,’ she murmured, passing the messenger, ‘I’ll probably fall asleep on my horse . . . I’ll just flake out . . . Auuh . . .’

‘The cold’ll wake you up when you give your mare free rein,’ said Aplegatt courteously, pulling his saddle off the rack. ‘Godspeed, miss.’

The girl turned and looked at him, as though she had only then noticed him. Her eyes were large and as green as emeralds. Aplegatt threw the saddlecloth over his horse.

‘I wished you a safe journey,’ he said. He wasn’t usually talkative or effusive but now he felt the need to talk to someone, even if this someone was just a sleepy teenager. Perhaps it was those long days of solitude on the road, or possibly that the girl reminded him a little of his middle daughter.

‘May the gods protect you,’ he added, ‘from accidents and foul weather. There are but two of you, and womenfolk at that . . . And times are ill at present. Danger lurks everywhere on the highways.’

The girl opened her green eyes wider. The messenger felt his spine go cold, and a shudder passed through him.

‘Danger . . .’ the girl said suddenly, in a strange, altered voice. ‘Danger comes silently. You will not hear it when it swoops down on grey feathers. I had a dream. The sand . . . The sand was hot from the sun.’

‘What?’ Aplegatt froze with the saddle pressed against his belly. ‘What say you, miss? What sand?’

The girl shuddered violently and rubbed her face. The dapple grey mare shook its head.

‘Ciri!’ shouted the black-haired woman sharply from the courtyard, adjusting the girth on her black stallion. ‘Hurry up!’

The girl yawned, looked at Aplegatt and blinked, appearing surprised by his presence in the stable. The messenger said nothing.

‘Ciri,’ repeated the woman, ‘have you fallen asleep in there?’

‘I’m coming, Madam Yennefer.’

By the time Aplegatt had finally saddled his horse and led it out into the courtyard there was no sign of either woman or girl. A cock crowed long and hoarsely, a dog barked, and a cuckoo called from among the trees. The messenger leapt into the saddle. He suddenly recalled the sleepy girl’s green eyes and her strange words. Danger comes silently? Grey feathers? Hot sand? The maid was probably not right in the head, he thought. You come across a lot like that these days; deranged girls spoiled by vagabonds or other ne’er-do-wells in these times of war . . . Yes, definitely deranged. Or possibly only sleepy, torn from her slumbers, not yet fully awake. It’s amazing the poppycock people come out with when they’re roaming around at dawn, still caught between sleep and wakefulness . . .

A second shudder passed through him, and he felt a pain between his shoulder blades. He massaged his back with a fist.

Weak at the knees, he spurred his horse on as soon as he was back on the Maribor road, and rode away at a gallop. Time was running out.

The messenger did not rest for long in Maribor – not a day had passed before the wind was whistling in his ears again. His new horse, a roan gelding from the Maribor stable, ran hard, head forward and its tail flowing behind. Roadside willows flashed past. The satchel with the diplomatic mail pressed against Aplegatt’s chest. His arse ached.

‘Oi! I hope you break your neck, you blasted gadabout!’ yelled a carter in his wake, pulling in the halter of his team, startled by the galloping roan flashing by. ‘See how he runs, like devils were licking his heels! Ride on, giddy-head, ride; you won’t outrun Death himself!’

Aplegatt wiped an eye, which was watering from the speed.

The day before he had given King Foltest a letter, and then recited King Demavend’s secret message.

‘Demavend to Foltest. All is prepared in Dol Angra. The disguised forces await the order. Estimated date: the second night after the July new moon. The boats are to beach on the far shore two days later.’

Flocks of crows flew over the highway, cawing loudly. They flew east, towards Mahakam and Dol Angra, towards Vengerberg. As he rode, the messenger silently repeated the confidential message the king of Temeria had entrusted to him for the king of Aedirn.

‘Foltest to Demavend. Firstly: let us call off the campaign. The windbags have called a council. They are going to meet and debate on the Isle of Thanedd. This council may change much. Secondly: the search for the Lion Cub can be called off. It is confirmed. The Lion Cub is dead.’

Aplegatt spurred on his horse. Time was running out.

The narrow forest track was blocked with wagons. Aplegatt slowed down and trotted unhurriedly up to the last wagon in the long column. He saw he could not force his way through the obstruction, but nor could he think about heading back; too much time would be lost. Venturing into the boggy thicket and riding around the obstruction was not an attractive alternative either, particularly since darkness was falling.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked the drivers of the last wagon in the column. They were two old men, one of whom seemed to be dozing and the other showing no signs of life. ‘An attack? Scoia’tael? Speak up! I’m in a hurry . . .’

Before either of the two old men had a chance to answer, screams could be heard from the head of the column, hidden amongst the trees. Drivers leapt onto their wagons, lashing their horses and oxen to the accompaniment of choice oaths. The column moved off ponderously. The dozing old man awoke, moved his chin, clucked at his mules and flicked the reins across their rumps. The moribund old man came to life too, drew his straw hat back from his eyes and looked at Aplegatt.

‘Mark him,’ he said. ‘A hasty one. Well, laddie, your luck’s in. You’ve joined the company right on time.’

‘Aye,’ said the other old man, motioning with his chin and urging the mules forward. ‘You are timely. Had you come at noon, you’d have come to a stop like us and waited for a clear passage. We’re all in a hurry, but we had to wait. How can you ride on, when the way is closed?’

‘The way closed? Why so?’

‘There’s a cruel man-eater in these parts, laddie. He fell on a knight riding along the road with nowt but a boy for company. They say the monster rent the knight’s head right off – helmet and all – and spilt his horse’s gizzards. The boy made good his escape and said it was a fell beast, that the road was crimson with gore—’

‘What kind of monster is it?’ asked Aplegatt, reining in his horse in order to continue talking to the wagoners as they drove on. ‘A dragon?’ ‘Nay, it’s no dragon,’ said the one in the straw hat. ‘’Tis said to be a manticore, or some such. The boy said ’tis a flying beast, awful huge. And vicious! We reckoned he would devour the knight and fly away, but no! They say he settled on the road, the whoreson, and was sat there, hissing and baring its fangs . . . Yea, and the road all stopped up like a corked-up flagon, for whoever drove up first and saw the fiend left his wagon and hastened away. Now the wagons are backed up for a third of a league, and all around, as you see, laddie, thicket and bog. There’s no riding around or turning back. So here we stood . . .’

‘Such a host!’ snorted the horseman. ‘And they were standing by like dolts when they ought to’ve seized axe and spear to drive the beast from the road, or slaughter it.’

‘Aye, a few tried,’ said the old wagoner, driving on his mules, for the column was now moving more quickly. ‘Three dwarves from the merchants’ guard and, with them, four recruits who were heading to the stronghold in Carreras to join the army. The monster carved up the dwarves horribly, and the recruits –’

‘– bolted,’ finished the other old man, after which he spat rapturously. The gob flew a long way ahead of him, expertly falling into the space between the mules’ rumps. ‘Bolted, after barely setting their eyes on the manticore. One of them shat his britches, I hear. Oh, look, look, laddie. That’s him! Yonder!’

‘What are you blathering on about?’ asked Aplegatt, somewhat annoyed. ‘You’re pointing out that shitty arse ? I’m not interested—’

‘Nay! The monster! The monster’s corpse! They’re lifting it onto a wagon! D’you see?’

Aplegatt stood in his stirrups. In spite of the gathering darkness and the crowd of onlookers he saw the great tawny body being lifted up by soldiers. The monster’s bat-like wings and scorpion tail dragged inertly along the ground. Cheering, the soldiers lifted the corpse higher and heaved it onto a wagon. The horses harnessed to it, clearly disturbed by the stench of the carcass and the blood, neighed and tugged at the shaft.

‘Move along!’ the sergeant shouted at the old men. ‘Keep moving! Don’t block the road!’

The greybeard drove his mules on, the wagon bouncing over the rutted road. Aplegatt, urging on his horse with his heel, drew alongside.

‘Looks like the soldiers have put paid to the beast.’

‘Not a bit of it,’ rejoined the old man. ‘When the soldiers arrived, all they did was yell and order people around. “Stand still! Move on!” and all the rest of it. They were in no haste to deal with the monster. They sent for a witcher.’

‘A witcher?’

‘Aye,’ confirmed the second old man. ‘Someone recalled he’d seen a witcher in the village, and they sent for him. A while later he rode past us. His hair was white, his countenance fearful to behold, and he bore a cruel blade. Not an hour had passed than someone called from the front that the road would soon be clear, for the witcher had dispatched the beast. So at last we set off; which was just about when you turned up, laddie.’

‘Ah,’ said Aplegatt absentmindedly. ‘All these years I’ve been scouring these roads and never met a witcher. Did anyone see him defeat the monster?’

‘I saw it!’ called a boy with a shock of tousled hair, trotting up on the other side of the wagon. He was riding bareback, steering a skinny, dapple grey nag using a halter. ‘I saw it all! I was with the soldiers, right at the front!’

‘Look at him, snot-nosed kid,’ said the old man driving the wagon. ‘Milk not dried on his face, and see how he mouths off. Looking for a slap?’

‘Leave him, father,’ interrupted Aplegatt. ‘We’ll reach the crossroads soon and I’m riding to Carreras, so first I’d like to know how the witcher got on. Talk, boy.’

‘It was like this,’ he began quickly, still trotting alongside the wagon. ‘That witcher comes up to the officer. He says his name’s Geralt. The officer says it’s all the same to him, and it’d be better if he made a start. Shows him where the monster is. The witcher moves closer and looks on. The monster’s about five furlongs or more away, but he just glances at it and says at once it’s an uncommon great manticore and he’ll kill it if they give him two hundred crowns.’

‘Two hundred crowns?’ choked the other old man. ‘Had he gone cuckoo?’

‘The officer says the same, only his words were riper. So the witcher says that’s how much it will cost and it’s all the same to him; the monster can stay on the road till Judgement Day. The officer says he won’t pay that much and he’ll wait till the beast flies off by itself. The witcher says it won’t because it’s hungry and pissed off. And if it flies off, it’ll be back soon because that’s its hunting terri–terri– territor—’

‘You whippersnapper, don’t talk nonsense!’ said the old man driving the cart, losing his temper, unsuccessfully trying to clear his nose into the fingers he was holding the reins with. ‘Just tell us what happened!’

‘I am telling you! The witcher goes, “The monster won’t fly away, he’ll spend the entire night eating the dead knight, nice and slow, because the knight’s in armour and it’s hard to pick out the meat.” So some merchants step up and try making a deal with the witcher, by hook or by crook, that they’ll organise a whip-round and give him five score crowns. The witcher says that beast’s a manticore and is very dangerous, and they can shove their hundred crowns up their arses, he won’t risk his neck for it. So the officer gets pissed off and says tough luck, it’s a witcher’s fate to risk his neck, and that a witcher is perfectly suited to it, like an arse is perfectly suited to shitting. But I can see the merchants get afeared the witcher would get angry and head off, because they say they’ll pay seven score and ten. So then the witcher gets his sword out and heads off down the road towards where the beast’s sitting. And the officer makes a mark behind him to drive away magic, spits on the ground and says he doesn’t know why the earth bears such hellish abominations. One of the merchants says that if the army drove away monsters from roads instead of chasing elves through forests, witchers wouldn’t be needed and that—’

‘Don’t drivel,’ interrupted the old man. ‘Just say what you saw.’

‘I saw,’ boasted the boy, ‘the witcher’s horse, a chestnut mare with a white blaze.’

‘Blow the mare! Did you see the witcher kill the monster?’

‘Err . . .’ stammered the boy. ‘No I didn’t . . . I got pushed to the back. Everybody was shouting and the horses were startled, when—’

‘Just what I said,’ declared the old man contemptuously. ‘He didn’t see shite, snotty-nosed kid.’

‘But I saw the witcher coming back!’ said the boy, indignantly. ‘And the officer, who saw it all, he was as pale as a ghost and said quietly to his men it was magic spells or elven tricks and that a normal man couldn’t wield a sword that quickly . . . While the witcher ups and takes the money from the merchants, mounts his mare and rides off.’

‘Hmm,’ murmured Aplegatt. ‘Which way was he headed? Along the road to Carreras? If so, I might catch him up, just to have a look at him . . .’

‘No,’ said the boy. ‘He took the road to Dorian from the crossroads. He was in a hurry.’

The Witcher seldom dreamed at all, and he never remembered those rare dreams on waking. Not even when they were nightmares – and they were usually nightmares.

This time it was also a nightmare, but at least the Witcher remembered some of it. A distinct, clear image had suddenly emerged from a swirling vortex of unclear but disturbing shapes, of strange but foreboding scenes and incomprehensible but sinister words and sounds. It was Ciri, but not as he remembered her from Kaer Morhen. Her flaxen hair, flowing behind her as she galloped, was longer – as it had been when they first met, in Brokilon. When she rode by he wanted to shout but no words came. He wanted to run after her, but it was as if he were stuck in setting pitch to halfway up his thighs. And Ciri seemed not to see him and galloped on, into the night, between misshapen alders and willows waving their boughs as if they were alive. He saw she was being pursued. That a black horse was galloping in her tracks, and on it a rider in black armour, wearing a helmet decorated with the wings of a bird of prey.

He couldn’t move, he couldn’t shout. He could only watch as the winged knight chased Ciri, caught her hair, pulled her from the saddle and galloped on, dragging her behind him. He could only watch Ciri’s face contort with pain, watch her mouth twist into a soundless cry. Awake! he ordered himself, unable to bear the nightmare. Awake! Awake at once!

He awoke.

He lay motionless for a long while, recalling the dream. Then he rose. He drew a pouch from beneath his pillow and quickly counted out some ten-crown coins. One hundred and fifty for yesterday’s manticore. Fifty for the fogler he had been commissioned to kill by the headman of a village near Carreras. And fifty for the werewolf some settlers from Burdorff had driven out of hiding for him.

Fifty for a werewolf. That was plenty, for the work had been easy. The werewolf hadn’t even fought back. Driven into a cave from which there was no escape, it had knelt down and waited for the sword to fall. The Witcher had felt sorry for it.

But he needed the money.

Before an hour had passed he was ambling down the streets of the town of Dorian, looking for a familiar lane and sign.

The wording on the sign read: ‘Codringher and Fenn, legal consultation and services’. But Geralt knew only too well that Codringher and Fenn’s trade had little in common with the law, while the partners themselves had a host of reasons to avoid any kind of contact either with the law or its enforcers. He also seriously doubted if any of the clients who showed up in their chambers knew what the word ‘consultation’ meant.

There was no entrance on the ground floor of the small building; there was only a securely bolted door, probably leading to a coach house or a stable. In order to reach the door one had to venture around the back of the building, enter a muddy courtyard full of ducks and chickens and, from there, walk up some steps before proceeding down a narrow gallery and along a cramped, dark corridor. Only then did one find oneself before a solid, studded mahogany door, equipped with a large brass knocker in the form of a lion’s head.

Geralt knocked, and then quickly withdrew. He knew the mechanism mounted in the door could shoot twenty-inch iron spikes through holes hidden among the studs. In theory the spikes were only released if someone tried to tamper with the lock, or if Codringher or Fenn pressed the trigger mechanism, but Geralt had discovered, many times, that all mechanisms are unreliable. They only worked when they ought not to work, and vice versa.

There was sure to be a device in the door – probably magic – for identifying guests. Having knocked, as today, no voice from within ever plied him with questions or demanded that he speak. The door opened and Codringher was standing there. Always Codringher, never Fenn.

‘Welcome, Geralt,’ said Codringher. ‘Enter. You don’t need to flatten yourself against the doorframe, I’ve dismantled the security device. Some part of it broke a few days ago. It went off quite out of the blue and drilled a few holes in a hawker. Come right in. Do you have a case for me?’

‘No,’ said the Witcher, entering the large, gloomy anteroom which, as usual, smelled faintly of cat. ‘Not for you. For Fenn.’

Codringher cackled loudly, confirming the Witcher’s suspicions that Fenn was an utterly mythical figure who served to pull the wool over the eyes of provosts, bailiffs, tax collectors and any other individuals Codringher detested.

They entered the office, where it was lighter because it was the topmost room and the solidly barred windows enjoyed the sun for most of the day. Geralt sat in the chair reserved for clients. Opposite, in an upholstered armchair behind an oaken desk, lounged Codringher; a man who introduced himself as a ‘lawyer’, a man for whom nothing was impossible. If anyone had difficulties, troubles, problems, they went to Codringher. And would quickly be handed proof of his business partner’s dishonesty and malpractice. Or he would receive credit without securities or guarantees. Or find himself the only one, from a long list of creditors, to exact payment from a business which had declared itself bankrupt. He would receive his inheritance even though his rich uncle had threatened he wouldn’t leave them a farthing. He would win an inheritance case when even the most determined relatives unexpectedly withdrew their claims. His son would leave the dungeon, cleared even of charges based on irrefutable evidence, or would be released due to the sudden absence of any such proof. For, when Codringher and Fenn were involved, if there had been proof it would mysteriously disappear, or the witnesses would vie to retract their earlier testimonies. A dowry hunter courting their daughter would suddenly direct his affections towards another. A wife’s lover or daughter’s seducer would suffer a complicated fracture of three members – including at least one upper one – in an unfortunate accident. Or a fervent enemy or other extremely inconvenient individual would stop doing him harm; as a rule they were never seen or heard of again. Yes, if someone had a problem they could always ride to Dorian, run swiftly to Codringher and Fenn and knock at the mahogany door. Codringher, the ‘lawyer’, would be standing in the doorway, short, spare and grizzled, with the unhealthy pallor of a person who seldom spent time in the fresh air. Codringher would lead them into his office, sit down in his armchair, lift his large black and white tomcat onto his lap and stroke it. The two of them – Codringher and the tomcat – would measure up the client with identical, unpleasant, unsettling expressions in their yellowish-green eyes.

‘I received your letter,’ said Codringher, while he and the tomcat weighed the Witcher up with their yellowish-green gaze. ‘Dandelion also visited. He passed through Dorian a few weeks ago and told me a little about your concerns. But he said very little. Really too little.’

‘Indeed? You astonish me. That’s the first time I’ve heard that Dandelion didn’t say too much.’

‘Dandelion,’ said Codringher unsmilingly, ‘said very little because he knew very little. He said even less than he knew because you’d forbidden him to speak about certain issues. Where does your lack of trust come from? Especially towards a professional colleague?’

This visibly annoyed Geralt. Codringher would probably have pretended not to notice, but he couldn’t because of the cat. It opened its eyes wide, bared its white fangs and hissed almost silently.

‘Don’t annoy my cat,’ said the lawyer, stroking the animal to calm it. ‘Did it bother you to be called a colleague? But it’s true. I’m also a witcher. I also save people from monsters and from monstrous difficulties. And I also do it for money.’

‘There are certain differences,’ muttered Geralt, still under the tomcat’s unpleasant gaze.

‘There are,’ agreed Codringher. ‘You are an anachronistic witcher, and I’m a modern witcher, moving with the spirit of the times. Which is why you’ll soon be out of work and I’ll be doing well. Soon there won’t be any strigas, wyverns, endriagas or werewolves left in the world. But there’ll always be whoresons.’

‘But it’s mainly the whoresons you get out of difficulties, Codringher. Paupers with difficulties can’t afford your services.’

‘Paupers can’t afford your services either. Paupers can never afford anything, which is precisely why they’re called paupers.’

‘Astonishingly logical of you. And so original it takes the breath away.’

‘The truth always has that effect. And it’s the truth that being a bastard is the basis and mainstay of our professions. Except your business is almost a relic and mine is genuine and growing in strength.’

‘All right, all right. Let’s get down to our business.’

‘About time,’ said Codringher, nodding his head and stroking his cat, which had arched its back and was now purring loudly, sinking its claws into his knee. ‘And we’ll sort these things out in order of importance. The first issue: the fee, my friend, is two hundred and fifty Novigrad crowns. Do you have that kind of money? Or perhaps you number yourself among the paupers with difficulties?’

‘First let’s establish whether you’ve done enough to deserve a sum like that.’

‘Decide for yourself,’ said the lawyer coldly, ‘and be quick about it. Once you feel convinced, lay the money on the table. Then we’ll move on to other, less important matters.’

Geralt unfastened a purse from his belt and threw it, with poor grace and a clink of coins, onto the desk. The tomcat jumped off Codringher’s lap with a bound and ran away. The lawyer dropped the purse in a drawer without checking the contents.

‘You alarmed my cat,’ he said with undisguised reproach.

‘I do beg your pardon. I thought the clink of money was the last thing that could scare it. Tell me what you uncovered.’

‘That Rience,’ began Codringher, ‘who interests you so much, is quite a mysterious character. I’ve been able to ascertain that he was a student at the school for sorcerers in Ban Ard for two years. They threw him out after catching him thieving. Recruiting officers from the Kaedwen secret service were waiting outside the school, as usual, and Rience allowed himself to be recruited. I was unable to determine what he did for the Kaedwen secret service, but sorcerers’ rejects are usually trained as killers. Does that fit?’

‘Like a glove. Go on.’

‘My next information comes from Cintra. Rience served time in the dungeons there, during Queen Calanthe’s reign.’

‘What for?’

‘For debts, would you believe? He didn’t stay long though, because someone bought him out after paying off the debts along with the interest. The transaction took place through a bank, with the anonymity of the benefactor preserved. I tried to uncover the identity of this benefactor but admitted defeat after checking four banks in turn. Whoever bought Rience out was a pro. And cared a great deal about preserving their anonymity.’

Codringher fell silent and then coughed loudly, pressing a handkerchief to his mouth.

‘And suddenly, as soon as the war was over, Mr Rience showed up in Sodden, Angren and Brugge,’ he continued after a moment, wiping his lips and looking down at the handkerchief. ‘Changed beyond recognition, at least as regards his behaviour and the quantities of cash he had to throw around. Because, as far as his identity went, the brazen son of a bitch didn’t bother with secrecy: he continued to use the name “Rience”. And as Rience he began to search intensively for a certain party; to be precise a young, female party. He visited the druids from the Angren Circle, the ones who looked after war orphans. One druid’s body was found some time later in a nearby forest, mutilated, bearing the marks of torture. Rience showed up afterwards in Riverdell—’

‘I know,’ interrupted Geralt. ‘I know what he did to the Riverdell peasant family. And I was expecting more for my two hundred and fifty crowns. Up to now, your only fresh information has been about the sorcerers’ school and the Kaedwen secret service. I know the rest. I know Rience is a ruthless killer. I know he’s an arrogant rogue who doesn’t even bother to use aliases. I know he’s working for somebody. But for whom, Codringher?’

‘For some sorcerer or other. It was a sorcerer who bought him out of that dungeon. You told me yourself – and Dandelion confirmed it – that Rience uses magic. Real magic, not the tricks that some expellee from the academy might know. So someone’s backing him, they’re equipping him with amulets and probably secretly training him. Some officially practising sorcerers have secret pupils and factotums like him for doing illegal or dirty business. In sorcerers’ slang it’s described as “having someone on a leash”.’

‘Were he on a magician’s leash Rience would be using camouflaging magic. But he doesn’t change his name or face. He hasn’t even got rid of the scar from the burn Yennefer gave him.’

‘That confirms precisely that he’s on a leash,’ said Codringher, coughing and wiping his lips again with his handkerchief, ‘because magical camouflage isn’t camouflage at all; only dilettantes use stuff like that. Were Rience hiding under a magical shield or illusory mask, it would immediately set off every magical alarm, and there are currently alarms like that at practically every city gate. Sorcerers never fail to detect illusory masks. Even in the biggest gathering of people, in the biggest throng, Rience would attract all of their attention, as if flames were shooting out of his ears and clouds of smoke out of his arse. So I repeat: Rience is in the service of a sorcerer and is operating so as not to draw the attention of other sorcerers to himself.’

‘Some say he’s a Nilfgaardian spy.’

‘I know. For example, Dijkstra, the head of the Redania secret service, thinks that. Dijkstra is seldom wrong, so one can only assume he’s right this time, too. But having one role doesn’t rule out the other. A sorcerer’s factotum may be a Nilfgaardian spy at the same time.’

‘You’re saying that a sanctioned sorcerer is spying for Nilfgaard through Rience?’

‘Nonsense,’ coughed Codringher, looking intently into his handkerchief. ‘A sorcerer spying for Nilfgaard? Why? For money? Risible. Counting on serious power under the rule of the victorious Emperor Emhyr? Even more ludicrous. It’s no secret that Emhyr var Emreis keeps his sorcerers on a short leash. Sorcerers in Nilfgaard are treated about the same as, let’s say, stablemen. And they have no more power than stablemen either. Would any of our headstrong mages choose to fight for an emperor who would treat them as a stable boy? Filippa Eilhart, who dictates addresses and edicts to Vizimir of Redania? Sabrina Glevissig, who interrupts the speeches of Henselt of Kaedwen, banging her fist on the table and ordering the king to be silent and listen? Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, who recently told Demavend of Aedirn that, for the moment, he has no time for him?’

‘Get to the point, Codringher. What does any of that have to do with Rience?’

‘It’s simple. The Nilfgaardian secret service is trying to get to a sorcerer by getting their factotum to work for them. From what I know, Rience wouldn’t spurn the Nilfgaardian florin and would probably betray his master without a second thought.’

‘Now you’re talking nonsense. Even our headstrong mages know when they’re being betrayed and Rience, were he exposed, would dangle from a gibbet. If he was lucky.’

‘You’re acting like a child, Geralt. You don’t hang exposed spies – you make use of them. You stuff them with disinformation and try to make double agents out of them—’

‘Don’t bore this child, Codringher. Neither the arcana of intelligence work nor politics interest me. Rience is breathing down my neck, and I want to know why and on whose orders. On the orders of some sorcerer, it would appear. So who is it?’

‘I don’t know yet. But I soon will.’

‘Soon,’ muttered the Witcher, ‘is too late for me.’

‘I in no way rule that out,’ said Codringher gravely. ‘You’ve landed in a dreadful pickle, Geralt. It’s good you came to me; I know how to get people out of them. I already have, essentially.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed,’ said the lawyer, putting his handkerchief to his lips and coughing. ‘For you see, my friend, in addition to the sorcerer, and possibly also Nilfgaard, there is a third party in the game. I was visited, and mark this well, by agents from King Foltest’s secret service. They had a problem: the king had ordered them to search for a certain missing princess. When finding her turned out not to be quite so simple, those agents decided to enlist a specialist in such thorny problems. While elucidating the case to the specialist, they hinted that a certain witcher might know a good deal about the missing princess. That he might even know where she was.’

‘And what did the specialist do?’

‘At first he expressed astonishment. It particularly astonished him that the aforementioned witcher had not been deposited in a dungeon in order to find out – in the traditional manner – everything he knew, and even plenty of what he didn’t know but might invent in order to satisfy his questioners. The agents replied that they had been forbidden to do that. Witchers, they explained, have such a sensitive nervous system that they immediately die under torture when, as they described quite vividly, a vein bursts in their brains. Because of that, they had been ordered to hunt the witcher. This task had also turned out to be taxing. The specialist praised the agents’ good sense and instructed them to report back in two weeks.’

‘And did they?’

‘I’ll say they did. This specialist, who already regarded you as a client, presented the agents with hard evidence that Geralt the Witcher has never had and could never have anything in common with the missing princess. For the specialist had found witnesses to the death of Princess Cirilla; granddaughter of Calanthe, daughter of Queen Pavetta. Cirilla died three years ago in a refugee camp in Angren. Of diphtheria. The child suffered terribly before her death. You won’t believe it, but the Temerian agents had tears in their eyes as they listened to my witnesses’ accounts.’

‘I have tears in my eyes too. I presume these Temerian agents could not – or would not – offer you more than two hundred and fifty crowns?’

‘Your sarcasm pains my heart, Witcher. I’ve got you out of a pickle, and you, rather than thank me, wound my heart.’

‘I thank you and I beg your pardon. Why did King Foltest order his agents to search for Ciri, Codringher? What were they ordered to do, should they have found her?’

‘Oh, but you are slow-witted. Kill her, of course. She is considered a pretender to the throne of Cintra, for which there are other plans.’

‘It doesn’t add up, Codringher. The Cintran throne was burnt to the ground along with the royal palace, the city and the rest of the country. Nilfgaard rules there now. Foltest is well aware of that; and other kings too. How, exactly, can Ciri pretend to a throne that doesn’t exist?’

‘Come,’ said Codringher, getting up, ‘let us try to find an answer to that question together. In the meanwhile, I shall give you proof of my trust . . . What is it about that portrait that interests you so much?’

‘That it’s riddled with holes, as though a woodpecker had been pecking at it for a few seasons,’ said Geralt, looking at a painting in a gilt frame hanging on the wall opposite the lawyer’s desk, ‘and that it portrays a rare idiot.’

‘It’s my late father,’ said Codringher, grimacing a little. ‘A rare idiot indeed. I hung his portrait there so as to always have him before my eyes. As a warning. Come, Witcher.’

They went out into the corridor. The tomcat, which had been lying in the middle of the carpet, enthusiastically licking a rear paw extended at a strange angle, vanished into the darkness of the corridor at the sight of the witcher.

‘Why don’t cats like you, Geralt? Does it have something to do with the—’

‘Yes,’ he interrupted, ‘it does.’

One of the mahogany panels slid open noiselessly, revealing a secret passage. Codringher went first. The panel, no doubt set in motion by magic, closed behind them but did not plunge them into darkness. Light reached them from the far end of the secret passage.

It was cold and dry in the room at the end of the corridor, and the oppressive, stifling smell of dust and candles hung in the air.

‘You can meet my partner, Geralt.’

‘Fenn?’ smiled the Witcher. ‘You jest.’

‘Oh, but I don’t. Admit it, you suspected Fenn didn’t exist!’

‘Not at all.’

A creaking could be heard from between the rows of bookcases and bookshelves that reached up to the low vaulted ceiling, and a moment later a curious vehicle emerged. It was a high-backed chair on wheels. On the chair sat a midget with a huge head, set directly on disproportionately narrow shoulders. The midget had no legs.

‘I’d like to introduce Jacob Fenn,’ said Codringher, ‘a learned legist, my partner and valued co-worker. And this is our guest and client –’

‘– the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia,’ finished the cripple with a smile. ‘I guessed without too much difficulty. I’ve been working on the case for several months. Follow me, gentlemen.’

They set off behind the creaking chair into the labyrinth of bookcases, which groaned beneath a weight of printed works that even the university library of Oxenfurt would have been proud to have in its collection. The incunabula, judged Geralt, must have been collected by several generations of Codringhers and Fenns. He was pleased by the obvious show of trust, and happy to finally have the chance to meet Fenn. He did not doubt, however, that the figure of Fenn, though utterly genuine, was also partially fictitious. The fictitious Fenn, Codringher’s infallible alter ego, was supposedly often seen abroad, while the chair-bound, learned legist probably never left the building.

The centre of the room was particularly well lit, and there stood a low pulpit, accessible from the chair on wheels and piled high with books, rolls of parchment and vellum, great sheets of paper, bottles of ink, bunches of quills and innumerable mysterious utensils. Not all of them were mystifying. Geralt recognised moulds for forging seals and a diamond grater for removing the text from official documents. In the centre of the pulpit lay a small ball-firing repeating arbalest, and next to it huge magnifying glasses made of polished rock crystal peeped out from under a velvet cloth. Magnifying glasses of that kind were rare and cost a fortune.

‘Found anything new, Fenn?’

‘Not really,’ said the cripple, smiling. His smile was pleasant and very endearing. ‘I’ve reduced the list of Rience’s potential paymasters to twenty-eight sorcerers . . .’

‘Let’s leave that for the moment,’ Codringher interrupted quickly. ‘Right now something else is of interest to us. Enlighten Geralt as to the reasons why the missing princess of Cintra is the object of extensive search operations by the agents of the Four Kingdoms.’

‘The girl has the blood of Queen Calanthe flowing in her veins,’ said Fenn, seeming astonished to be asked to explain such obvious matters. ‘She is the last of the royal line. Cintra has considerable strategic and political importance. A vanished pretendress to the crown remaining beyond the sphere of influence is inconvenient, and may be dangerous were she to fall under the wrong influence. For example, that of Nilfgaard.’

‘As far as I recall,’ said Geralt, ‘Cintran law bars women from succession.’

‘That is true,’ agreed Fenn and smiled once more. ‘But a woman may always become someone’s wife and the mother of a male heir. The Four Kingdoms’ intelligence services learned of Rience’s feverish search for the princess and were convinced that’s what it’s all about. It was thus decided to prevent the princess from becoming a wife or a mother. Using simple but effective means.’

‘But the princess is dead,’ said Codringher, seeing the change the smiling midget’s words had evoked on Geralt’s face. ‘The agents learned of it and have called off their hunt.’

‘Only for now,’ said the Witcher, working hard to remain calm and sound unemotional. ‘The thing about falsehoods is that they usually come to light. What’s more, the royal agents are only one of the parties participating in this game. The agents – you said yourselves – were tracking Ciri in order to confound the other hunters’ plans. Those others may be less susceptible to disinformation. I hired you to find a way of guaranteeing the child’s safety. So what do you propose?’

‘We have a certain notion,’ said Fenn, glancing at his partner but seeing no instructions to remain silent in his expression. ‘We want to circulate the news – discretely but widely – that neither Princess Cirilla nor any of her male heirs will have any right to the throne of Cintra.’

‘In Cintra, the distaff side does not inherit,’ explained Codringher, fighting another coughing fit. ‘Only the spear side does.’

‘Precisely,’ confirmed the learned legist. ‘Geralt said so himself a moment ago. It’s an ancient law, which even that she-devil Calanthe was unable to revoke – though not for want of trying.’

‘She tried to nullify the law using intrigue,’ said Codringher with conviction, wiping his lips with a handkerchief. ‘Illegal intrigue. Explain, Fenn.’

‘Calanthe was the only daughter of King Dagorad and Queen Adalia. After her parents’ death she opposed the aristocracy, who only saw her as the wife of the new king.

‘She wanted to reign supreme. At most, for the sake of formality and to uphold the dynasty, she agreed to the institution of a prince consort who would reign with her, but have as much importance as a straw doll. The old houses defied this. Calanthe had three choices: a civil war; abdication in favour of another line; or marriage to Roegner, Prince of Ebbing. She chose the third option and she ruled the country . . . but at Roegner’s side. Naturally, she didn’t allow herself to be subjugated or bundled off to join the womenfolk. She was the Lioness of Cintra. But it was Roegner who was the formal ruler – though none ever called him “the Lion”.’

‘So Calanthe,’ Codringher took up, ‘tried very hard to fall pregnant and produce a son. Nothing came of it. She bore a daughter, Pavetta, and miscarried twice after which it became clear she would have no more children. All her plans had fallen through. There you have a woman’s fate. A ravaged womb scuppers her lofty ambitions.’

Geralt scowled.

‘You are execrably crude, Codringher.’

‘I know. The truth was also crude. For Roegner began looking around for a young princess with suitably wide hips, preferably from a family of fertility proven back to her great-great-grandmother. And Calanthe found herself on shaky ground. Every meal, every glass of wine could contain death, every hunt might end with an unfortunate accident. There is much to suggest that at the moment the Lioness of Cintra took the initiative, Roegner died. The pox was raging across the country, and the king’s death surprised no one.’

‘I begin to understand,’ said the Witcher, seemingly dispassionately, ‘what news you plan to circulate discreetly but widely. Ciri will be named the granddaughter of a poisoner and husband-killer?’

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, Geralt. Go on, Fenn.’

‘Calanthe had saved her own life,’ said the cripple, smiling, ‘but the crown was further away than ever. When, after Roegner’s death, the Lioness tried to seize absolute power, the aristocracy once again strongly opposed this violation of the law and tradition. A king was meant to sit on Cintra’s throne, not a queen. The solution was eventually made clear: as soon as young Pavetta began to resemble a woman in any way, she should be married off to someone suitable to become the new king. A second marriage for the barren queen wasn’t an option. The most the Lioness of Cintra could hope for was the role of queen mother. To cap it all, Pavetta’s husband could turn out to be someone who might totally remove his mother-in-law from power.’

‘I’m going to be crude again,’ warned Codringher. ‘Calanthe delayed marrying off Pavetta. She wrecked the first marital project when the girl was ten and the second when she was thirteen. The aristocracy demanded that Pavetta’s fifteenth birthday would be her last as a maiden. Calanthe had to agree; but first she achieved what she had been counting on. Pavetta had remained a maiden too long. She’d finally got the itch, and so badly that she was knocked up by the first stray to come along; and he was an enchanted monster to boot. There were some kind of supernatural circumstances too, some prophecies, sorcery, promises . . . Some kind of Law of Surprise? Am I right, Geralt? What happened next you probably recall. Calanthe brought a witcher to Cintra, and the witcher stirred up trouble. Not knowing he was being manipulated, he removed the curse from the monstrous Urcheon, enabling his marriage to Pavetta. In so doing, the witcher also made it possible for Calanthe to retain the throne. Pavetta’s marriage to a monster – even a now unenchanted one – was such a great shock to the noblemen that they could suddenly accept the marriage of the Lioness to Eist Tuirseach. For the jarl of the Isles of Skellige seemed better than the stray Urcheon. Thus, Calanthe continued to rule the country. Eist, like all islanders, gave the Lioness of Cintra too much respect to oppose her in anything, and kingly duties simply bored him. He handed over his rule wholesale to her. And Calanthe, stuffing herself with medicaments and elixirs, dragged her husband into bed day and night. She wanted to reign until the end of her days. And, if not as queen mother, then as the mother of her own son. As I’ve already said, great ambitions, but—’

‘You’ve already said it. Don’t repeat yourself.’

‘It was too late. Queen Pavetta, wife of the weird Urcheon, was wearing a suspiciously loose-fitting dress even during the marriage ceremony. Calanthe, resigned, changed her plans; if it she couldn’t rule through her son, let it be Pavetta’s son. But she gave birth to a daughter. A curse, or what? Queen Pavetta could still have had a child though. I mean would have been able to. For a mysterious accident occurred. Pavetta and the weird Urcheon perished in an unexplained maritime disaster.’

‘Aren’t you implying too much, Codringher?’

‘I’m trying to explain the situation, nothing more. Calanthe was devastated after Pavetta’s death, but not for long. Her granddaughter was her final hope. Pavetta’s daughter, Cirilla. Ciri; a little devil incarnate, roaring around the royal palace. She was the apple of some people’s eyes, particularly the older folk because she was so like Calanthe had been as a child. To others . . . she was a changeling, the daughter of the monstrous Urcheon, the girl to whom some witcher or other was also claiming rights. And now we’re getting to the nub of the matter: Calanthe’s little darling, clearly being groomed as her successor, treated almost as a second incarnation, the Lion Cub of the Lioness’s blood, was already viewed by some as bereft of any right to the throne. Cirilla was ill-born. Pavetta’s marriage had been a misalliance. She had mixed royal blood with the inferior blood of a stray of unknown origin.’

‘Crafty, Codringher. But it wasn’t like that. Ciri’s father wasn’t inferior in any way. He was a prince.’

‘What are you saying? I didn’t know that. From which kingdom?’

‘One of the southern ones . . . From Maecht . . . ? Yes, indeed, from Maecht.’

‘Interesting,’ mumbled Codringher. ‘Maecht has been a Nilfgaardian march for a long time. It’s part of the Province of Metinna.’

‘But it’s a kingdom,’ interrupted Fenn. ‘A king reigns there.’

‘Emhyr var Emreis rules there,’ Codringher cut him off. ‘Whoever sits on that throne does so by the grace and will of Emhyr. But while we’re on the subject, find out who Emhyr made king. I can’t recall.’

‘Right away,’ said the cripple, pushing the wheels of his chair and creaking off in the direction of a bookcase. He took down a thick roll of scrolls and began looking at them, discarding them on the floor after checking them. ‘Hmm . . . Here it is. The Kingdom of Maecht. Its coat of arms presents quarterly, azure and gules, one and four two fishes argent, two and three a crown of the same—’

‘To hell with heraldry, Fenn. The king, who is the king?’

‘Hoët the Just. Chosen by means of election . . .’

‘By Emhyr of Nilfgaard,’ postulated Codringher coldly.

‘. . . nine years ago.’

‘Not that one,’ said the lawyer, counting quickly. ‘He doesn’t concern us. Who was before him?’

‘Just a moment. Here it is. Akerspaark. Died—’

‘Died of acute pneumonia, his lungs having been pierced by the dagger of Emhyr’s hit men or Hoët the Just,’ said Codringher, once again displaying his perspicacity. ‘Geralt, does Akerspaark ring any bells for you? Could he be Urcheon’s father?’

‘Yes,’ said the Witcher after a moment’s thought. ‘Akerspaark. I recall that’s what Duny called his father.’

‘Duny?’

‘That was his name. He was a prince, the son of that Akerspaark—’

‘No,’ interrupted Fenn, staring at the scrolls. ‘They are all mentioned here. Legitimate sons: Orm, Gorm, Torm, Horm and Gonzalez. Legitimate daughters: Alia, Valia, Nina, Paulina, Malvina and Argentina . . .’

‘I take back the slander spread about Nilfgaard and Hoët the Just,’ announced Codringher gravely. ‘Akerspaark wasn’t murdered, he bonked himself to death. I presume he had bastards too, Fenn?’

‘Indeed. Aplenty. But I see no Duny here.’

‘I didn’t expect you to see him. Geralt, your Urcheon was no prince. Even if that boor Akerspaark really did sire him on the side, he was separated from the rights to such a title by – aside from Nilfgaard – a bloody long queue of legitimate Orms, Gorms and other Gonzalezes and their own, probably abundant, offspring. From a technical point of view Pavetta committed a misalliance.’

‘And Ciri, being the child of a misalliance, has no rights to the throne?’

‘Bullseye.’

Fenn creaked up to the pulpit, pushing the wheels of his chair.

‘That is an argument,’ he said, raising his huge head. ‘Purely an argument. Don’t forget, Geralt, we are neither fighting to gain the crown for Princess Cirilla, nor to deprive her of it. The rumour we’re spreading is meant to show that the girl can’t be used to seize Cintra. That if anyone makes an attempt of that kind, it will be easy to challenge, to question. The girl will cease to be a major piece in this political game; she’ll be an insignificant pawn. And then . . .’

‘They’ll let her live,’ completed Codringher unemotionally.

‘How strong is your argument,’ asked Geralt, ‘from the formal point of view?’

Fenn looked at Codringher and then at the Witcher.

‘Not that strong,’ he admitted. ‘Cirilla is still Calanthe, albeit somewhat diluted. In normal countries she might have been removed from the throne, but these circumstances aren’t normal. The Lioness’s blood has political significance . . .’

‘Blood . . .’ said Geralt, wiping his forehead. ‘What does “Child of the Elder Blood” mean, Codringher?’

‘I don’t understand. Has anyone used such a term with reference to Cirilla?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘Never mind who. What does it mean?’

‘Luned aep Hen Ichaer,’ said Fenn suddenly, pushing off from the pulpit. ‘It would literally be not Child, but Daughter of the Elder Blood. Hmm . . . Elder Blood . . . I’ve come across that expression. I don’t remember exactly . . . I think it concerns some sort of elven prophecy. In some versions of Itlina’s prophecy, the older ones, it seems to me there are mentions of the Elder Blood of the Elves, or Aen Hen Ichaer. But we don’t have the complete text of that prophecy. We would have to ask the elves—’

‘Enough,’ interrupted Codringher coldly. ‘Not too many of these matters at one time, Fenn, not too many irons in the fire, not too many prophecies or mysteries. That’s all for now, thank you. Farewell, and fruitful work. Geralt, if you would, let’s go back to the office.’

‘Too little, right?’ the Witcher asked to be sure, when they had returned and sat down in their chairs, the lawyer behind his desk, and he facing him. ‘Too low a fee, right?’

Codringher lifted a metal star-shaped object from the desk and turned it over in his fingers several times.

‘That’s right, Geralt. Rootling around in elven prophecies is an infernal encumbrance for me; a waste of time and resources. The need to search out contacts amongst the elves, since no one aside from them is capable of understanding their writings. Elven manuscripts, in most cases, mean tortuous symbolism, acrostics, occasionally even codes. The Elder Speech is always, to put it mildly, ambiguous and, when written down, may have as many as ten meanings. The elves were never inclined to help humans who wanted to fathom their prophecies. And in today’s times, when a bloody war against the Squirrels is raging in the forests, when pogroms are taking place, it’s dangerous to approach them. Doubly dangerous. Elves may take you for a provocateur, while humans may accuse you of treachery . . .’

‘How much, Codringher?’

The lawyer was silent for a moment, still playing with the metal star.

‘Ten per cent,’ he said finally.

‘Ten per cent of what?’

‘Don’t mock me, Witcher. The matter is becoming serious. It’s becoming ever less clear what this is all about, and when no one knows what something’s about it’s sure to be all about money. In which case a percentage is more agreeable to me than an ordinary fee. Give me ten per cent of what you’ll make on this, minus the sum already paid. Shall we draw up a contract?’

‘No. I don’t want you to lose out. Ten per cent of nothing gives nothing, Codringher. My dear friend, I won’t be making anything out of this.’

‘I repeat, don’t mock me. I don’t believe you aren’t acting for profit. I don’t believe that, behind this, there isn’t some . . .’

‘I’m not particularly bothered what you believe. There won’t be any contract. Or any percentages. Name your fee for gathering the information.’

‘Anyone else I would throw out of here,’ said Codringher, coughing, ‘certain they were trying to pull the wool over my eyes. But noble and naive disinterestedness, my anachronistic Witcher, strangely suits you. It’s your style, it’s so wonderfully and pathetically outmoded to let yourself be killed for nothing . . .’

‘Let’s not waste time. How much, Codringher?’

‘The same again. Five hundred in total.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Geralt, shaking his head, ‘I can’t afford a sum like that. Not right now at least.’

‘I repeat the proposition I laid before you at the beginning of our acquaintance,’ said the lawyer slowly, still playing with the star. ‘Come and work for me and you will. You will be able to afford information and other luxuries besides.’

‘No, Codringher.’

‘Why not?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘This time you’re wounding not my heart, but my professional pride. For I flatter myself, believing that I generally understand everything. Being a downright bastard is the basis of our professions, but you insist on favouring the anachronistic version over the modern one.’

The Witcher smiled.

‘Bullseye.’

Codringher coughed violently once again, wiped his lips, looked down at his handkerchief, and then raised his yellow-green eyes.

‘You took a good look at the list of sorcerers and sorceresses lying on the pulpit? At the list of Rience’s potential paymasters?’

‘Indeed.’

‘I won’t give you that list until I’ve checked it thoroughly. Don’t be influenced by what you saw there. Dandelion told me Filippa Eilhart probably knows who’s running Rience, but she didn’t let you in on it. Filippa wouldn’t protect any old sucker. It’s an important character running that bastard.’

The Witcher said nothing.

‘Beware, Geralt. You’re in grave danger. Someone’s playing a game with you. Someone is accurately predicting your movements, if not actually controlling them. Don’t give in to arrogance and self-righteousness. Whoever’s playing with you is no striga or werewolf. It’s not the brothers Michelet. It’s not even Rience. The Child of the Elder Blood, damn it. As if the throne of Cintra, sorcerers, kings and Nilfgaard weren’t enough, now there are elves. Stop playing this game, Witcher. Get yourself out of it. Confound their plans by doing what no one expects. Break off that crazy bond; don’t allow yourself to be linked to Cirilla. Leave her to Yennefer; go back to Kaer Morhen and keep your head down. Hole yourself up in the mountains, and I’ll root around in elven manuscripts, calmly, unhurriedly and thoroughly. And when I have some information about the Child of the Elder Blood, when I have the name of the sorcerer who’s involved in it, you’ll get the money together and we’ll do a swap.’

‘I can’t wait. The girl’s in danger.’

‘That’s true. But I know you’re considered an obstacle on the way to her. An obstacle to be ruthlessly removed. Thus, you are in danger too. They’ll set about getting the girl once they’ve finished you off.’

‘Or when I leave the game, withdraw and hole up in Kaer Morhen. I’ve paid you too much, Codringher, for you to be giving me advice like that.’

The lawyer turned the steel star over in his fingers.

‘I’ve been busily working for some time, for the sum you paid me today, Witcher,’ he said, suppressing a cough. ‘The advice I’m giving you has been thoroughly considered. Hide in Kaer Morhen; disappear. And then the people who are looking for Cirilla will get her.’

Geralt squinted and smiled. Codringher didn’t blench. ‘I know what I’m talking about,’ he said, impervious to the look and the smile. ‘Your Ciri’s tormentors will find her and do with her what they will. And meanwhile, both she and you will be safe.’

‘Explain, please. And make it quick.’

‘I’ve found a certain girl. She’s from the Cintra nobility, a war orphan. She’s been through refugee camps, and is currently measuring cloth in ells and cutting it out, having been taken in by a Brugge draper. There is nothing remarkable about her, aside from one thing. She is quite similar in likeness to a certain miniature of the Lion Cub of Cintra . . . Fancy a look?’

‘No, Codringher. No, I don’t. And I can’t permit a solution like that.’

‘Geralt,’ said the lawyer, closing his eyes. ‘What drives you? If you want to save Ciri . . . I wouldn’t have thought you could afford the luxury of contempt. No, that was badly expressed. You can’t afford the luxury of spurning contempt. A time of contempt is approaching, Witcher, my friend, a time of great and utter contempt. You have to adapt. What I’m proposing is a simple solution. Someone will die, so someone else can live. Someone you love will survive. A girl you don’t know, and whom you’ve never seen, will die—’

‘And who am I free to despise?’ interrupted the Witcher. ‘Am I to pay for what I love with contempt for myself? No, Codringher. Leave the girl in peace; may she continue to measure cloth. Destroy her portrait. Burn it. And give me something else for the two hundred and fifty hard-earned crowns which you threw into a drawer. I need information. Yennefer and Ciri have left Ellander. I’m certain you know that. I’m certain you know where they are headed. And I’m certain you know who’s chasing them.’

Codringher drummed his fingers on the table and coughed.

‘The wolf, heedless of warnings, wants to carry on hunting,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t see he’s being hunted, and he’s heading straight for some tasty kippers hung up as bait by a real hunter.’

‘Don’t be trite. Get to the point.’

‘If you wish. It’s not difficult to guess that Yennefer is riding to the Conclave of Mages, called at the beginning of July in Garstang on the Isle of Thanedd. She is cleverly staying on the move and not using magic, so it’s hard to locate her. A week ago she was still in Ellander, and I calculate that in three or four days she will reach the city of Gors Velen; from there Thanedd is a stone’s throw. On the way to Gors Velen she has to ride through the hamlet of Anchor. Were you to set off immediately you would have a chance of catching those who are pursuing her. Because someone is pursuing her.’

‘They wouldn’t, by any chance,’ said Geralt, smiling hideously, ‘be royal agents?’

‘No,’ said the lawyer, looking at the metal star he was playing with. ‘They aren’t agents. Neither is it Rience, who’s cleverer than you, because after the ruckus with the Michelets he’s crawled into a hole somewhere and he’s keeping his head down. Three hired thugs are after Yennefer.’

‘I presume you know them?’

‘I know them all. Which is why I suggest something to you: leave them alone. Don’t ride to Anchor. And I’ll use all the contacts and connections I possess. I’ll try to bribe the thugs and reword the contract. In other words, I’ll set them on Rience. If I succeed . . .’

He broke off suddenly and swung an arm powerfully. The steel star whirred through the air and slammed with a thud into the portrait, right into the forehead of Codringher senior, cutting a hole in the canvas and embedding itself almost halfway into the wall.

‘Not bad, eh?’ grinned the lawyer. ‘It’s called an orion. A foreign invention. I’ve been practising for a month; I never miss now. It might come in useful. This little star is unerring and lethal at thirty feet, and it can be hidden in a sleeve or stuck behind a hatband. Orions have been part of the Nilfgaardian secret service equipment for a year now. Ha, ha, if Rience is spying for Nilfgaard, it would be amusing if they found him with an orion in his temple . . . What do you say to that?’

‘Nothing. That’s your business. Two hundred and fifty crowns are lying in your drawer.’

‘Sure,’ said Codringher, nodding. ‘I treat your words to mean you’re giving me a free hand. Let’s be silent for a moment, Geralt. Let’s honour Rience’s imminent death with a minute’s silence. Why the hell are you frowning? Have you no respect for the majesty of death?’

‘I do. Too great a respect to listen to idiots mocking it. Have you ever thought about your own death, Codringher?’

The lawyer coughed heavily and looked for a long time at the handkerchief in front of his mouth. Then he raised his eyes.

‘Of course,’ he said quietly. ‘I have. Intensively, at that. But my thoughts are nothing to do with you, Witcher. Will you ride to Anchor?’

‘I will.’

‘Ralf Blunden, a.k.a. the Professor. Heimo Kantor. Little Yaxa. Do those names mean anything to you?’

‘No.’

‘All three are pretty handy with a sword. Better than the Michelets. So I would suggest a more reliable, long-range weapon. These Nilfgaardian throwing stars, for example. I’ll sell you a few if you like. I’ve plenty of them.’

‘No thanks. They’re impractical. Noisy in flight.’

‘The whistling has a psychological element. They’re capable of paralysing their victim with fear.’

‘Perhaps. But they can also warn them. I’d have time to dodge it.’

‘If you saw it being thrown at you, you could. I know you can dodge an arrow or a quarrel . . . But from behind—’

‘From behind as well.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Let’s try a wager,’ said Geralt coldly. ‘I’ll turn my face to the portrait of your dullard of a father, and you throw an orion at me. Should you hit me, you win. Should you not, you lose. Should you lose, you’ll decipher those elven manuscripts. You’ll get hold of information about the Child of the Elder Blood. Urgently. And on credit.’

‘And if I win?’

‘You’ll still get that information but you’ll pass it on to Yennefer. She’ll pay. You won’t be left out of pocket.’

Codringher opened the drawer and took out another orion.

‘You don’t expect me to accept the wager.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘No,’ smiled the Witcher. ‘I’m sure you’ll accept it.’

‘A daredevil, I see. Have you forgotten? I don’t have any scruples.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. After all, the time of contempt is approaching, and you keep up with progress and the zeitgeist. But I took your accusations of anachronistic naivety to heart, and this time I’ll take a risk, though not without hope of profit. What’s it to be then? Is the bet on?’

‘Yes.’ Codringher took hold of the steel star by one of its arms and stood up. ‘Curiosity always won out over good sense in me, not to mention unfounded mercy. Turn around.’

The Witcher turned around. He glanced at the face on the portrait riddled with holes and with the orion sticking into it. And then he closed his eyes.

The star whistled and thudded into the wall four inches from the frame of the portrait.

‘Damn and blast!’ roared Codringher. ‘You didn’t even flinch, you whoreson!’

Geralt turned back and smiled. Quite hideously.

‘Why should I have flinched? I could hear you aiming to miss.’

The inn was empty. A young woman with dark rings under her eyes sat on a bench in the corner. Bashfully turned away to one side, she was breastfeeding a child. A broad-shouldered fellow, perhaps her husband, dozed alongside, his back resting against the wall. Someone else, whose features Aplegatt couldn’t make out in the gloom of the inn, sat in the shadows behind the stove.

The innkeeper looked up, saw Aplegatt, noticed his attire and the badge with the arms of Aedirn on his chest, and his face immediately darkened. Aplegatt was accustomed to welcomes like that. As a royal messenger he was absolute entitled to a mount. The royal decrees were explicit – a messenger had the right to demand a fresh horse in every town, village, inn or farmyard – and woe betide anyone who refused. Naturally, the messenger left his own horse, and signed a receipt for the new one; the owner could appeal to the magistrate and receive compensation. But you never knew. Thus a messenger was always looked upon with dislike and anxiety; would he demand a horse or not? Would he take our Golda, never to be seen again? Or our Beauty, reared from a foal? Our pampered Ebony? Aplegatt had seen sobbing children clinging to their beloved playmate as it was being led out of the stable, saddled, and more than once had looked into the faces of adults, pale with the sense of injustice and helplessness.

‘I don’t need a fresh horse,’ he said brusquely. It seemed to him the innkeeper sighed with relief.

‘I’ll only have a bite to eat; the road’s given me an appetite,’ added the messenger. ‘Anything in the pot?’

‘There’s some gruel left over. I’ll serve you d’reckly. Sit you down. Needing a bed? Night’s falling.’

Aplegatt thought it over. He had met Hansom two days before. He knew the messenger and they had exchanged messages as ordered. Hansom took the letters and the message for King Demavend and galloped off through Temeria and Mahakam to Vengerberg. Aplegatt, meanwhile, having received the messages for King Vizimir of Redania, rode towards Oxenfurt and Tretogor. He had over three hundred miles to cover.

‘I’ll eat and be on my way,’ he declared. ‘The moon is full and the road is level.’

‘As you will.’

The gruel he was served was thin and tasteless, but the messenger paid no attention to such trifles. At home, he enjoyed his wife’s cooking, but on the road he made do with whatever came his way. He slowly slurped it, clumsily gripping the spoon in fingers made numb from holding the reins.

A cat that had been snoozing on the stove bench suddenly lifted its head and hissed.

‘A royal messenger?’

Aplegatt shuddered. The question had been asked by the man sitting in the shadows, who now emerged to stand beside him. His hair was as white as milk. He had a leather band stretched across his forehead and was wearing a silver-studded leather jacket and high boots. The pommel of the sword slung across his back glistened over his right shoulder.

‘Where does the road take you?’

‘Wherever the royal will sends me,’ answered Aplegatt coldly. He never answered any other way to questions of that nature.

The white-haired man was silent for some time, looking searchingly at the messenger. He had an unnaturally pale face and strange, dark eyes.

‘I imagine,’ he finally said, in an unpleasant, somewhat husky voice, ‘the royal will orders you to make haste? Probably in a hurry to get off, are you?’

‘What business is it of yours? Who are you to hasten me?’

‘I’m no one,’ said the white-haired man, smiling hideously, ‘and I’m not hurrying you. But if I were you I’d leave here as quickly as possible. I wouldn’t want anything ill to befall you.’

Aplegatt also had a tried and tested answer to comments like that. Short and blunt. Not aggressive, calm; but emphatically reminding the listener who the royal messenger served and what was risked by anyone who dared touch him. But there was something in the white-haired man’s voice that stopped Aplegatt from giving his usual answer.

‘I must let my horse rest, sir. An hour, maybe two.’

‘Indeed,’ nodded the white-haired man, upon which he lifted his head, seeming to listen to the sounds which reached him from outside. Aplegatt also pricked up his ears but heard only crickets.

‘Then rest,’ said the white-haired man, straightening the sword belt which passed diagonally across his chest. ‘But don’t go out into the courtyard. Whatever happens, don’t go out.’

Aplegatt refrained from further questions. He felt instinctively it would be better not to. He bent over his bowl and resumed fishing out the few bits of pork floating in the gruel. When he looked up the white-haired one was no longer in the room.

A moment later a horse neighed and hooves clattered in the courtyard.

Three men entered the inn. On seeing them the innkeeper began wiping the beer mug he was holding more quickly. The woman with the baby moved closer to her slumbering husband and woke him with a poke. Aplegatt grabbed the stool where he had laid his belt and short sword and pulled it a little closer.

The men went over to the bar, casting keen glances at the guests and sizing them up. They walked slowly, their spurs and weapons jangling.

‘Welcome, good sirs,’ said the innkeeper, clearing his throat. ‘How may I serve you?’

‘With vodka,’ said one of them, short and stocky with long arms like an ape’s, furnished with two Zerrikan sabres hanging crossed on his back. ‘Fancy a drop, Professor?’

‘With the utmost pleasure,’ responded the other man, straightening a pair of gold-framed glasses made of bluish-coloured crystal, which were perched on his hooked nose. ‘As long as the liquor hasn’t been adulterated with any additives.’

The innkeeper poured. Aplegatt noticed that his hands were trembling slightly. The men leaned back against the bar and unhurriedly drank from the earthenware cups.

‘My dear innkeeper,’ began the one in the glasses suddenly. ‘I conjecture that two ladies rode through here not long ago, speeding their way towards Gors Velen?’

‘All sorts ride through here,’ mumbled the innkeeper.

‘You could not have missed the aforementioned ladies,’ said the bespectacled one slowly. ‘One is black-haired and exceedingly fair. She rides a black gelding. The other is younger, fair-haired and green-eyed and journeys on a dappled grey mare. Have they been here?’

‘No,’ interrupted Aplegatt, suddenly going cold, ‘they haven’t.’

Greyfeathered danger. Hot sand . . .

‘A messenger?’

Aplegatt nodded.

‘Travelling from where to where?’

‘From where and to where the royal fortune sends me.’

‘Have your travels adventitiously crossed the path of the women on the road about whom I enquired?’

‘No.’

‘Your denial is too swift,’ barked the third man, as tall and thin as a beanpole. His hair was black and glistened as if covered in grease. ‘And it seems to me you weren’t trying especially hard to remember.’

‘Let it drop, Heimo,’ said the bespectacled man, waving his hand. ‘He’s a messenger. Don’t vex yourself. What is this station’s name, innkeeper?’

‘Anchor.’

‘What is the proximity of Gors Velen?’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘How many miles?’

‘Can’t say I’ve ever measured it. But it’ll be a three-day journey . . .’

‘On horseback?’

‘By cart.’

‘Hey,’ called the stocky one suddenly in a hushed voice, straightening up and looking out onto the courtyard through the wide-open door. ‘Have a butchers, Professor. Who would that be? Isn’t it that . . . ?’

The man in glasses also looked out at the courtyard, and his face suddenly tightened.

‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘It’s indisputably him. It appears fortune smiles on us.’

‘Will we wait till he comes in?’

‘He won’t. He saw our horses.’

‘He knows we’re—’

‘Silence, Yaxa. He’s saying something.’

‘You have a choice,’ a slightly gruff but powerful voice resounded from the courtyard, a voice which Aplegatt recognised at once. ‘One of you will come out and tell me who hired you. Then you may ride away without any trouble. Or all three of you may come out. I’m waiting.’

‘Whoreson . . .’ growled the black-haired man. ‘He knows. What do we do?’

The bespectacled man put his mug down on the bar with a slow movement.

‘We do what we’re paid to do.’

He spat on his palm, flexed his fingers and drew his sword. At the sight of it the two other men also bared their blades. The innkeeper opened his mouth to shout but quickly shut it on seeing the cold eyes peering above the blue glasses.

‘Nobody moves,’ hissed the bespectacled man. ‘And keep schtum. Heimo, when it all kicks off, endeavour to get behind him. Very well, boys, good luck. Out we go.’

It began at once. Groans, the stamping of feet, the crash of blades. And then a scream of the kind that makes one’s hair stand on end.

The innkeeper blanched, the woman with the dark rings under her eyes screamed too, clutching her suckling to her breast. The cat behind the stove leapt to its feet and arched its back, its tail fluffing up like a brush. Aplegatt slid into the corner on his stool. He had his short sword in his lap but didn’t draw it.

Once again the thudding of feet across boards and the whistle and clang of blades came from the courtyard.

‘You . . .’ shouted someone wildly, but even though it ended with a vile insult, there was more despair in it than fury. ‘You . . .’

The whistle of a blade. And immediately after it a high, penetrating scream shredded the air. A thud as if a heavy sack of grain had hit the ground. The clatter of hooves from the hitching post and the neighing of terrified horses.

A thud on the boards once more and the quick, heavy steps of a man running. The woman with the baby clung to her husband, and the innkeeper pressed his back against the wall. Aplegatt drew his short sword, still hiding the weapon beneath the table. The running man was heading straight for the inn, and it was clear he would soon appear in the doorway. But before he did, a blade hissed.

The man screamed and lurched inside. It seemed as though he would fall across the threshold, but he didn’t. He took several staggering, laboured steps forward and only then did he topple, falling heavily into the middle of the chamber, throwing up the dust gathered between the floorboards. He fell on his face, inertly, pinning his arms underneath him, his legs bent at the knee. The crystal glasses fell to the floorboards with a clatter and shattered into tiny blue pieces. A dark, gleaming puddle began to spread from beneath the body.

No one moved. Or cried out.

The white-haired man entered the inn.

He deftly sheathed the sword he was holding into the scabbard on his back. He approached the bar, not even gracing the body lying on the floor with a glance. The innkeeper cringed.

‘Those evil men . . .’ said the white-haired one huskily, ‘those evil men are dead. When the bailiff arrives, it may turn out there was a bounty on their heads. He should do with it as he sees fit.’

The innkeeper nodded eagerly.

‘It may turn out,’ said the white-haired man a moment later, ‘that their comrades or cronies may ask what befell these evil men. Tell them the Wolf bit them. The White Wolf. And add that they should keep glancing over their shoulders. One day they’ll look back and see the Wolf.’

When, after three days, Aplegatt reached the gates of Tretogor, it was well after midnight. He was furious because he’d wasted time at the moat and shouted himself hoarse – the guards were sleeping sinfully and had been reluctant to open the gate. He got it all off his chest and cursed them painstakingly and comprehensively back to the third generation. He then overheard with pleasure as the commander of the watch – now awake – added totally new details to the charges he had levelled against the soldiers’ mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Of course, gaining access to King Vizimir was out of the question. That actually suited him, as he was counting on sleeping until matins and the morning bell. He was wrong. Instead of being shown to his billet he was rushed to the guardhouse. Waiting for him there was not the king but the other one, immense and fat. Aplegatt knew him; it was Dijkstra, confidant of the King of Redania. Dijkstra – the messenger knew – was authorised to receive messages meant exclusively for the king’s ears. Aplegatt handed him the letters.

‘Do you have a spoken message?’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘Speak.’

‘Demavend to Vizimir,’ recited Aplegatt, closing his eyes. ‘Firstly: the disguised troops are ready for the second night after the July new moon. Take care that Foltest does not let us down. Secondly: I will not grace the conclave of the devious old windbags in Thanedd with my presence, and I advise you to do the same. Thirdly: the Lion Cub is dead.’

Dijkstra grimaced and drummed his fingers on the table.

‘Here are letters for King Demavend. And a spoken message . . . Prick up your ears and pay attention. Repeat this to your king, word for word. Only to him, to no one else. No one, do you understand?’

‘I do, sire.’

‘The message runs thus: Vizimir to Demavend. You must hold back the disguised troops. There has been a betrayal. The Flame has mustered an army in Dol Angra and is only waiting for an excuse. Now repeat.’

Aplegatt repeated it.

‘Good,’ Dijkstra nodded. ‘You will leave at sunup.’

‘I’ve been on the road for five days, Your Excellency,’ said the messenger, rubbing his rump. ‘Might I but sleep to the morning . . . Will you permit it?’

‘Does now your king, Demavend, sleep at night? Do I sleep? You deserve a punch in the face for the question alone, laddie. You will be given vittles, then stretch out a while on the hay. But you ride at dawn. I’ve ordered a pure-bred young stallion for you. It’ll bear you like the wind. And don’t make faces. Take this purse with an extra gratuity, so as not to call Vizimir a skinflint.’

‘Thank you, sire.’

‘Be careful in the forests by the Pontar. Squirrels have been seen there. But there’s no shortage of ordinary brigands in those parts anyway.’

‘Oh, I know, sire. Oh, what I did see three days past . . .’

‘What did you see?’

Aplegatt quickly reported the events in Anchor. Dijkstra listened, his powerful forearms lying crossed on his chest.

‘The Professor . . .’ he said lost in thought. ‘Heimo Kantor and Little Yaxa. Dispatched by a witcher. In Anchor, on the road to Gors Velen; in other words the road to Thanedd and Garstang . . . And the Lion Cub is dead?’

‘What’s that, sire?’

‘It’s of no concern.’ Dijkstra raised his head. ‘At least not to you. Rest. And at dawn you ride.’

Aplegatt ate what he was brought, lay for a while without sleeping a wink, and was outside the gate by daybreak. The stallion was indeed swift, but skittish. Aplegatt didn’t like horses like that.

Something itched unbearably on his back, between his left shoulder blade and his spine. A flea must have bitten him when he was resting in the stable. But there was no way to scratch it.

The stallion danced and neighed. The messenger spurred him and he galloped away. Time was short.

‘Gar’ean,’ Cairbre hissed, peering from behind a branch, from where he was observing the road. ‘En Dh’oine aen evall a strsede!’

Toruviel leapt to her feet, seizing and belting on her sword, and poked Yaevinn in the thigh with the toe of her boot. He had been dozing, leaning against the wall of a hollow, and when he sprang up he scorched his hand as he pushed off from the hot sand.

‘Que suecc’s?’

‘A rider on the road.’

‘One?’ said Yaevinn, lifting his bow and quiver. ‘Cairbre? Only one?’

‘Only one. He’s getting closer.’

‘Let’s fix him then. It’ll be one less Dh’oine.’

‘Forget it,’ said Toruviel, grabbing him by the sleeve. ‘Why bother? We were supposed to carry out reconnaissance and then join the commando. Are we to murder civilians on the road? Is that what fighting for freedom is about?’

‘Precisely. Stand aside.’

‘If a body’s left on the road, every passing patrol will raise the alarm. The army will set out after us. They’ll stake out the fords, and we might have difficulty crossing the river!’

‘Few people ride along this road. We’ll be far away before anyone finds the body.’

‘That rider’s already far away,’ said Cairbre from the tree. ‘You should have shot instead of yapping. You won’t hit him now. He’s a good two hundred paces away.’

‘With my sixty-pounder?’ Yaevinn stroked his bow. ‘And a thirty-inch arrow? And anyway, that’s never two hundred paces. It’s hundred and fifty, tops. Mire, que spar aen’le.’

‘Yaevinn, forget it . . .’

‘Thaess aep, Toruviel.’

The elf turned his hat around so the squirrel’s tail pinned to it wouldn’t get in the way, quickly and powerfully drew back his bowstring, right to his ear, and then aimed carefully and shot.

Aplegatt did not hear the arrow. It was a ‘silent’ arrow, specially fledged with long, narrow grey feathers, its shaft fluted for increased stiffness and weight reduction. The three-edged, razor-sharp arrow hit the messenger in the back with great force, between his left shoulder blade and his spine. The blades were positioned at an angle – and as they entered his body, the arrow rotated and bored in like a screw, mutilating the tissue, cutting through blood vessels and shattering bone. Aplegatt lurched forward onto his horse’s neck and slid to the ground, limp as a sack of wool.

The sand on the road was hot, heated up so much by the sun that it was painful to the touch. The messenger didn’t feel it. He died at once.

CHAPTER TWO

To say I knew her would be an exaggeration. I think that, apart from the Witcher and the enchantress, no one really knew her. When I saw her for the first time she did not make a great impression on me at all, even in spite of the quite extraordinary accompanying circumstances. I have known people who said that, right away, from the very first encounter, they sensed the foretaste of death striding behind the girl. To me she seemed utterly ordinary, though I knew that ordinary she was not; for which reason I tried to discern, discover – sense – the singularity in her. But I noticed nothing and sensed nothing. Nothing that could have been a signal, a presentiment or a harbinger of those subsequent, tragic events. Events caused by her very existence. And those she caused by her actions.

Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

Right by the crossroads, where the forest ended, nine posts were driven into the ground. Each was crowned by a cartwheel, mounted flat. Above the wheels teemed crows and ravens, pecking and tearing at the corpses bound to the rims and hubs. Owing to the height of the posts and the great number of birds, one could only imagine what the unidentifiable remains lying on top of the wheels might be. But they were bodies. They couldn’t have been anything else.

Ciri turned her head away and wrinkled her nose in disgust. The wind blew from the posts and the sickening stench of rotting corpses drifted above the crossroads.

‘Wonderful scenery,’ said Yennefer, leaning out of the saddle and spitting on the ground, forgetting that a short time earlier she had fiercely scolded Ciri for doing the same thing. ‘Picturesque and fragrant. But why do this here, at the edge of the wilderness? They usually set things like that up right outside the city walls. Am I right, good people?’

‘They’re Squirrels, noble lady,’ came the hurried explanation from one of the wandering traders they had caught up with at the crossroads. He was guiding the piebald horse harnessed to his fully laden cart. ‘Elves. There, on those posts. And that’s why the posts are by the forest. As a warning to other Squirrels.’

‘Does that mean,’ said the enchantress, looking at him, ‘that captured Scoia’tael are brought here alive . . . ?’

‘Elves, m’lady, seldom let themselves be taken alive,’ interrupted the trader. ‘And even if the soldiers catch one they take them to the city, because civilised non-humans dwell there. When they’ve watched Squirrels being tortured in the town square, they quickly lose interest in joining them. But if any elves are killed in combat, their bodies are taken to a crossroads and hung on posts like this. Sometimes they’re brought from far away and by the time they get here they reek—’

‘To think,’ snapped Yennefer, ‘we have been forbidden from necromantic practices out of respect for the dignity of death and mortal remains; on the grounds that they deserve reverence, peace, and a ritual and ceremonial burial . . .’

‘What are you saying, m’lady?’

‘Nothing. We’re leaving, Ciri, let’s get away from this place. Ugh, I feel as though the stench were sticking to me.’

‘Yuck. Me too,’ said Ciri, trotting around the trader’s cart. ‘Let’s gallop, yes?’

‘Very well . . . Ciri! Gallop, but don’t break your neck!’

They soon saw the city; surrounded by walls, bristling with towers with glistening, pointed roofs. And beyond the city was the sea; greygreen, sparkling in the morning sun, flecked here and there with the white dots of sails. Ciri reined in her horse at the edge of a sandy drop, stood up in her stirrups and greedily breathed in the wind and the scent.

‘Gors Velen,’ said Yennefer, riding up and stopping at her side. ‘We finally made it. Let’s get back on the road.’

They rode off down the road at a canter, leaving several ox carts and people walking, laden down with faggots, behind them.

Once they had overtaken them all and were alone, though, the enchantress slowed and gestured for Ciri to stop.

‘Come closer,’ she said. ‘Closer still. Take the reins and lead my horse. I need both hands.’

‘What for?’

‘I said take the reins, Ciri.’

Yennefer took a small, silver looking glass from her saddlebags, wiped it and then whispered a spell. The looking glass floated out of her hand, rose up and remained suspended above her horse’s neck, right before the enchantress’s face.

Ciri let out a sigh of awe and licked her lips.

The enchantress removed a comb from her saddlebags, took off her beret and combed her hair vigorously for the next few minutes. Ciri remained silent. She knew she was forbidden to disturb or distract Yennefer while she combed her hair. The arresting and apparently careless disarray of her wavy, luxuriant locks was the result of long, hard work and demanded no little effort.

The enchantress reached into her saddlebags once more. She attached some diamond earrings to her ears and fastened bracelets on both wrists. She took off her shawl and undid a few buttons on her blouse, revealing her neck and a black velvet ribbon decorated with an obsidian star.

‘Ha!’ said Ciri at last, unable to hold back. ‘I know why you’re doing that! You want to look nice because we’re going to the city! Am I right?’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘What about me?’

‘What about you?’

‘I want to look nice, too! I’ll do my hair—’

‘Put your beret on,’ said Yennefer sharply, eyes still fixed on the looking glass floating above the horse’s ears, ‘right where it was before. And tuck your hair underneath it.’

Ciri snorted angrily but obeyed at once. She had long ago learned to distinguish the timbre and shades of the enchantress’s voice. She had learned when she could get into a discussion and when it was wiser not to.

Yennefer, having at last arranged the locks over her forehead, took a small, green, glass jar out of her saddlebags.

‘Ciri,’ she said more gently. ‘We’re travelling in secret. And the journey’s not over yet. Which is why you have to hide your hair under your beret. There are people at every gate who are paid for their accurate and reliable observation of travellers. Do you understand?’

‘No!’ retorted Ciri impudently, reining back the enchantress’s black stallion. ‘You’ve made yourself beautiful to make those gate watchmen’s eyes pop out! Very secretive, I must say!’

‘The city to whose gates we are heading,’ smiled Yennefer, ‘is Gors Velen. I don’t have to disguise myself in Gors Velen; quite the contrary, I’d say. With you it’s different. You ought not to be remembered by anyone.’

‘The people who’ll be staring at you will see me too!’

The enchantress uncorked the jar, which gave off the scent of lilac and gooseberries. She stuck her index finger in and rubbed a little of it under her eyes.

‘I doubt,’ she said, still smiling mysteriously, ‘whether anyone will notice you.’

A long column of riders and wagons stood before the bridge, and travellers crowded around the gatehouse, waiting for their turn to be searched. Ciri fumed and growled, angry at the prospect of a long wait. Yennefer, however, sat up straight in the saddle and rode at a trot, looking high over the heads of the travellers – they parted swiftly for her and made room, bowing in respect. The guards in hauberks also noticed the enchantress at once and gave her free passage, liberally handing out blows with their spear shafts to the stubborn or the overly slow.

‘This way, this way, noble lady,’ called one of the guards, staring at Yennefer and flushing. ‘Come through here, I entreat you. Make way, make way, you churls!’

The hastily summoned officer of the watch emerged from the guardhouse sullen and angry, but at the sight of Yennefer he blushed, opened his eyes and his mouth wide and made a low bow.

‘I humbly welcome you to Gors Velen, Your Ladyship,’ he mumbled, straightening up and staring. ‘I am at your command . . . May I be of any service to you? Perhaps an escort? A guide? Should I summon anyone?’

‘That will not be necessary,’ replied Yennefer, straightening up in her saddle and looking down at him. ‘My stay in the city shall be brief. I am riding to Thanedd.’

‘Of course, ma’am,’ said the soldier, shifting from foot to foot and unable to tear his eyes from the enchantress’s face. The other guards also stared. Ciri proudly pulled her shoulders back and raised her head, only to realise no one was looking at her. It was as if she didn’t exist.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ repeated the officer of the guard. ‘To Thanedd, yes . . . For the conclave. I understand, very well. Then I wish you—’

‘Thank you,’ said the enchantress, spurring her horse, clearly uninterested in whatever the officer wanted to wish her. Ciri followed her. The guardsmen bowed to Yennefer as she rode by, but none of them paid Ciri so much as a glance.

‘They didn’t even ask your name,’ she muttered, catching up with Yennefer and carefully guiding her horse between the ruts worn into the muddy road. ‘Did you put a spell on them?’

‘Not on them. On myself.’

The enchantress turned back and Ciri sighed. Yennefer’s eyes burnt with a violet light and her face radiated with beauty. Dazzling beauty. Provocative. Dangerous. And unnatural.

‘The little green jar,’ Ciri realised. ‘What was in it?’

‘Glamarye. An elixir. Or rather a cream for special occasions. Ciri, must you ride into every puddle in the road?’

‘I’m trying to clean my horse’s fetlocks.’

‘It hasn’t rained for a month. That’s slops and horse piss, not water.’

‘Aha . . . Tell me, why did you use that elixir? Did it matter so much to you to—’

‘This is Gors Velen,’ interrupted Yennefer. ‘A city that owes much of its prosperity to sorcerers and enchantresses. Actually, if I’m honest, chiefly to enchantresses. You saw for yourself how enchantresses are treated here. And I had no desire to introduce myself or prove who I am. I preferred to make it obvious at first glance. We turn left after that red house. We’ll walk, Ciri. Slow your horse down or you’ll trample a child.’

‘But why did we come here then?’

‘I just told you.’

Ciri snorted, thinking hard, then pursed her lips and dug her heels hard into her horse. Her mare skittered, almost colliding with a passing horse and cart. The carter got up from his seat, ready to unleash a stream of professional abuse at her, but on seeing Yennefer sat down quickly and began a thorough analysis of the state of his clogs.

‘Try to bolt like that once more,’ enunciated Yennefer, ‘and we’ll get cross. You’re behaving like an adolescent goat. You’re embarrassing me.’

‘I figured it out. You want to put me in some school or orphanage, don’t you? I don’t want to go!’

‘Be quiet. People are staring.’

‘They’re staring at you, not at me! I don’t want to go to school! You promised me you’d always be with me, and now you’re planning to leave me all by myself! I don’t want to be alone!’

‘You won’t be alone. There are plenty of girls your age at the school. You’ll have lots of friends.’

‘I don’t want any friends. I want to be with you and . . . I thought we’d—’

Yennefer suddenly turned to face her.

‘What did you think?’

‘I thought we were going to see Geralt,’ said Ciri, tossing her head provocatively. ‘I know perfectly well what you’ve been thinking about the entire journey. And why you were sighing at night—’

‘Enough,’ hissed the enchantress, and the sight of her glaring eyes made Ciri bury her face in her horse’s mane. ‘You’ve overstepped the mark. May I remind you that the moment when you could defy me has passed for ever? You only have yourself to blame and now you have to be obedient. You’ll do as I say. Understood?’

Ciri nodded.

‘Whatever I say will be the best for you. Always. Which is why you will obey me and carry out my instructions. Is that clear? Rein in your horse. We’re here.’

‘That’s the school?’ grunted Ciri, looking up at the magnificent facade of a building. ‘Is that—?’

‘Not another word. Dismount. And mind your manners. This isn’t the school. It’s in Aretuza, not in Gors Velen. This is a bank.’

‘Why do we need a bank?’

‘Think about it. And dismount, as I said. Not in a puddle! Leave your horse; that’s the servant’s job. Take off your gloves. You don’t go into a bank wearing riding gloves. Look at me, Ciri. Straighten your beret. And your collar. Stand up straight. And if you don’t know what to do with your hands then don’t do anything with them!’

Ciri sighed.

The servants who poured out of the entrance and assisted them – falling over each other as they bowed – were dwarves. Ciri looked at them with interest. Although they were all short, sturdy and bearded, in no way did they resemble her companion Yarpen Zigrin or his ‘lads’. These servants looked grey: identically uniformed and unremarkable. They were subservient, too, which could never be said about Yarpen and his lads.

They went inside. The magic elixir was still working, so Yennefer’s appearance immediately caused a great commotion. More dwarves bustled and bowed, and there were further obsequious welcomes and declarations of readiness to serve, which only subsided on the appearance of a fat, opulently attired and white-bearded dwarf.

‘My dear Yennefer!’ boomed the dwarf, jingling a golden chain which dangled from a powerful neck and fell to considerably below his white beard. ‘What a surprise! And what an honour! Please, please come to my office. And you lot; don’t stand there staring. To work, to your abacuses. Wilfli, bring a bottle of Castel de Neuf to my office. Which vintage . . . ? You know what vintage. Be quick, jump to it! This way, this way, Yennefer. It’s an unalloyed joy to see you. You look . . . Oh, dammit, you look drop-dead gorgeous!’

‘As do you,’ the enchantress smiled. ‘You’re keeping well, Giancardi.’

‘Naturally. Please, come through to my office. But no, no, you go first. You know the way after all, Yennefer.’

It was a little dark but pleasantly cool in the office, and the air held a scent Ciri remembered from Jarre the scribe’s tower: the smell of ink and parchment and dust covering the oak furniture, tapestries and old books.

‘Sit down, please,’ said the banker, pulling a heavy armchair away from the table for Yennefer, and throwing Ciri a curious glance.

‘Hmm . . .’

‘Give her a book, Molnar,’ said the enchantress carelessly, noticing his look. ‘She adores books. She’ll sit at the end of the table and won’t disturb us. Will you, Ciri?’

Ciri did not deign to reply.

‘A book, hmm, hmm,’ said the dwarf solicitously, going over to a chest of drawers. ‘What have we here? Oh, a ledger . . . No, not that. Duties and port charges . . . Not that either. Credit and reimbursement? No. Oh, how did that get here? God only knows . . . But this will probably be just the thing. There you go, miss.’

The book bore the title Physiologus and was very old and very tattered. Ciri carefully opened the cover and turned several pages. The book immediately caught her interest, since it concerned mysterious monsters and beasts and was full of illustrations. For the next few moments, she tried to divide her interest between the book and the conversation between the enchantress and the dwarf.

‘Do you have any letters for me, Molnar?’

‘No,’ said the banker, pouring wine for Yennefer and himself. ‘No new ones have arrived. I delivered the last ones a month ago, using our usual method.’

‘I received them, thank you. Did anyone show interest in those letters, by any chance?’

‘No one here,’ smiled Molnar Giancardi. ‘But your suspicions are not unwarranted, my dear. The Vivaldi Bank informed me, confidentially, that several attempts were made to track the letters. Their branch in Vengerberg also uncovered an attempt to track all transactions of your private account. A member of the staff proved to be disloyal.’

The dwarf broke off and looked at the enchantress from beneath his bushy eyebrows. Ciri listened intently. Yennefer said nothing and toyed with her obsidian star.

‘Vivaldi,’ said the banker, lowering his voice, ‘couldn’t or didn’t want to conduct an investigation into the case. The corrupt, disloyal clerk fell, drunk, into a ditch and drowned. An unfortunate accident. Pity. Too quick, too hasty . . .’

‘No use crying over spilt milk,’ the enchantress pouted. ‘I know who was interested in my letters and account; the investigation at Vivaldi’s wouldn’t have produced any revelations.’

‘If you say so . . .’ Giancardi ruffled his beard. ‘Are you going to Thanedd, Yennefer? To the General Mages’ Conclave?’

‘Indeed.’

‘To determine the fate of the world?’

‘Let’s not exaggerate.’

‘Various rumours are doing the rounds,’ said the dwarf coldly. ‘And various things are happening.’

‘What might they be, if it’s not a secret?’

‘Since last year,’ said Giancardi, stroking his beard, ‘strange fluctuations in taxation policy have been observed . . . I know it doesn’t interest you . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘Poll tax and winter billeting tax, both of which are levied directly by the military authorities, have been doubled. Every merchant and entrepreneur also has to pay their “tenth groat” into the royal treasury. This is an entirely new tax: one groat on every noble of turnover. In addition, dwarves, gnomes, elves and halflings are paying increased poll and chimney tax. If they engage in trade or manufacturing they are also charged with a compulsory “non-human” donation of ten per hundred groats. In this way, I hand over sixty per cent of my income to the treasury. My bank, including all its branches, gives the Four Kingdoms six hundred marks a year. For your information, that’s almost three times as much as a wealthy duke or earl pays in levy on an extensive estate.’

‘Are humans not also charged with making the donation for the army?’

‘No. Only the winter billeting tax and poll tax.’

‘That means,’ the enchantress nodded, ‘that the dwarves and other non-humans are financing the campaign being waged against the Scoia’tael in the forests. I expected something like that. But what do taxes have to do with the conclave on Thanedd?’

‘Something always happens after your conclaves,’ muttered the banker. ‘Something always happens. This time, I hope it will finally be the opposite. I’m counting on your conclave stopping things from happening. I’d be very happy, for example, if these strange price rises were to stop.’

‘Be precise.’

The dwarf leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers across his beard-covered belly.

‘I’ve worked for a good many years in this profession,’ he said. ‘Sufficiently long to be able to connect certain price fluctuations with certain facts. And recently the prices of precious stones have risen sharply. Because there’s a demand for them.’

‘Isn’t cash usually exchanged for gemstones to avoid losses based on fluctuations in exchange rates and parities of coinage?’

‘That too. But gemstones have one other considerable virtue. A pouch of diamonds weighing a few ounces, which can fit inside a pocket, corresponds in value to some fifty marks. The same sum in coins weighs twenty-five pounds and would fill a fair-sized sack. It is considerably quicker and easier to run away with a pouch in one’s pocket than with a sack over one’s shoulder. And one has one’s hands free, which is of no small import. One can hold onto one’s wife with one hand and, if needs must, punch someone with the other.’

Ciri snorted quietly, but Yennefer immediately quietened her with a fierce look.

‘Which means’ – she looked up – ‘that some people are preparing, well in advance, to run away. But where to, I wonder?’

‘The far north tops the list. Hengfors, Kovir and Poviss. Firstly because it is indeed far away, and secondly because those countries are neutral and are on good terms with Nilfgaard.’

‘I see,’ said the enchantress, a nasty smile on her lips. ‘So it’s diamonds into your pocket, grab the wife and head for the north . . . Not too premature? Oh, never mind. So tell me: what else is getting dearer?’

‘Boats.’

‘What?’

‘Boats,’ repeated the dwarf, grinning. ‘All the boat builders from the coast are building boats, their orders placed by quartermasters from King Foltest’s army. The quartermasters pay well and keep placing new orders. Invest in boats, Yennefer, if you have any spare capital. It’s a gold mine. You can build a boat from bark and reeds, make out a bill for a barque made of first-rate pine and split the profit with the quartermaster . . .’

‘Don’t joke, Giancardi. Tell me what it’s about.’

‘Those boats,’ said the banker casually, looking at the ceiling, ‘are transported south. To Sodden and Brugge, to the River Jaruga. But from what I hear they aren’t used for catching fish on the river. They’re being hidden in the forest, on the east bank. It’s said the army are spending hours on embarkation and disembarkation drills. But it’s not for real yet.’

‘Aha,’ said Yennefer, biting her lip. ‘And why are some people in such a rush to lend a hand? Jaruga is in the south.’

‘There’s some understandable anxiety,’ muttered the dwarf, glancing over at Ciri, ‘that Emperor Emhyr var Emreis will not be overjoyed when he hears that the aforementioned boats have been launched. Some people think it is sure to infuriate him, and then it’ll be better to be as far as possible from the Nilfgaardian border . . . Hell, at least until the harvest. Once the harvest’s in I’ll sigh with relief. If something’s going to happen, it’ll happen before the harvest.’

‘Before the crops are in the granaries,’ said Yennefer slowly.

‘That’s right. It’s hard to graze horses on stubble, and strongholds with full granaries can endure long sieges. The weather is favourable for farmers and the harvest looks promising . . . yes, the weather is exceptionally beautiful. The sun’s hot, so cats and dogs alike are hoping it’ll soon rain cats and dogs . . . And the Jaruga in Dol Angra is very shallow. It’s easy to ford it. In both directions.’

‘Why Dol Angra?’

‘I hope,’ said the banker, stroking his beard and fixing the sorceress with a penetrating glance, ‘I can trust you.’

‘You’ve always been able to, Giancardi. Nothing has changed.’

‘Dol Angra,’ said the dwarf slowly, ‘means Lyria and Aedirn, who have a military alliance with Temeria. You surely don’t think that Foltest, who’s buying the boats, intends to use them for his own ends, do you?’

‘No,’ said the enchantress slowly. ‘I don’t. Thank you for the information, Molnar. Who knows, perhaps you’re right. Perhaps at the conclave we’ll somehow manage to influence the fate of the world and the people living in it.’

‘Don’t forget about the dwarves,’ snorted Giancardi. ‘Or their banks.’

‘We’ll try not to. Since we’re on the subject . . .’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘I have some expenses, Molnar. And should I take something from my account at the Vivaldi Bank, someone is bound to drown again, so . . .’

‘Yennefer,’ interrupted the dwarf. ‘You have unlimited credit with me. The pogrom in Vengerberg took place long ago. Perhaps you have forgotten, but I never will. None of the Giancardi family will forget. How much do you need?’

‘One thousand five hundred Temerian orens, transferred to the branch of the Cianfanelli Bank in Ellander, in favour of the Temple of Melitele.’

‘Consider it done. A nice transfer; donations to temples aren’t taxed. What else?’

‘What are the annual fees for the school at Aretuza?’

Ciri listened carefully.

‘One thousand two hundred Novigrad crowns,’ said Giancardi. ‘And then you have to add the matriculation fee; around two hundred for a new novice.’

‘It’s bloody gone up.’

‘Everything has. They don’t skimp on novices though; they live like queens at Aretuza. And half the city lives off them: tailors, shoemakers, confectioners, suppliers—’

‘I know. Pay two thousand into the school’s account. Anonymously. With a note that it’s the registration fee and payment of the annual fees for one novice.’

The dwarf put down his quill, looked at Ciri and smiled in understanding. Ciri, pretending to leaf through the book, listened intently.

‘Will that be all, Yennefer?’

‘And three hundred Novigrad crowns for me, in cash. I’ll need at least three dresses for the conclave on Thanedd.’

‘Why cash? I’ll give you a banker’s draft for five hundred. The prices of imported fabric have risen damnably, and you don’t dress in wool or linen, after all. And should you need anything – for yourself or for the future pupil at Aretuza – my shops and storehouses are at your disposal.’

‘Thank you. What interest rate shall we say?’

‘Interest?’ said the dwarf, looking up. ‘You paid the Giancardi family in advance, Yennefer. In Vengerberg. Let’s talk no more about it.’

‘I don’t like debts of this kind, Molnar.’

‘Neither do I. But I’m a merchant, a business-dwarf. I know what an obligation is. I know its value. So I repeat, let’s speak no more about it. You may consider the favours you’ve asked of me sorted. And the favour you didn’t ask about, too.’

Yennefer raised an eyebrow.

‘A certain witcher I consider family,’ chuckled Giancardi, ‘visited the city of Dorian recently. I was informed he ran up a debt of a hundred crowns with a moneylender there. The said moneylender works for me. I’ll cancel the debt, Yennefer.’

The enchantress glanced at Ciri and made a sour grimace.

‘Molnar,’ she said coldly, ‘don’t stick your fingers in a door with broken hinges. I doubt he still holds me dear, and if he learns about any debts being cancelled he’ll hate my guts. You know him, don’t you? Honour is an obsession with him. Was he in Dorian a long time ago?’

‘Some ten days ago. Then he was seen in Little Marsh. I’m informed he went from there to Hirundum, since he had a commission from the farmers there. Some kind of monster to kill, as usual . . .’

‘And, as usual, they’ll be paying him peanuts for killing it.’ Yennefer’s voice changed a little. ‘Which, as usual, will barely cover the cost of medical treatment should he be mauled by the monster. Business as usual. If you really want to do something for me, Molnar, get involved. Contact the farmers from Hirundum and raise the bounty. Give him enough to live on.’

‘Business as usual,’ snorted Giancardi. ‘And if he eventually finds out about it?’

Yennefer fixed her eyes on Ciri, who was watching and listening now, not even attempting to feign interest in Physiologus.

‘And from whom,’ she muttered, ‘might he find out?’

Ciri lowered her gaze. The dwarf smiled meaningfully and stroked his beard.

‘Will you be heading towards Hirundum before setting off for Thanedd? Just by chance, of course?’

‘No,’ said the enchantress, turning away. ‘I won’t. Change the subject, Molnar.’

Giancardi stroked his beard again and looked at Ciri. She lowered her head, cleared her throat and fidgeted in her chair.

‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Time to change the subject. But your charge is clearly bored by that book, and by our conversation. And my next topic will bore her even more, I suspect; the fate of the world; the fate of the dwarves of this world; the fate of their banks. What a boring subject for girls, for future graduates of Aretuza . . . Let her spread her wings a little, Yennefer. Let her take a walk around the city—’

‘Oh, yes!’ cried Ciri.

The enchantress looked annoyed and was opening her mouth to protest, but suddenly changed tack. Ciri wasn’t certain, but she suspected the faint wink that accompanied the banker’s suggestion influenced her decision.

‘Let the girl have a look at the wonders of the ancient city of Gors Velen,’ added Giancardi, smiling broadly. ‘She deserves a little freedom before Aretuza. And we’ll chat about certain issues of a . . . hmm . . . personal nature. No, I’m not suggesting the girl goes alone, even though it’s a safe city. I’ll assign her a companion and guardian. One of my younger clerks . . .’

‘Forgive me, Molnar,’ said Yennefer, ignoring the smile, ‘but I’m not convinced that, in the present times and even in a safe city, the presence of a dwarf . . .’

‘It didn’t even occur to me,’ said Giancardi indignantly, ‘to send her with a dwarf. The clerk I have in mind is the son of a respected merchant, every inch a human, if you’ll excuse the expression. Did you think I only employ dwarves? Hey, Wifli! Summon Fabio, and look lively!’

‘Ciri.’ The enchantress walked over to her, bending forward slightly. ‘Make sure there’s no funny business, nothing I’ll have to be ashamed of. And keep schtum, got it? Promise me you’ll watch your words and deeds. Don’t just nod. Promises are made aloud.’

‘I promise, Yennefer.’

‘And glance at the sun from time to time. You’re to be back at noon. Punctually. And should . . . no, I don’t imagine anyone will recognise you. But should you notice someone observing you too intently . . .’

The enchantress put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a small piece of chrysoprase marked with runes, ground and polished into the shape of an hourglass.

‘Put that in your pouch and don’t lose it. In case of emergencies . . . do you recall the spell? Just use it discreetly; activation emits a powerful echo, and the amulet transmits waves when it’s in use. Should there be someone nearby who’s sensitive to magic, you’ll reveal yourself to them rather than remain hidden. Ah, and take this . . . should you wish to buy something.’

‘Thank you, madam.’ Ciri put the amulet and coins into her pouch and looked with interest at the boy who had rushed into the office. He was freckled, and his wavy, chestnut hair fell onto the high collar of his grey clerk’s uniform.

‘Fabio Sachs,’ said Giancardi by way of introduction. The boy bowed courteously.

‘Fabio, this is Madam Yennefer, our honoured guest and respected client. And this young lady, her ward, wishes to visit our city. You shall be accompanying her and acting as her guide and guardian.’

The boy bowed once more, this time towards Ciri.

‘Ciri,’ said Yennefer coldly. ‘Please stand up.’

She stood up, slightly taken aback, for she knew the custom well enough to know it wasn’t expected of her. And she understood at once what Yennefer had seen. The clerk might look the same age as Ciri, but he was a head shorter.

‘Molnar,’ said the enchantress. ‘Who is taking care of whom? Couldn’t you assign someone of slightly more substantial dimensions to this task?’

The boy blushed and looked at his superior questioningly. Giancardi nodded his head in assent. The clerk bowed a third time.

‘Your Highness,’ he began, fluently and confidently. ‘I may not be tall, but you can rely on me. I know the city, the suburbs and the surroundings very well. I shall look after this young lady to the best of my ability. And if I, Fabio Sachs the Younger, son of Fabio Sachs, do something to the best of my ability, then . . . many an older boy would not better it.’

Yennefer looked at him for a while and then turned towards the banker.

‘Congratulations, Molnar,’ she said. ‘You know how to choose your staff. You will have cause to be grateful to your young clerk in the future. It’s true: the purest gold rings truest when you strike it. Ciri, I entrust you into the care of Fabio, son of Fabio, in absolute confidence, since he is a serious, trustworthy man.’

The boy blushed to the roots of his chestnut hair. Ciri felt herself blushing, too.

‘Fabio,’ said the dwarf, opening a small chest and rummaging around in its clinking contents, ‘here’s half a noble and three – two – five-groat pieces, in the event the young lady requests anything. Should she not, you shall return it. Very well, you may go.’

‘By noon, Ciri,’ reminded Yennefer. ‘And not a moment later.’

‘I remember, I remember.’

‘My name is Fabio,’ said the boy, as soon as they’d run down the stairs and out into the busy street. ‘And you’re Ciri, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘What would you like to see in Gors Velen, Ciri? The main street? Goldsmiths’ alley? The seaport? Or maybe the market square and the market?’

‘Everything.’

‘Hmm . . .’ mused the boy seriously. ‘We’ve only got till noon . . . It would be best to go to the market square. It’s market day today; you can see heaps of amazing things! But first we’ll go up onto the wall, where there’s a view of the entire bay and the famous Isle of Thanedd. How does that sound?’

‘Let’s go.’

Carts rumbled past, horses and oxen plodded, coopers rolled barrels along the noisy street, and everyone was in a hurry. Ciri was a little bewildered by the bustle and commotion; she clumsily stepped off the wooden footpath and ended up ankle-deep in mud and muck. Fabio tried to take her arm, but she pulled away.

‘I don’t need any help to walk!’

‘Hmm . . . of course not. Let’s go then. We’re in the main street here. It’s called Kardo Street and connects the two gates: the main gate and the sea gate. You get to the town hall that way. Do you see the tower with the gold weathervane? That’s the town hall. And there, where that colourful sign’s hanging, that’s a tavern called The Unlaced Corset. But we won’t, ah . . . won’t be going there. We’re going over there. We’ll take a short cut through the fish market in Winding Street.’

They turned into a narrow street and came out into a small square squeezed between some buildings. It was full of stalls, barrels and vats, all strongly smelling of fish. The market was full of bustle and noise, with the stallholders and customers alike trying to outshout the seagulls circling above. There were cats sitting at the foot of the wall, pretending that the fish didn’t interest them in the least.

‘Your mistress,’ said Fabio suddenly, weaving his way between the stalls, ‘is very strict.’

‘I know.’

‘She isn’t a close relative, is she? It’s obvious right away.’

‘Is it? How can you tell?’

‘She’s very beautiful,’ said Fabio, with the cruel, casual frankness of a young person. Ciri turned away abruptly. But before she could treat Fabio to a stinging comment about his freckles or his height, the boy was pulling her between handcarts, barrels and stalls, explaining all the time that the bastion towering above the square was called the Thief’s Bastion, that the stones used for its construction came from the seabed and that the trees growing at its foot were called plantains.

‘You’re very quiet, Ciri,’ he suddenly said.

‘Me?’ Ciri pretended to be astonished. ‘Not at all! I’m just listening carefully to what you’re saying. It’s all really interesting, you know? And I just wanted to ask you . . .’

‘Fire away.’

‘Is it far to . . . to the city of Aretuza?’

‘It isn’t far at all. Aretuza isn’t even a city. We’ll go up on the wall and I’ll show you. Look, the steps are over there.’

The wall was high and the steps steep. Fabio was sweating and panting, and no small wonder, because he never stopped talking while they climbed. Ciri learned that the wall surrounding the city of Gors Velen was a recent construction, much more recent than the city itself, which had been built long before by the elves. She also found out it was thirty-five feet high and that it was a so-called case-mate wall, made of hewn stones and unfired brick, because that type of construction was the most resistant to blows from battering rams.

At the top they were greeted and fanned by a fresh sea wind. Ciri breathed it in joyfully after the heavy, stagnant stuffiness of the city. She rested her elbows on the top of the wall, looking down over the harbour dotted with colourful sails.

‘What’s that, Fabio? That mountain?’

‘That’s the Isle of Thanedd.’

The island seemed very close, and it didn’t resemble an island. It looked like the base of a gigantic stone column stuck into the seabed, a huge ziggurat encircled by a spirally twisting road and zigzagging steps and terraces. The terraces were green with groves and gardens, and protruding from the greenery – which clung to the rocks like swallows’ nests – rose soaring white towers and the ornate domes of groups of buildings framed by cloisters. The buildings gave no clue at all that they had been constructed from stone. They seemed to have been carved directly from the mountain’s rocky slopes.

‘All of this was built by elves,’ explained Fabio. ‘It’s said they did it with the help of magic. However, for as long as anyone can remember, Thanedd has belonged to sorcerers. Near the summit, where you can see those gleaming domes, is Garstang Palace. The great Conclave of Mages will begin there in a few days. And there, look, on the very top. That solitary tower with battlements is Tor Lara, the Tower of Gulls . . .’

‘Can you get there overland? I can see it’s very close.’

‘Yes, you can. There’s a bridge connecting the bay to the island. We can’t see it because the trees are in the way. Do you see those red roofs at the foot of the mountain? That’s Loxia Palace. The bridge ends there. You have to pass through Loxia to reach the road to the upper terraces . . .’

‘And those lovely cloisters and little bridges? And those gardens? How do they stay on the rock without falling off . . . ? What is that palace?’

‘That’s Aretuza, the place you were asking about. The famous school for young enchantresses is there.’

‘Oh,’ said Ciri, moistening her lips, ‘it’s there . . . Fabio?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you ever see the young enchantresses who attend the school? The school at Aretuza?’

The boy looked at her, clearly astonished.

‘No, never! No one sees them! They aren’t allowed to leave the island or visit the city. And no one has access to the school. Even the burgrave and the bailiff can only travel as far as Loxia if they have business for the enchantresses. It’s on the lowest level.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Ciri nodded, staring at Aretuza’s shimmering roofs. ‘It’s not a school. It’s a prison. On an island, on a rock, above a cliff. Quite simply: a prison.’

‘I suppose it is,’ admitted Fabio after a moment’s thought. ‘It’s pretty difficult to get out of there . . . But no, it’s not like being in prison. The novices are girls, after all. They need protecting—’

‘From what?’

‘Er . . .’ the boy stammered. ‘I mean, you know what . . .’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Oh . . . I think . . . Look, Ciri, no one locks them up in the school by force. They must want to be there . . .’

‘Of course,’ smiled Ciri mischievously. ‘If they want to, they can stay in that prison. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t allow themselves to be locked up there. There’s nothing to it. You’d just have to choose the right moment to make a break for it. But you’d have to do it before you end up there, because once you went in it would be too late . . .’

‘What? Run away? Where would they run to—?’

‘They,’ she interrupted, ‘probably wouldn’t have anywhere to go, the poor things. Fabio? Where’s that town . . . Hirundum?’

The boy looked at her in surprise.

‘Hirundum’s not a city,’ he said. ‘It’s a huge farm. There are orchards and gardens there which supply vegetables and fruit to all the towns and cities in the area. There are also fishponds where they breed carp and other fish.’

‘How far is it from here to Hirundum? Which way is it? Show me.’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Just show me, will you?’

‘Do you see that road leading westwards? Where those wagons are? That’s the road to Hirundum. It’s about fifteen miles away, through forests all the way.’

‘Fifteen miles,’ repeated Ciri. ‘Not far, if you’ve got a good horse . . . Thank you, Fabio.’

‘What are you thanking me for?’

‘Never mind. Now take me to the town square. You promised.’

‘Let’s go.’

Ciri had never before seen such a crush and hubbub as there was in the market square in Gors Velen. The noisy fish market they’d walked through a little earlier seemed like a quiet temple compared to this place. It was absolutely huge, but still so crowded that Ciri assumed they would only be able to look at it from a distance. There would be no chance of actually getting into it. Fabio, however, bravely forced his way into the seething crowd, pulling her along by the hand. Ciri felt dizzy at once.

The market traders bellowed, the customers bellowed even louder, and children lost in the crowd howled and wailed. Cattle lowed, sheep bleated, and poultry clucked and quacked. Dwarven craftsmen doggedly banged their hammers onto sheets of metal, cursing foully whenever they interrupted their hammering to take a drink. Pipes, fiddles and dulcimers could be heard from various parts of the square; apparently some minstrels and musicians were performing. To cap it all, someone hidden in the crowd was blowing a brass trumpet incessantly. That someone was clearly not a musician.

Dodging a pig that trotted past with a piercing squeal, Ciri fell against a cage of chickens. A moment later, she was jostled by a passer-by and trod on something soft that meowed. She jumped back and barely avoided being trampled on by a huge, smelly, revolting, fearsome-looking beast, shoving people aside with its shaggy flanks.

‘What was that?’ she groaned, trying to regain her balance. ‘Fabio?’

‘A camel. Don’t be afraid.’

‘I’m not afraid! The thought of it!’

Ciri looked around curiously. She watched halflings at work creating ornate wineskins from goat’s hide in full view of the public, and she was delighted by the beautiful dolls on display at a stall run by a pair of half-elves. She looked at wares made of malachite and jasper, which a gruff, gloomy gnome was offering for sale. She inspected the swords in a swordsmith’s workshop with interest and the eye of an expert. She watched girls weaving wicker baskets and concluded that there was nothing worse than work.

The horn blower stopped blowing. Someone had probably killed him.

‘What smells so delicious round here?’

‘Doughnuts,’ said Fabio, feeling the pouch. ‘Do you wish to eat one?’

‘I wish to eat two.’

The vendor handed them three doughnuts, took the five-groat piece and gave them four coppers in change, one of which he broke in half. Ciri, slowly regaining her poise, watched the operation of the coin being broken while voraciously devouring the first doughnut.

‘Is that,’ she asked, getting started on the second, ‘where the expression “not worth a broken groat” comes from?’

‘That’s right,’ said Fabio, swallowing his doughnut. ‘There aren’t any smaller coins than groats. Don’t people use half-groats where you come from?’

‘No.’ Ciri licked her fingers. ‘Where I come from we used gold ducats. And anyway all that breaking business was stupid and pointless.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I wish to eat a third doughnut.’

The plum-jam-filled doughnuts acted like the most miraculous elixir. Ciri was now in a good mood, and the teeming square had stopped terrifying her and had even begun to please her. Now she didn’t let Fabio drag her behind him, but pulled him into the biggest crowd herself, towards a place where someone on a makeshift rostrum built of barrels was addressing the crowd. The speaker was fat and a bit past it. Ciri recognised him as a wandering priest by his shaved head and greyish-brown robes. She had seen his kind before, as they would occasionally visit the Temple of Melitele in Ellander. Mother Nenneke never referred to them as anything other than ‘fanatical chumps’.

‘There is but one law in the world!’ roared the podgy priest. ‘Divine law! The whole of nature is subject to that law, the whole of earth and everything that lives on the earth! And spells and magic are contrary to that law! Thus are sorcerers damned, and close is the day of wrath when fire will pour from the heavens and destroy their vile island! Then down will come the walls of Loxia, Aretuza and Garstang, where those pagans are gathering to hatch their intrigues! Those walls will tumble down . . .’

‘And we’ll have to build the sodding things again,’ muttered a journeyman bricklayer in a lime-spattered smock standing next to Ciri.

‘I admonish you all, good and pious people,’ yelled the priest. ‘Don’t believe the sorcerers, don’t turn to them for advice or aid! Be beguiled neither by their beautiful looks nor their clever speech, for verily I do say to you that those magicians are like whitened graves, beautiful on the outside but full of putrefaction and rotten bones on the inside!’

‘See what a powerful gob ’e ’as on ’im?’ remarked a young woman with a basket full of carrots. ’E’s ’aving a go at the magicians, coz ’e’s jealous of ’em and that’s that.’

‘Course he is,’ said the bricklayer. ‘Look at his noggin, he’s bald as an egg, and that belly hangs down to his knees. On the other hand, sorcerers are handsome; they don’t get fat or bald . . . And sorceresses, well, they’re just gorgeous . . .’

‘Only because they’ve sold their souls to the devil for their beauty!’ yelled a short individual with a shoemaker’s hammer stuck into his belt.

‘Fool of a cobbler! Were it not for the ladies of Aretuza, you’d long since have gone begging! Thanks to them you’ve got food in your belly!’

Fabio pulled Ciri by the sleeve, and they plunged once more into the crowd, which carried them towards the middle of the square. They heard the pounding of a drum and loud shouting, calling for silence. The crowd had no intention of being quiet, but it didn’t bother the town crier on the wooden platform in the least. He had a powerful, trained voice and knew how to use it.

‘Let it be known,’ he bellowed, unfurling a roll of parchment, ‘that Hugo Ansbach of halfling stock is outlawed, for he gave lodgings and victuals to those villainous elves called Squirrels. The same applies to Justin Ingvar, a blacksmith of dwarven stock, who forged arrowheads for those wrongdoers. Thus does the burgrave announce that both are wanted and orders them to be hunted down. Whosoever seizes them will earn a reward of fifty crowns. Any who gives them victuals or shelter shall be considered an accomplice to their crime and shall suffer the same punishment. And should they be apprehended in a village or hamlet, the entire village or hamlet will pay a fine—’

‘But who,’ shouted someone in the crowd, ‘would give a halfling shelter? They should be hunted on their farms, and when they’re found, all those non-humans should be slung into the dungeons!’

‘To the gallows, not the dungeons!’

The town crier began to read further announcements issued by the burgrave and town council, and Ciri lost interest. She was just about to extricate herself from the crowd when she suddenly felt a hand on her bottom. A totally non-accidental, brazen and extremely skilled hand.

The crush ought to have prevented her from turning around to look, but in Kaer Morhen Ciri had learned how to manoeuvre in places that were difficult to move around in. She turned around, causing something of a disturbance. The young priest with the shaved head standing right behind her smiled an arrogant, rehearsed smile. ‘Right, then,’ said that smile, ‘what are we going to do now? You’ll blush sweetly and that’ll be the end of it, won’t it?’

It was clear the priest had never had to deal with one of Yennefer’s pupils.

‘Keep your hands to yourself, baldy!’ yelled Ciri, white with rage. ‘Grab your own arse, you . . . You whitewashed tomb!’

Taking advantage of the fact that the priest was pinned in by the crowd and couldn’t move, she intended to kick him, but Fabio prevented that, hurriedly pulling her well away from the priest and the site of the incident. Seeing that she was trembling with rage, he treated her to a few fritters dusted with caster sugar, at the sight of which Ciri immediately calmed down and forgot about the incident. From where they were standing by the stall they had a view of a scaffold with a pillory, but with no criminal in it. The scaffold itself was decorated with garlands of flowers and was being used by a group of wandering minstrels, dressed up like parrots, sawing away vigorously at violins and playing flutes and bagpipes. A young black-haired woman in a sequined waistcoat sang and danced, shaking a tambourine and merrily stamping tiny slippers.

To bite a witch beside a path,

Some vipers did contrive.

The snakes all perished one by one,

The witch is still alive.

The crowd gathered around the scaffold laughed heartily and clapped along. The fritter seller threw another batch into the hot oil. Fabio licked his fingers and tugged Ciri away by the sleeve.

There were innumerable stalls and delicious foods were being offered everywhere. They each ate a cream bun, then shared a smoked eel, which they followed with something very strange, which had been fried and impaled on a skewer. After that, they stopped by some barrels of sauerkraut and pretended to be tasting it, as if intending to buy a large quantity. When they had eaten their fill but then didn’t buy anything the stallholder called them ‘a pair of little shits’.

They walked on. Fabio bought a small basket of bergamot pears with the rest of the money. Ciri looked up at the sky but decided it still wasn’t noon.

‘Fabio? What are those tents and booths over there, by the wall?’

‘Sideshows. Want to see?’

‘Yes.’

There was a crowd of men in front of the first tent, shuffling about excitedly. The sounds of a flute floated out from inside.

‘The black-skinned Leila . . .’ read Ciri, struggling to decipher the lopsided, crooked writing on the flap, ‘reveals all the secrets of her body in the dance . . . What nonsense! What kind of secrets . . . ?’

‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Fabio, urging her on and blushing slightly. ‘Oh, look, this is more interesting. There’s a clairvoyant here who’ll tell your fortune. I’ve still got two groats. That should be enough—’

‘Waste of money,’ snorted Ciri. ‘Some prophecy it’ll be, for two groats! To predict the future you have to be a prophetess. Divination is a great gift. Even among enchantresses, no more than one in a hundred has that kind of ability—’

‘A fortune-teller predicted,’ interrupted the boy, ‘that my eldest sister would get married and it came true. Don’t make faces, Ciri. Come on, let’s have our fortunes told . . .’

‘I don’t want to get married. I don’t want my fortune told. It’s hot and that tent stinks of incense. I’m not going in. Go in yourself, if you want, and I’ll wait. I just don’t understand why you want a prophecy. What would you like to know?’

‘Well . . .’ stammered Fabio. ‘Mostly, it’s . . . it’s if I’m going to travel. I’d like to travel. And see the whole world . . .’

He will, thought Ciri suddenly, feeling dizzy. He’ll sail on great white sailing ships . . . He’ll sail to countries no one has seen before him . . . Fabio Sachs, explorer. He’ll give his name to a cape, to the very furthest point of an as-yet unnamed continent. When he’s fifty-four, married with a son and three daughters, he’ll die far from his home and his loved ones . . . of an as-yet unnamed disease . . .

‘Ciri! What’s the matter with you?’

She rubbed her face. She felt as though she were coming up through water, rising to the surface from the bottom of a deep, ice-cold lake.

‘It’s nothing . . .’ she mumbled, looking around and coming back to herself. ‘I felt dizzy . . . It’s because of this heat. And because of that incense from the tent . . .’

‘Because of that cabbage, more like,’ said Fabio seriously. ‘We oughtn’t to have eaten so much. My belly’s gurgling too.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’ snapped Ciri, lifting her head briskly and actually feeling better. The thoughts that had flown through her mind like a whirlwind dissipated and were lost in oblivion. ‘Come on, Fabio. Let’s go.’

‘Do you want a pear?’

‘Course I do.’

A group of teenage boys were playing spinning tops for money. The top, carefully wound up with string, had to be set spinning with a deft tug, like cracking a whip, to make it follow a circular path around a course drawn with chalk. Ciri had beaten most of the boys in Skellige and all the novices at the Temple of Melitele at spinning tops. So she was toying with the thought of joining the game and relieving the urchins not only of their coppers, but also of their patched britches, when her attention was suddenly caught by some loud cheering.

At the very end of a row of tents and booths stood a curious semicircular enclosure squeezed between the foot of the wall and some stone steps. It was formed from sheets of canvas stretched over six-foot poles. There was an entrance between two of the poles, blocked by a tall, pockmarked man wearing a jerkin and striped trousers tucked into sailor’s boots. A small group of people milled around in front of him, and folk would throw a few coppers into the pockmarked man’s hand and then disappear behind the canvas. The pockmarked man was dropping the money into a large sack, which he jingled as he shouted hoarsely.

‘Roll up, roll up! Over here! You will see, with your own eyes, the most frightful creature the gods ever created! Horror of horrors! A live basilisk, the venomous terror of the Zerrikan deserts, the devil incarnate, an insatiable man-eater! You’ve never seen such a monster, folks. Freshly caught, brought from beyond the seas in a coracle. Come and see this vicious, live basilisk with your own eyes, because you’ll never see one again. Not never, not nowhere! Last chance! Here, behind me, for a mere fifteen groats. Just ten groats for women with children!’

‘Ha,’ said Ciri, shooing wasps away from the pears. ‘A basilisk? A live one? This I must see. I’ve only seen them in books. Come on, Fabio.’

‘I haven’t got any more money . . .’

‘But I have. I’ll pay for you. Come on, in we go.’

‘That’ll be six,’ said the pockmarked man, looking down at the four coppers in his palm. ‘Three five-groat pieces each. Only women with children get in cheap.’

‘He,’ replied Ciri, pointing at Fabio with a pear, ‘is a child. And I’m a woman.’

‘Only women carrying children,’ growled the pockmarked man. ‘Go on, chuck in two more five-groat pieces, clever little miss, or scram and let other people through. Make haste, folks! Only three more empty spaces!’

Inside the canvas enclosure townspeople were milling around, forming a solid ring around a stage constructed of wooden planks. On the stage stood a wooden cage covered with a carpet. Having let in the final spectators, the pockmarked man jumped onto the stage, seized a long pole and used it to pull the carpet away. The air filled with the smell of offal mixed with an unpleasant reptilian stench. The spectators rumbled and stepped back a little.

‘You are being sensible, good people,’ said the pockmarked man. ‘Not too close, for it may be perilous!’

Inside the cage, which was far too cramped for it, lay a lizard. It was covered in dark, strangely shaped scales and curled up into a ball. When the pockmarked man knocked the cage with his pole, the reptile writhed, grated its scales against the bars, extended its long neck and let out a piercing hiss, revealing sharp, white fangs, which contrasted vividly with the almost black scales around its maw. The spectators exhaled audibly. A shaggy little dog in the arms of a woman who looked like a stallholder yapped shrilly.

‘Look carefully, good people,’ called the pockmarked man. ‘And be glad that beasts like this don’t live near our city! This monstrous basilisk is from distant Zerrikania! Don’t come any closer because, though it’s secure in a cage, its breath alone could poison you!’

Ciri and Fabio finally pushed their way through the ring of spectators.

‘The basilisk,’ continued the pockmarked man on stage, resting on the pole like a guard leaning on his halberd, ‘is the most venomous beast in the world! For the basilisk is the king of all the serpents! Were there more basilisks, this world would disappear without a trace! Fortunately, it is a most rare monster; it only ever hatches from an egg laid by a cockerel. And you know yourselves that not every cockerel can lay an egg, but only a knavish one who presents his rump to another cockerel in the manner of a mother hen.’

The spectators reacted with general laughter to this superior – or possibly posterior – joke. The only person not laughing was Ciri. She didn’t take her eyes off the creature, which, disturbed by the noise, was writhing and banging against the bars of the cage, biting them and vainly trying to spread its wings in the cramped space.

‘An egg laid by a cockerel like that,’ continued the pockmarked man, ‘must be brooded by a hundred and one venomous snakes! And when the basilisk hatches from the egg –’

‘That isn’t a basilisk,’ said Ciri, chewing a bergamot pear. The pockmarked man looked at her, askance.

‘– when the basilisk hatches, I was saying,’ he continued, ‘then it devours all the snakes in the nest, imbibing their venom without suffering any harm from it. It becomes so swollen with venom itself that it is able to kill not only with its teeth, not only with its touch, but with its breath alone! And when a mounted knight ups and stabs a basilisk with his spear, the poison runs up the shaft, killing both rider and horse outright!’

‘That’s the falsest lie,’ said Ciri aloud, spitting out a pip.

‘It’s the truest truth!’ protested the pockmarked man. ‘He kills them; he kills the horse and its rider!’

‘Yeah, right!’

‘Be quiet, miss!’ shouted the market trader with the dog. ‘Don’t interfere! We want to marvel and listen!’

‘Ciri, stop it,’ whispered Fabio, nudging her in the ribs. Ciri snorted at him, reaching into the basket for another pear.

‘Every animal,’ said the pockmarked man, raising his voice against the murmur which was intensifying among the spectators, ‘flees the basilisk as soon as it hears its hiss. Every animal, even a dragon – what am I saying? – even a cockrodile, and a cockrodile is awfully dreadful, as anyone who’s seen one knows. The one and only animal that doesn’t fear the basilisk is the marten. The marten, when it sees the monster in the wilderness, runs as fast as it can into the forest, looks for certain herbs known only to it and eats them. Then the basilisk’s venom is harmless, and the marten can bite it to death . . .’

Ciri snorted with laughter and made a long-drawn-out, extremely rude noise with her lips.

‘Hey, little know-it-all!’ burst out the pockmarked man. ‘If it’s not to your liking, you know where the door is! No one’s forcing you to listen or look at the basilisk!’

‘That’s no basilisk!’

‘Oh, yeah? So what is it, Miss Know-It-All?’

‘It’s a wyvern,’ said Ciri, throwing away the pear stalk and licking her fingers. ‘It’s a common wyvern. Young, small, starving and dirty. But a wyvern, that’s all. Vyverne, in the Elder Speech.’

‘Oh, look at this!’ shouted the pockmarked man. ‘What a clever clogs! Shut your trap, because when I—’

‘I say,’ spoke up a fair-haired young man in a velvet beret and a squire’s doublet without a coat of arms. He had a delicate, pale girl in an apricot dress on his arm. ‘Not so fast, my good animal catcher! Do not threaten the noble lady, for I will readily tan your hide with my sword. And furthermore, something smacks of trickery here!’

‘What trickery, young sir knight?’ choked the pockmarked man. ‘She’s lying, the horri— I meant to say, the high-born young lady is in error. It is a basilisk!’

‘It’s a wyvern,’ repeated Ciri.

‘What do you mean, a Vernon! It’s a basilisk! Just look how menacing it is, how it hisses, how it bites at its cage! Look at those teeth! It’s got teeth, I tell you, like—’

‘Like a wyvern,’ scowled Ciri.

‘If you’ve taken leave of your senses,’ said the pockmarked man, fixing her with a gaze that a real basilisk would have been proud of, ‘then come closer! Step up, and let it breathe on you! You laughed at its venom. Now let’s see you croak! Come along, step up!’

‘Not a problem,’ said Ciri, pulling her arm out of Fabio’s grasp and taking a step forward.

‘I shan’t allow it!’ cried the fair-haired squire, dropping his apricot companion’s arm and blocking Ciri’s way. ‘It cannot be! You are risking too much, fair lady.’

Ciri, who had never been addressed like that before, blushed a little, looked at the young man and fluttered her eyelids in a way she had tried out numerous times on the scribe Jarre.

‘There’s no risk whatsoever, noble knight,’ she smiled seductively, in spite of all Yennefer’s warnings, and reminders about the fable of the simpleton gazing foolishly at the cheese. ‘Nothing will happen to me. That so-called poisonous breath is claptrap.’

‘I would, however, like to stand beside you,’ said the youth, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘To protect and defend . . . Will you allow me?’

‘I will,’ said Ciri, not knowing why the expression of rage on the apricot maiden’s face was causing her such pleasure.

‘It is I who shall protect and defend her!’ said Fabio, sticking his chest out and looking at the squire defiantly. ‘And I shall stand with her too!’

‘Gentlemen.’ Ciri puffed herself up with pride and stuck her nose in the air. ‘A little more dignity. Don’t shove. There’ll be room enough for everyone.’

The ring of spectators swayed and murmured as she bravely approached the cage, followed so closely by the boys that she could almost feel their breath on her neck. The wyvern hissed furiously and struggled, its reptilian stench assaulting their noses. Fabio gasped loudly, but Ciri didn’t withdraw. She drew even closer and held out a hand, almost touching the cage. The monster hurled itself at the bars, raking them with its teeth. The crowd swayed once more and someone cried out.

‘Well?’ Ciri turned around, hands proudly on her hips. ‘Did I die? Has that so-called venomous monster poisoned me? He’s no more a basilisk than I’m a—’

She broke off, seeing the sudden paleness on the faces of Fabio and the squire. She turned around quickly and saw two bars of the cage parting under the force of the enraged lizard, tearing rusty nails out of the frame.

‘Run!’ she shouted at the top of her voice. ‘The cage is breaking!’

The crowd rushed, screaming, for the door. Several of them tried to tear their way through the canvas sheeting, but they only managed to entangle themselves and others in it, eventually collapsing into a struggling, yelling mass of humanity. Just as Ciri was trying to jump out of the way the squire seized her arm, and the two of them staggered, tripped and fell to the ground, taking Fabio down with them. Anxious yaps came from the stallholder’s shaggy little dog, colourful swearwords from the pockmarked man and piercing shrieks from the disorientated apricot maiden.

The bars of the cage broke with a crack and the wyvern struggled free. The pockmarked man jumped down from the stage and tried to restrain it with his pole, but the writhing monster knocked it out of his hand with one blow of its claws and lashed him with its spiny tail, transforming his pockmarked cheek into a bloody pulp. Hissing and spreading its tattered wings, the wyvern flew down from the stage; its sights were set on Ciri, Fabio and the squire, who were trying to get to their feet. The apricot maiden fainted and fell flat on her back. Ciri tensed, preparing to jump, but realised she wouldn’t make it.

They were saved by the shaggy little dog who, still yapping shrilly, broke free from its owner’s arms – she had fallen and become entangled in her own six skirts – and lunged at the monster. The wyvern hissed, rose up, pinned the cur down with its talons, twisted its body with a swift, serpentine movement and sank its teeth into the dog’s neck. The dog howled wildly.

The squire struggled to his knees and reached down to his side, but didn’t find his hilt. Ciri had been too quick for him. She had drawn his sword from its scabbard in a lightning-fast movement and leapt into a half-turn. The wyvern rose, the dog’s severed head hanging in its sharp-toothed jaws.

It seemed to Ciri that all the movements she had learned in Kaer Morhen were performing themselves, almost without her conscious will or participation. She slashed the astonished wyvern in the belly and immediately spun away to avoid it. The lunging lizard fell to the sand spurting blood. Ciri jumped over it, skilfully avoiding its swishing tail. Then, with a sure, accurate and powerful blow, she hacked into the monster’s neck, jumped back, and made an instinctive – but now unnecessary – evasive manoeuvre, and then struck again at once, this time chopping through its backbone. The wyvern writhed briefly in pain and then stopped moving; only its serpentine tail continued to thrash and slap the ground, raining sand all around.

Ciri quickly shoved the bloodied sword into the squire’s hand.

‘Danger over!’ she shouted to the fleeing crowd and the spectators still trying to extricate themselves from the canvas sheeting. ‘The monster’s dead! This brave knight has killed him dead . . .’

She suddenly felt a tightening in her throat and a whirling in her stomach; everything went black. Something hit her in the bottom with tremendous force, making her teeth snap together. She looked around blankly. The thing that had struck her was the ground.

‘Ciri . . .’ whispered Fabio, kneeling beside her. ‘What’s the matter? By the gods, you’re as white as a sheet . . .’

‘It’s a pity,’ she muttered, ‘you can’t see yourself.’

People crowded around. Several of them prodded the wyvern’s body with sticks and pokers. A few of them began dressing the pockmarked man’s wounds. The rest cheered the heroic squire: the fearless dragon killer, the only person to keep a cool head, and prevent a massacre. The squire revived the apricot maiden, still staring somewhat dumbstruck at the blade of his sword which was covered with smeared streaks of drying blood.

‘My hero . . .’ said the apricot maiden, coming to and throwing her arms around the squire’s neck. ‘My saviour! My darling!’

‘Fabio,’ said Ciri weakly, seeing the city constables pushing through the crowd. ‘Help me get up and get us out of here. Quickly.’

‘Poor children . . .’ said a fat townswoman in a cap as she watched them sneak away from the crowd. ‘Oh, you were lucky. Were it not for this valiant young knight, your mothers would be sorely grieving!’

‘Find out who that young squire serves!’ shouted a craftsman in a leather apron. ‘That deed deserves a knightly belt and spurs!’

‘And to the pillory with the animal catcher! He deserves a thrashing! Bringing a monster like that into the city, among people . . .’

‘Water, and quickly! The maiden’s fainted again!’

‘My darling Foo-Foo!’ the stallholder suddenly howled, as she leaned over what was left of the shaggy little dog. ‘My poor little sweetheart! Someone, please! Catch that wench, that rascal who infuriated the dragon! Where is she? Someone grab her! It wasn’t the animal catcher; she’s to blame for all this!’

The city constables, helped by numerous volunteers, began to shove their way through the crowd and look around. Ciri had overcome her dizziness.

‘Fabio,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s split up. We’ll meet up in a bit in that alleyway we came along. Go. And if anyone stops you to ask, you don’t know me or anything about me.’

‘But . . . Ciri—’

‘Go!’

She squeezed Yennefer’s amulet in her fist and murmured the activation spell. It started working in an instant, and there was no time to lose. The constables, who had been forcing their way through the crowd towards her, stopped, confused.

‘What the bloody hell?’ said one of them in astonishment, looking, it would have seemed, straight at Ciri. ‘Where is she? I just saw her . . .’

‘There, over there!’ yelled another, pointing the wrong way.

Ciri turned around and walked away, still a little dazed and weakened by the rush of adrenaline and the activation of the amulet. The amulet was working perfectly; no one could see her and no one was paying any attention to her. Absolutely no one. As a consequence she was jostled, stamped on and kicked innumerable times before she finally extricated herself from the crowd. By some miracle she escaped being crushed by a chest thrown from a cart. She almost had an eye poked out by a pitchfork. Spells, it turned out, had their good and bad sides, and as many advantages as disadvantages.

The amulet’s effects did not last long. Ciri was not powerful enough to control it or extend the time the spell was active. Fortunately, the spell wore off at the right moment, just as she left the crowd and saw Fabio waiting for her in the alley.

‘Oh my,’ said the boy. ‘Oh my goodness, Ciri. You’re here. I was worried . . .’

‘You needn’t have been. Come on, quickly. Noon has passed. I’ve got to get back.’

‘You were pretty handy with that monster.’ The boy looked at her in admiration. ‘You moved like lightning! Where did you learn to do that?’

‘What? The squire killed the wyvern.’

‘That’s not true. I saw—’

‘You didn’t see anything! Please, Fabio, not a word to anyone. Anyone. And particularly not to Madam Yennefer. Oh, I’d be in for it if she found out . . .’

She fell silent.

‘Those people were right.’ She pointed behind her, towards the market square. ‘I provoked the wyvern . . . It was all my fault . . .’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ retorted Fabio firmly. ‘That cage was rotten and bodged together. It could have broken any second: in an hour, tomorrow, the next day . . . It’s better that it happened now, because you saved—’

‘The squire did!’ yelled Ciri. ‘The squire! Will you finally get that into your head? I’m telling you, if you grass me up, I’ll turn you into a . . . a . . . well something horrible! I know spells! I’ll turn you into—’

‘Stop,’ someone called out behind them. ‘That’s quite enough of that!’

One of the women walking behind them had dark, smoothly combed hair, shining eyes and thin lips. She had a short mauve camaka cape trimmed with dormouse fur thrown over her shoulders.

‘Why aren’t you in school, novice?’ she asked in a cold, resonant voice, eyeing Ciri with a penetrating gaze.

‘Wait, Tissaia,’ said the other woman, who was younger, tall and fair-haired, and wore a green dress with a plunging neckline. ‘I don’t know her. I don’t think she’s—’

‘Yes, she is,’ interrupted the dark-haired woman. ‘I’m certain she’s one of your girls, Rita. You can’t know them all. She’s one of the ones who sneaked out of Loxia during the confusion when we were moving dormitories. And she’ll admit as much in a moment. Well, novice, I’m waiting.’

‘What?’ frowned Ciri.

The woman pursed her thin lips and straightened her cuffs.

‘Who did you steal that amulet of concealment from? Or did someone give it to you?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t test my patience. Name, class, and the name of your preceptress. Quickly!’

‘What?’

‘Are you acting dumb, novice? Your name! What is your name?’

Ciri clenched her teeth together and her eyes flared with a green glow.

‘Anna Ingeborga Klopstock,’ she muttered brazenly.

The woman raised a hand and Ciri immediately realised the full extent of her error. Only once had Yennefer, wearied by Ciri’s endless complaining, showed her how a paralysing spell worked. The sensation had been extremely unpleasant. It was the same this time, too.

Fabio yelled weakly and lunged towards her, but the fair-haired woman seized him by the collar and held him fast. The boy struggled but the woman’s grip was like iron. Ciri couldn’t budge an inch either. She felt as though she were slowly becoming rooted to the spot. The dark-haired woman leaned over her and fixed her with her shining eyes.

‘I do not approve of corporal punishment,’ she said icily, straightening her cuffs once more. ‘But I’ll do my best to have you flogged, novice. Not for disobedience, nor for theft, nor for truancy. Not because you are wearing non-regulation clothing. Not for being in the company of a boy and not even for talking to him about matters you are forbidden to speak of. You will be flogged for not recognising an arch-mistress.’

‘No!’ shrieked Fabio. ‘Don’t harm her, noble lady! I’m a clerk in Mr Molnar Giancardi’s bank, and this young lady is—’

‘Shut up!’ yelled Ciri. ‘Shut—’ The gagging spell was cast quickly and brutally. She tasted blood in her mouth.

‘Well?’ the fair-haired woman urged Fabio, releasing the boy and tenderly smoothing his ruffled collar. ‘Speak. Who is this haughty young maid?’

Margarita Laux-Antille emerged from the pool with a splash, spraying water everywhere. Ciri couldn’t stop herself looking. She had seen Yennefer naked on several occasions and hadn’t imagined anyone could have a more shapely figure. She was wrong. Even marble statues of goddesses and nymphs would have blushed at the sight of Margarita Laux-Antille undressed.

The enchantress took a pail of cold water and poured it over her breasts, swearing lewdly and then shaking herself off.

‘You, girl.’ She beckoned to Ciri. ‘Be so good as to hand me a towel. And please stop being angry with me.’

Ciri snorted quietly, still piqued. When Fabio had revealed who she was, the enchantresses had dragged her half the length of the city, making a laughing stock of her. Naturally, the matter was cleared up instantly in Giancardi’s bank. The enchantresses apologised to Yennefer, asking for their behaviour to be excused. They explained that the Aretuza novices had been temporarily moved to Loxia because the school’s rooms had been turned into accommodation for the participants of the mages’ conclave. Taking advantage of the confusion around the move, several novices had slipped out of Thanedd and played truant in the city. Margarita Laux-Antille and Tissaia de Vries, alarmed by the activation of Ciri’s amulet, had mistaken her for one of their truants.

The enchantresses apologised to Yennefer, but none of them thought of apologising to Ciri. Yennefer, listening to the apologies, simply looked at her and Ciri could feel her ears burning with shame. But it was worse for Fabio; Molnar Giancardi admonished him so severely the boy had tears in his eyes. Ciri felt sorry for him but was also proud of him; Fabio kept his promise and didn’t breathe a word about the wyvern.

Yennefer, it turned out, knew Tissaia and Margarita very well. The enchantresses invited her to the Silver Heron, the best and most expensive inn in Gors Velen, where Tissaia de Vries was staying, delaying her trip to the island for reasons known only to herself. Margarita Laux-Antille, who, it turned out, was the rectoress of Aretuza, had accepted the older enchantress’s invitation and was temporarily sharing the apartment with her. The inn was truly luxurious; it had its own bathhouse in the cellars, which Margarita and Tissaia had hired for their exclusive use, paying extortionate sums of money for it. Yennefer and Ciri, of course, were encouraged to use the bathhouse too. As a result, all of them had been soaking in the pool and perspiring in the steam by turns for several hours, gossiping the entire time.

Ciri gave the enchantress a towel. Margarita pinched her gently on the cheek. Ciri snorted again and dived with a splash into the rosemary-perfumed water of the pool.

‘She swims like a young seal,’ laughed Margarita, stretching out beside Yennefer on a wooden lounger, ‘and is as shapely as a naiad. Will you give her to me, Yenna?’

‘That’s why I brought her here.’

‘Which class shall I put her in? Does she know the basics?’

‘She does, but she can start at the beginning like everyone else. It won’t do her any harm.’

‘That would be wise,’ said Tissaia de Vries, busily correcting the arrangement of cups on the marble tabletop, which was covered in a thin layer of condensation. ‘That would be wise indeed, Yennefer. The girl will find it easier if she begins with the other novices.’

Ciri hauled herself out of the pool and sat on the edge, wringing her hair out and splashing her feet in the water. Yennefer and Margarita gossiped lazily, wiping their faces from time to time with cloths soaked in cold water. Tissaia, modestly swathed in a sheet, didn’t join in the conversation, and gave the impression of being utterly absorbed in tidying the objects on the table.

‘My humble apologies, noble ladies,’ called the innkeeper suddenly, unseen, from above. ‘Please forgive my daring to disturb, but . . . an officer wishes to talk to Madam de Vries urgently. Apparently the matter will brook no delay!’

Margarita Laux-Antille giggled and winked at Yennefer, upon which they pulled the towels from their hips and assumed exotic and extremely provocative poses.

‘Let the officer enter,’ shouted Margarita, trying not to laugh. ‘Welcome. We’re ready.’

‘Children,’ sighed Tissaia de Vries, shaking her head. ‘Cover yourself, Ciri.’

The officer came in, but the enchantresses’ prank misfired. The officer wasn’t embarrassed at the sight of them, and didn’t blush, gape or goggle, because the officer was a woman. A tall, slender woman with a thick, black plait and a sword at her side.

‘Madam,’ said the woman stiffly, her hauberk clanking as she gave Tissaia de Vries a slight bow, ‘I report the execution of your instructions. I would like to ask for permission to return to the garrison.’

‘You may,’ replied Tissaia curtly. ‘Thank you for the escort and your help. Have a safe journey.’

Yennefer sat up on her lounger, looking at the black, gold and red rosette on the soldier’s shoulder.

‘Do I know you?’

The warrior bowed stiffly and wiped her sweat-covered face. It was hot in the bathhouse, and she was wearing a hauberk and leather tunic.

‘I often used to visit Vengerberg, Madam Yennefer,’ she said. ‘My name is Rayla.’

‘Judging by the rosette, you serve in King Demavend’s special units.’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Your rank?’

‘Captain.’

‘Very good.’ Margarita Laux-Antille laughed. ‘I note with pleasure that Demavend’s army has finally begun to award commissions to soldiers with balls.’

‘May I withdraw?’ said the soldier, standing up straight and resting her hand on the hilt of her sword.

‘You may.’

‘I sensed hostility in your voice, Yenna,’ said Margarita a moment later. ‘What do you have against the captain?’

Yennefer stood up and took two goblets from the table.

‘Did you see the posts by the crossroads?’ she asked. ‘You must have seen them, must have smelled the stench of rotting corpses. Those posts are their idea and their work. She and her subordinates from the special units. They’re a gang of sadists!’

‘There’s a war on, Yennefer. Rayla must have seen her comrades-in-arms falling, alive, into the Squirrels’ clutches many times. Then hung by their arms from trees as target practice. Blinded, castrated, with their feet burnt in campfires. Falka herself wouldn’t have been ashamed of the atrocities committed by the Scoia’tael.’

‘The methods of the special units are remarkably similar to those of Falka. But that’s not the point, Rita. I’m not getting sentimental about the fate of elves and I know what war is. I know how wars are won, too. They’re won by soldiers who fight for their countries and homes with conviction and sacrifice. Not by soldiers like her, by mercenaries fighting for money who are unable and unwilling to sacrifice themselves. They don’t even know what sacrifice is. And if they do, they despise it.’

‘To hell with her, her dedication and her contempt. What does it matter to us? Ciri, throw something decent on, pop upstairs and fetch us another carafe. I feel like getting drunk today.’

Tissaia de Vries sighed, shaking her head. It didn’t escape Margarita’s attention.

‘Fortunately,’ she giggled, ‘we aren’t at school any longer, mistress dear. We can do what we want now.’

‘Even in the presence of a future novice?’ asked Tissaia scathingly. ‘When I was rectoress at Aretuza—’

‘We remember, we remember,’ interrupted Yennefer with a smile, ‘and even if we’d prefer to forget, we never will. Go and fetch that carafe, Ciri.’

Upstairs, waiting for the carafe, Ciri witnessed the officer depart with her squad of four soldiers. She watched their posture, expressions, clothing and arms in fascination and admiration. Right then Rayla, the captain with the black plait, was arguing with the innkeeper.

‘I’m not going to wait until daybreak! And I couldn’t give a damn if the gates are locked. I want to leave immediately. I know the inn has its own postern in the stables. I order it to be opened!’

‘But the regulations—’

‘I don’t give a damn about the regulations! I’m carrying out the orders of Arch-Mistress de Vries!’

‘All right, all right, captain. Don’t shout. I’ll open up . . .’

The postern, it turned out, was in a narrow, securely gated passageway, leading straight beyond the city walls. Before Ciri took the carafe from the servant’s hands, she saw the postern being opened and Rayla and her unit riding out, into the night.

Ciri was deep in thought.

‘Oh, at last,’ said Margarita cheerfully, though it was unclear whether she was referring to the sight of Ciri or the carafe she was carrying. Ciri put the carafe on the table – very clearly wrongly, because Tissaia de Vries repositioned it at once. When Yennefer poured, she spoiled the entire arrangement too, and Tissaia had to put it right again. Imagining Tissaia as a teacher filled Ciri with dread.

Yennefer and Margarita returned to their interrupted conversation, not sparing the contents of the carafe. Ciri realised it wouldn’t be long before she would have to go and get a fresh one. She pondered, listening to the enchantresses’ discussion.

‘No, Yenna.’ Margarita shook her head. ‘You aren’t up to speed, I see. I’ve dumped Lars. That’s history. Elaine deireadh, as the elves would say.’

‘And that’s why you want to get drunk?’

‘That’s one of the reasons,’ confirmed Margarita Laux-Antille. ‘I’m sad. I can’t hide it. I was with him for four years, after all. But I had to dump him. It was hopeless . . .’

‘Particularly,’ snorted Tissaia de Vries, staring at the golden wine as she swilled it around her cup, ‘since Lars was married.’

‘I consider that of no importance,’ said the enchantress, shrugging. ‘All the attractive men of a certain age and who interest me are married. I can’t help that. Lars loved me and, I would add, loved me for quite some time . . . Ah, what can I say? He wanted too much. He jeopardised my freedom, and the thought of monogamy makes me sick. And after all, I was only following your example, Yenna. Do you remember that conversation in Vengerberg? When you decided to break up with that witcher of yours? I advised you then to think twice. I told you, you can’t find love in the street. But you were right. Love is love, and life is life. Love passes . . .’

‘Don’t listen to her, Yennefer,’ said Tissaia coldly. ‘She’s bitter and full of regrets. Do you know why she’s not going to the banquet at Aretuza? Because she’s ashamed to show up alone, without the man she’s been involved with for four years. The man people envied her for. Who she lost because she was unable to value his love.’

‘Perhaps we could talk about something else,’ suggested Yennefer in an apparently carefree but slightly altered voice. ‘Ciri, pour us some wine. Oh hell, that carafe’s small. Be so kind as to bring us another.’

‘Bring two,’ laughed Margarita, ‘and as a reward you’ll get a sip and be able to sit with us; you won’t have to strain your ears from a distance. Your education can begin here, right now, before you join me at Aretuza.’

‘Education!’ Tissaia raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘By the gods!’

‘Oh, do be quiet, beloved mistress,’ said Margarita, slapping a hand against her wet thigh, pretending to be angry. ‘I’m the rectoress of the school now! You didn’t manage to flunk me during the final exams!’

‘I regret that.’

‘I do, too! Just imagine, I’d have a private practice now, like Yenna. I wouldn’t have to sweat with novices. I wouldn’t have to wipe the noses of the blubbering ones or lock horns with the cheeky ones. Ciri, listen to me and learn. An enchantress always takes action. Wrongly or rightly; that is revealed later. But you should act, be brave, seize life by the scruff of the neck. Believe me, little one, you should only regret inactivity, indecisiveness, hesitation. You shouldn’t regret actions or decisions, even if they occasionally end in sadness and regret. Look at that serious lady sitting there pulling faces and pedantically correcting everything in sight. That’s Tissaia de Vries, arch-mistress, who has educated dozens of enchantresses. Teaching them how to act. Teaching them that indecision—’

‘Enough, Rita.’

‘Tissaia’s right,’ said Yennefer, still staring into the corner of the bathhouse. ‘Stop. I know you’re feeling low because of Lars, but don’t moralise. The girl still has time for that kind of learning. And she won’t receive it in school. Ciri, go and get another carafe.’

Ciri stood up. She was completely dressed.

And her mind was utterly made up.

‘What?’ Yennefer shrieked. ‘What do you mean she’s gone?’

‘She ordered me . . .’ mumbled the innkeeper, pale, with his back pressed against the wall. ‘She ordered me to saddle a horse . . .’

‘And you obeyed her? Rather than ask us?’

‘Madam! How was I to know? I was sure she was leaving on your orders . . . It never once occurred to me—’

‘You damned fool!’

‘Take it easy, Yennefer,’ said Tissaia, pressing a hand against her forehead. ‘Don’t succumb to your emotions. It’s night. They won’t let her through the gate.’

‘She ordered the postern opened . . .’ whispered the innkeeper.

‘And was it?’

‘Because of the conclave, madam,’ said the innkeeper, lowering his eyes, ‘the city is full of sorcerers . . . People are afraid. No one dares to get in their way . . . How could I refuse her? She spoke just like you do, madam, in exactly the same tone, and she looked the same way . . . No one even dared to look her in the eye, never mind ask a question . . . She was like you . . . The spitting image . . . She even ordered a quill and ink and wrote a letter.’

‘Hand it over!’

Tissaia de Vries was quicker, and read aloud:

Madam Yennefer,

Forgive me. I’m riding to Hirundum because I want to see Geralt. I want to see him before I start school. Forgive my disobedience, but I must. I know you’ll punish me, but I don’t want to regret my indecision and hesitation. If I’m to have regrets, let them be for deeds and actions. I’m an enchantress. I seize life by the scruff of the neck. I’ll return when I can.

Ciri

‘Is that all?’

‘There’s also a postscript.’

Tell Madam Rita she won’t have to wipe my nose at school.

Margarita Laux-Antille shook her head in disbelief as Yennefer cursed. The innkeeper flushed and opened his mouth. He’d heard many curses in his life, but never that one.

The wind blew from the land towards the sea. Waves of cloud drifted over the moon, suspended over the forest. The road to Hirundum was plunged into darkness making galloping too dangerous. Ciri slowed to a trot, but she didn’t consider slowing to a walk. She was in a hurry.

The growling of an approaching storm could be heard in the distance, and from time to time the horizon was lit up by a flash of lightning, revealing the toothed saw of treetops against the dusk.

She reined in her horse. She was at a junction; the road forked and both forks looked identical.

Why hadn’t Fabio said anything about a fork in the road? And anyway, I never get lost. After all, I always know which way to walk or ride . . .

So why don’t I know which road to take now?

A huge shape glided silently past her head and Ciri felt her heart in her throat. The horse neighed, kicked and galloped off, choosing the right-hand fork. After a moment, she reined it in.

‘It was just an owl,’ she panted, trying to calm herself and the horse. ‘Just an ordinary bird . . . There’s nothing to be afraid of . . .’

The wind grew stronger, and the dark clouds completely covered the moon. But before her, in the vista of the road, in the hole gaping among the trees, it was light. She rode faster, the sand flying up from the horse’s hooves.

A little later she had to stop. In front of her was a cliff and the sea, from which the familiar black cone of the island rose up. The lights of Garstang, Loxia and Aretuza could not be seen from where she was. She could only see the soaring, solitary tower which crowned Thanedd.

Tor Lara.

A blinding bolt of lightning connected the overcast sky to the pinnacle of the tower, and a moment later it thundered. Tor Lara glowered at her, its windows become red eyes. For a second it seemed a fire was burning inside the tower.

Tor Lara . . . The Tower of Gulls . . . Why does its name fill me with such dread?

The gale tossed the trees around. The branches whispered. Ciri screwed up her eyes, and dust and leaves struck her cheek. She turned the snorting, skittering horse back, having regained her orientation. The Isle of Thanedd faced north, so she must have ridden westwards. The sandy road lay in the dusk like a bright, white ribbon. She set off again at a gallop.

Ciri suddenly saw some riders in a flash of lightning. Dark, vague, moving shapes on both sides of the road. It thundered once more and she heard a cry.

‘Gar’ean!’

Without thinking, she spurred her horse, reined it back, turned around and galloped away. Behind her there were shouts, whistles, neighing and the thudding of hooves.

‘Gar’ean! Dh’oine!’

Galloping, the thud of hooves, the rush of the wind. Darkness, with the white trunks of roadside birches flashing by. Lightning. A thunderclap. And, in its light, two riders trying to block her way. One reached out, trying to grab her reins. He had a squirrel’s tail attached to his hat. Ciri kicked her horse with her heels, clinging to its neck, the speed pulling her over to one side. Lightning. Behind her rose shouting, whistling and a clap of thunder.

‘Spar’le, Yaevinn!’

Gallop, gallop! Quicker, horse! Lightning. Thunder. A fork in the road. To the left! I never lose my way! Another fork. To the right! Gallop, horse! Faster, faster!

The road went uphill, sand under the horse’s hooves. The horse, even though it was being spurred on, slowed . . .

She looked around at the top of the hill. Another lightning flash lit up the road. It was totally empty. She listened hard but only heard the wind whistling in the leaves. It thundered again.

There’s no one here. Squirrels . . . it’s just a memory from Kaedwen. The Rose of Shaerrawedd . . . I imagined it. There isn’t a living soul here. No one’s chasing me . . .

The wind struck her. The wind’s blowing from the land, she thought, and I can feel it on my right cheek . . .

I’m lost.

Lightning. It lit up the surface of the sea against the black cone of the Isle of Thanedd. And Tor Lara. The Tower of Gulls. The tower that was drawing Ciri like a magnet . . . But I don’t want to go to that tower. I’m riding to Hirundum. I must see Geralt.

Lightning flashed again.

A black horse stood between her and the cliff. And on it sat a knight in a helmet adorned with the wings of a bird of prey. Its wings suddenly flapped, the bird took flight . . .

Cintra!

Paralysing fear. Her hands gripping the reins tightly. Lightning. The black knight spurred his horse. He had a ghastly mask instead of a face. The wings flapped . . .

The horse set off at a gallop without needing to be urged. Darkness illuminated by lightning. The forest was coming to an end. The splash and squelch of swamp under the horse’s hooves. Behind her the swish of a raptor’s wings. Closer and closer . . . Closer . . .

A furious gallop, her eyes watering from their speed. Lightning sliced the sky, and in its flash Ciri saw alders and willows on either side of the road. But they weren’t trees. They were the servants of the Alder King. Servants of the black knight, who was galloping after her, with raptor’s wings swishing on his helmet. Misshapen monsters on both sides of the road stretched their gnarled arms towards her; they laughed insanely, the black jaws of their hollows opening wide. Ciri flattened herself against the horse’s neck. Branches whistled, lashed her and tore at her clothes. The distorted trunks creaked and the hollow jaws snapped, howling with scornful laughter . . .

The Lion Cub of Cintra! Child of the Elder Blood!

The black knight was right behind her; Ciri felt his hand trying to seize her long hair. The horse, urged on by her cries, leapt forward, cleared an unseen obstacle with a powerful bound, crashed through reeds, stumbled . . .

She reined it in, leaning back in the saddle, and turned the snorting horse back. She screamed wildly, furiously. She yanked her sword from its scabbard and whirled it above her head. This is Cintra no longer! I’m no longer a child! I’m no longer helpless! I won’t allow it . . .

‘I forbid it! You will not touch me again! You will never touch me!’

Her horse landed in the water with a splash and a squelch, belly-deep. Ciri leaned forward, cried out, urged her mount on with her heels and struggled back onto the causeway again. Ponds, she thought. Fabio talked about fishponds. It’s Hirundum. I’ve made it. I never lose my way . . .

Lightning. Behind her the causeway, ahead of her a black wall of forest cutting into the sky like a saw blade. And no one there. Silence broken only by the howling of the gale. Somewhere on the marsh she could hear a frightened duck quacking.

Nobody. There is no one on the causeway. No one’s following me. It was a phantom, a nightmare. Memories from Cintra. I only imagined it.

A small light in the distance. A lighthouse. Or a fire. It’s a farm. Hirundum. It’s close now. Only one more effort . . .

Flashes of lightning. One. Another. Yet another. Each without a thunderclap. The wind suddenly dropped. The horse neighs, tosses its head and rears up.

Against the black sky appears a milky, quickly brightening ribbon, writhing like a serpent. The wind hits the willows once more, throwing up clouds of leaves and dry grass.

The distant lights vanish. They disappear and blur in the deluge of the million blue sparks which suddenly light up the entire swamp. The horse snorts, whinnies and charges frantically across the causeway. Ciri struggles to remain in the saddle.

The vague, ghastly shapes of riders become visible in the ribbon sliding across the sky. As they come closer and closer, they can be seen ever more clearly. Buffalo horns and ragged crests sway on their helmets, and cadaverous masks show white beneath them. The riders sit on horses’ skeletons, cloaked in ragged caparisons. A fierce gale howls among the willows, blades of lightning slash the black sky. The wind moans louder and louder. No, it’s not the wind. It’s ghostly singing.

The ghastly cavalcade turns and hurtles straight at her. The hooves of the spectral horses stir up the glow of the will o’ the wisps suspended above the swamps. At the head of the cavalcade gallops the King of the Wild Hunt. A rusty helmet sways above his skull-like face, its gaping eye sockets burning with a livid flame. A ragged cloak flutters. A necklace, as empty as an old peapod, rattles against the rusty cuirass, a necklace which, it is said, once contained precious stones, which fell out during the frenzied chase across the heavens. And became stars . . .

It isn’t true! It doesn’t exist! It’s a nightmare, a phantom, an illusion! I’m only imagining this!

The King of the Wild Hunt spurs on his skeleton steed and erupts in wild, horrifying laughter.

O, Child of the Elder Blood! You belong to us! You are ours! Join our procession, join our hunt! We will race, race unto the very end, unto eternity, unto the very end of existence! You are ours, starry-eyed daughter of chaos! Join us; learn the joy of the hunt! You are ours. You are one of us! Your place is among us!

‘No!’ she cries. ‘Be gone! You are corpses!’

The King of the Wild Hunt laughs, the rotten teeth snapping above his rusted gorget. The skull’s eye sockets glitter lividly.

Yes, we are corpses. But you are death.

Ciri clung to the horse’s neck. She didn’t have to urge her horse on. Sensing the pursuing apparitions behind her, the steed thundered across the causeway at a breakneck gallop.

*

The halfling Bernie Hofmeier, a Hirundum farmer, lifted his shock of curly locks, listening to the sound of the distant thunder.

‘It’s a dangerous thing,’ he said, ‘a storm like this without any rain. Lightning will strike somewhere and then you’ve got a fire on your hands . . .’

‘A little rain would come in handy,’ sighed Dandelion, tightening up the pegs of his lute, ‘because you could cut the air with a knife . . . My shirt’s stuck to my back and the mosquitoes are biting . . . But I reckon it’ll blow over. The storm has been circling, circling, but for a while there’s been lightning somewhere in the north. Over the sea, I think.’

‘It’s hitting Thanedd,’ confirmed the halfling, ‘the highest point in the area. That tower on the island, Tor Lara, attracts lightning like nobody’s business. It looks like it’s on fire during a decent storm. It’s a wonder it doesn’t fall apart . . .’

‘It’s magic,’ said the troubadour with conviction. ‘Everything on Thanedd is magic, even the rock itself. And sorcerers aren’t afraid of thunderbolts. What am I saying? Did you know, Bernie, that they can even catch thunderbolts?’

‘Get away! You’re lying, Dandelion.’

‘May the lightning strike me—’ the poet broke off, anxiously looking up at the sky. ‘May a goose nip me if I’m lying. I’m telling you, Hofmeier, sorcerers catch thunderbolts. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Old Gorazd, the one who was killed on Sodden Hill, once caught a thunderbolt in front of my very eyes. He took a long, thin piece of metal, he hooked one end of it onto the top of his tower, and the other—’

‘You should put the other end in a bottle,’ suddenly squeaked Hofmeier’s son, who was hanging around on the veranda. He was a tiny little halfling with a thick mop of hair as curly as a ram’s fleece. ‘In a glass demijohn, like the ones Daddy makes wine in. The lightning whizzes down the wire into the demijohn—’

‘Get inside, Franklin!’ yelled the farmer. ‘Time for bed, this minute! It’ll be midnight soon and there’s work to be done tomorrow! And just you wait till I catch you, spouting off about demijohns and wires. The strap’ll be out for you! You won’t be able to sit down for the next two Sundays! Petunia, get him out of here! And bring us more beer!’

‘You’ve had quite enough,’ said Petunia Hofmeier angrily, gathering up her son from the veranda. ‘You’ve already put away a skinful.’

‘Stop nagging. Just look out for the Witcher’s coming. A guest ought to be offered hospitality.’

‘When the Witcher arrives I’ll bring some. For him.’

‘Stingy cow,’ muttered Hofmeier so that his wife didn’t hear. ‘All her kin, the Biberveldts from Knotweed Meadow, every last one of them is a tight-fisted, stingy, skinflint . . . But the Witcher’s taking his time. He went over to the ponds and disappeared. ’E’s a strange one. Did you see how he looked at the girls, at Cinia and Tangerine, when they were playing in the yard of an evening? He had a strange look about him. And now . . . I can’t help feeling he went away to be by himself. And he took shelter with me because my farm’s out of the way, far from the others. You know him best, Dandelion, you say . . .’

‘Do I know him?’ said the poet, swatting a mosquito on his neck, plucking his lute and staring at the black outlines of willows by the pond. ‘No, Bernie. I don’t know him. I don’t think anyone knows him. But something’s happening to him, I can see it. Why did he come here, to Hirundum? To be nearer the Isle of Thanedd? And yesterday, when I suggested we both ride to Gors Velen, from where you can see Thanedd, he refused without a second thought. What’s keeping him here? Did you give him some well-paid contracts?’

‘Not a chance,’ muttered the halfling. ‘To be honest, I don’t believe there was ever a monster here at all. That kid who drowned in the pond might have got cramp. But everyone started yelling that it was a drowner or a kikimora and we ought to call a witcher . . . And they promised him such a paltry purse it’s shameful. And what does he do? He’s been roaming around the causeway for three nights; he sleeps during the day or sits saying nothing, like a straw man, watching the children and the house . . . Strange. Peculiar, I’d say.’

‘And you’d be right.’

Lightning flashed, lighting up the farmyard and the farm buildings. For a moment, the ruins of the elven palace at the end of the causeway flashed white. A few seconds later, a clap of thunder rolled over the ponds. A sudden wind got up, and the trees and reeds by the pond whispered and bent. The surface of the water rippled, went dull and then ruffled up the leaves of the water lilies.

‘The storm seems to be coming towards us,’ said the farmer, looking up at the sky. ‘Perhaps the sorcerers used magic to drive it from the island. They say at least two hundred of them have turned up on Thanedd . . . What do you think, Dandelion, what will they be debating on that island of theirs? Will any good come of it?’

‘For us? I doubt it,’ said the troubadour, strumming the lute strings with his thumb. ‘Those conclaves usually mean a fashion show, lots of gossiping, and a good chance for backbiting and infighting. Arguments about whether to make magic more universal, or make it more elite. Quarrels between those who serve kings and those who prefer to bring pressure to bear on kings from afar . . .’

‘Ha,’ said Bernie Hofmeier. ‘Seems to me that during the conclave there’ll be as much thunder and lightning on Thanedd as there is during a storm.’

‘Perhaps. But of what interest is it to us?’

‘To you, none,’ said the halfling gloomily. ‘Because all you do is pluck away at your lute and screech. You look at the world around and see only rhymes and notes. But just last Sunday some horsemen trampled my cabbages and turnips. Twice. The army are chasing the Squirrels, the Squirrels are evading the army and running from them, and they both use the same road through my cabbage patch . . .’

‘Do not grieve for the cabbage when the forest is burning,’ recited the poet.

‘You, Dandelion,’ said Bernie Hofmeier, frowning at him. ‘When you come out with stuff like that I don’t know whether to cry, laugh or kick your arse. I kid you not! And I’m telling you, a wretched time has come. There are stakes and gibbets by the highways, corpses in the fields and by forest tracks. Gorblimey, the country must have looked like this in Falka’s times. And how can anyone live here? During the day, the king’s men come and threaten to put us in the stocks for helping the Squirrels; at night the elves show up, and just try turning them down! They poetically promise that we’ll see the night sky glow red. They’re so poetic you could throw up. But anyhow, with them both we’re caught between two fires . . .’

‘And are you counting on the mages’ conclave changing anything?’

‘That I am. You said yourself that two factions are battling it out among the mages. It was sometimes thus, that the sorcerers held the kings back and put an end to wars and disturbances. After all, it was the sorcerers who made peace with Nilfgaard three years since. Mebbe this time too . . .’

Bernie Hofmeier fell silent and listened carefully. Dandelion silenced the resonating strings with his hand.

The Witcher emerged from the gloom on the causeway. He walked slowly towards the house. Lightning flashed once more. By the time it thundered, the Witcher was already with them on the veranda.

‘Well, Geralt?’ asked Dandelion, by way of ending the awkward silence. ‘Did you track the fiend down?’

‘No. It isn’t a night for tracking. It’s a turbulent night. Uneasy . . . I’m tired, Dandelion.’

‘Well, sit down, relax.’

‘You misunderstood me.’

‘Indeed,’ muttered the halfling, looking at the sky and listening. ‘A turbulent night, something ill is hanging in the air . . . The animals are restless in the barn . . . And screams can be heard in that wind . . .’

‘The Wild Hunt,’ said the Witcher softly. ‘Close the shutters securely, Mr Hofmeier.’

‘The Wild Hunt?’ said Bernie, terrified. ‘Spectres?’

‘Never fear. It’ll pass by high up. It always passes by high during the summer. But the children may wake, for the Hunt brings nightmares. Better close the shutters.’

‘The Wild Hunt,’ said Dandelion, glancing anxiously upwards, ‘heralds war.’

‘Poppycock. Superstitions.’

‘Wait! A short time before the Nilfgaardian attack on Cintra—’

‘Silence!’ the Witcher gestured him to be quiet and sat up straight with a jerk, staring into the darkness.

‘What the . . . ?’

‘Horsemen.’

‘Hell,’ hissed Hofmeier, springing up from the bench. ‘At night it can only be Scoia’tael . . .’

‘A single horse,’ the Witcher interrupted, picking his sword up from the bench. ‘A single, real horse. The rest are the spectres of the Hunt . . . Damn, it can’t be . . . in the summer?’

Dandelion had also leapt to his feet but was too ashamed to run away, because neither Geralt nor Bernie was preparing to flee. The Witcher drew his sword and ran towards the causeway, and the halfling rushed after him without a second thought, armed with a pitchfork. Lightning flashed once more, and a galloping horse came into view on the causeway. Behind the horse came something vague, an irregular cloud, a whirl, a phantom, woven from the gloom and glow. Something that caused panicky fear and a revolting, gut-wrenching dread.

The Witcher yelled, lifting his sword. The rider saw him, spurred the horse on and looked back. The Witcher yelled again. The thunder boomed.

There was a flash, but it wasn’t lightning this time. Dandelion crouched by the bench and would have crawled under it had it not been too low. Bernie dropped the pitchfork. Petunia Hofmeier, who had run out of the house, shrieked.

A blinding flash materialised into a transparent sphere, and inside it loomed a shape, assuming contours and shapes at frightening speed. Dandelion recognised it at once. He knew those wild, black curls and the obsidian star on a velvet ribbon. What he didn’t know and had never seen before was the face. It was a face of rage and fury, the face of the goddess of vengeance, destruction and death.

Yennefer raised a hand and screamed a spell. Spirals shot from her hands with a hiss, showering sparks, cutting the night sky and reflecting thousands of sparkles on the surface of the ponds. The spirals penetrated the cloud that was chasing the lone rider like lances. The cloud seethed, and it seemed to Dandelion that he could hear ghastly cries, that he could see the vague, nightmarish silhouettes of spectral horses. He only saw it for a split second, because the cloud suddenly contracted, clustered up into a ball and shot upwards into the sky, lengthening and dragging a tail behind it like a comet’s as it sped away. Darkness fell, only lit by the quivering glare of the lamp being held by Petunia Hofmeier.

The rider came to a halt in the yard in front of the house, slithered down from the saddle, and took some staggering steps. Dandelion realised who it was immediately. He had never seen the slim, flaxen-haired girl before. But he knew her at once.

‘Geralt . . .’ said the girl softly. ‘Madam Yennefer . . . I’m sorry . . . I had to. You know, I mean . . .’

‘Ciri,’ said the Witcher. Yennefer took a step towards the girl, but then stopped. She said nothing.

Who will the girl choose? wondered Dandelion. Neither of them – the Witcher nor the enchantress – will take a step nor make a gesture. Which will she approach first? Him? Or her?

Ciri did not walk to either of them. She was unable to decide. Instead of moving, she fainted.

The house was empty. The halfling and his entire family had left for work at daybreak. Ciri pretended to be asleep but she heard Geralt and Yennefer go out. She slipped out from the sheets, dressed quickly and stole silently out of the room, following them to the orchard.

Geralt and Yennefer turned to face the causeway between the ponds, which were white and yellow with water lilies. Ciri hid behind a ruined wall and watched them through a crack. She had imagined that Dandelion, the famous poet whose work she had read countless times, was still asleep. But she was wrong. The poet Dandelion wasn’t asleep. And he caught her in the act.

‘Hey,’ he said, coming up unexpectedly and chuckling. ‘Is it polite to eavesdrop and spy on people? More discretion, little one. Let them be together for a while.’

Ciri blushed, but then immediately narrowed her lips.

‘First of all, I’m not your little one,’ she hissed haughtily. ‘And second of all, I’m not really disturbing them, am I?’

Dandelion grew a little serious.

‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘It seems to me you might even be helping them.’

‘How? In what way?’

‘Don’t kid me. That was very cunning yesterday, but you didn’t fool me. You pretended to faint, didn’t you?

‘Yes, I did,’ she muttered, turning her face away. ‘Madam Yennefer realised but Geralt didn’t . . .’

‘They carried you into the house together. Their hands were touching. They sat by your bed almost until morning but they didn’t say a word to each other. They’ve only decided to talk now. There, on the causeway, by the pond. And you’ve decided to eavesdrop on what they’re saying . . . And watch them through a hole in the wall. Are you so desperate to know what they’re doing there?’

‘They aren’t doing anything there,’ said Ciri, blushing slightly. ‘They’re talking a little, that’s all.’

‘And you,’ said Dandelion, sitting down on the grass under an apple tree and leaning back against the trunk, having first checked whether there were any ants or caterpillars on it. ‘You’d like to know what they’re talking about, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes . . . No! And anyway . . . Anyway, I can’t hear anything. They’re too far away.’

‘I’ll tell you,’ laughed the bard. ‘If you want.’

‘And how are you supposed to know?’

‘Ha, ha. I, my dear Ciri, am a poet. Poets know everything about things like this. I’ll tell you something else; poets know more about this sort of thing than the people involved do.’

‘Of course you do!’

‘I give you my word. The word of a poet.’

‘Really? Well then . . . Tell me what they’re talking about? Tell me what it all means!’

‘Look through that hole again and tell me what they’re doing.’

‘Hmm . . .’ Ciri bit her lower lip, then leaned over and put her eye closer to the hole. ‘Madam Yennefer is standing by a willow . . . She’s plucking leaves and playing with her star. She isn’t saying anything and isn’t even looking at Geralt . . . And Geralt’s standing beside her. He’s looking down and he’s saying something. No, he isn’t. Oh, he’s pulling a face . . . What a strange expression . . .’

‘Childishly simple,’ said Dandelion, finding an apple in the grass, wiping it on his trousers and examining it critically. ‘He’s asking her to forgive him for his various foolish words and deeds. He’s apologising to her for his impatience, for his lack of faith and hope, for his obstinacy, doggedness. For his sulking and posing; which are unworthy of a man. He’s apologising to her for things he didn’t understand and for things he hadn’t wanted to understand—’

‘That’s the falsest lie!’ said Ciri, straightening up and tossing the fringe away from her forehead with a sudden movement. ‘You’re making it all up!’

‘He’s apologising for things he’s only now understood,’ said Dandelion, staring at the sky, and he began to speak with the rhythm of a balladeer. ‘For what he’d like to understand, but is afraid he won’t have time for . . . And for what he will never understand. He’s apologising and asking for forgiveness . . . Hmm, hmm . . . Meaning, conscience, destiny? Everything’s so bloody banal . . .’

‘That’s not true!’ Ciri stamped. ‘Geralt isn’t saying anything like that! He’s not even speaking. I saw for myself. He’s standing with her and saying nothing . . .’

‘That’s the role of poetry, Ciri. To say what others cannot utter.’

‘It’s a stupid role. And you’re making everything up!’

‘That is also the role of poetry. Hey, I hear some raised voices coming from the pond. Have a quick look, and see what’s happening there.’

‘Geralt,’ said Ciri, putting her eye once more to the hole in the wall, ‘is standing with his head bowed. And Yennefer’s yelling at him. She’s screaming and waving her arms. Oh dear . . . What can it mean?’

‘It’s childishly simple.’ Dandelion stared at the clouds scudding across the sky. ‘Now she’s saying sorry to him.’

CHAPTER THREE

Thus do I take you, to have and to hold, for the most wondrous and terrible of times, for the best and the worst of times, by day and by night, in sickness and in health. For I love you with all my heart and swear to love you eternally, until death do us part.

Traditional marriage vows

We know little about love. Love is like a pear. A pear is sweet and has a distinct shape. Try to define the shape of a pear.

Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

Geralt had reason to suspect – and had long suspected – that sorcerers’ banquets differed from the feasts of ordinary mortals. He never suspected, however, that the differences could be so great or so fundamental.

The offer of accompanying Yennefer to the banquet preceding the sorcerers’ conclave surprised but did not dumbfound him, since it was not the first such proposal. Previously, when they lived together and things were good between them, Yennefer had wanted to attend assemblies and conclaves with him at her side. At that time, he steadfastly refused. He was convinced he would be treated by the sorcerers at best as a freak and a spectacle, and at worst as an intruder and a pariah. Yennefer scoffed at his fears, but had never insisted. Since in other situations she was capable of insisting until the house shook and windows shattered, that had confirmed Geralt’s belief that his decision had been right.

This time he agreed. Without a second thought. The offer came after a long, frank and emotional conversation. After a conversation which had brought them closer again, consigned the old conflicts to the shadows and to oblivion, and melted the ice of resentment, pride and stubbornness. After their conversation on the causeway in Hirundum, Geralt would have agreed to any – absolutely any – proposition of Yennefer’s. He would not even have declined had she suggested they walked into hell to drink a cup of boiling tar with some fiery demons.

And on top of it there was Ciri, without whom neither that conversation nor that meeting could have happened. Ciri, in whom – according to Codringher – some unknown sorcerer had taken an interest. Geralt expected his presence at the convocation to provoke that sorcerer and force his hand. But he didn’t tell Yennefer a single word about it.

They rode straight from Hirundum to Thanedd: Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri and Dandelion. First they stopped at the immense palace complex of Loxia, at the south-eastern foot of the mountain. The palace was already teeming with delegates to the conclave and their companions but accommodation was immediately found for Yennefer. They spent the entire day in Loxia. Geralt whiled away the day talking to Ciri. Dandelion ran around collecting and spreading gossip, and the enchantress measured and chose clothes. When evening finally came, the Witcher and Yennefer joined the colourful procession heading towards Aretuza and the palace, where the banquet was due to take place. And now, in Aretuza, Geralt knew surprise and astonishment, even though he’d vowed to himself he wouldn’t be surprised by anything and nothing would astonish him.

The palace’s huge central hall had been constructed in the shape of a letter ‘T’. The long side had narrow and extremely tall windows, reaching almost to the tops of the columns that supported the ceiling. The ceiling was so high it was difficult to make out the details of the frescoes decorating it, in particular the gender of the naked figures, which were their most common motif. The windows were of stained glass, which must have cost an absolute fortune, but in spite of that a draught could be felt distinctly in the hall. Geralt was initially surprised the candles didn’t go out, but on closer inspection he understood why. The candelabras were magical, and possibly even illusory. In any case, they gave plenty of light, incomparably more than candles would have.

When they entered, a good hundred people were already there. The hall, the Witcher estimated, could have held at least three times as many, even if the tables had been arranged in a semicircle in the centre, as was customary. But there was no traditional semicircle. It appeared they would be banqueting standing up, doggedly wandering along walls adorned with tapestries, garlands and pennants, all waving in the draught. Rows of long tables had been arranged under the tapestries and garlands, and the tables were piled high with elaborate dishes served on even more elaborate table settings, among elaborate flower arrangements and extraordinary ice carvings. On closer examination, Geralt noted there was considerably more elaboration than food.

‘There’s no fare,’ he stated in a glum voice, smoothing down the short, black, silver-braided, narrow-waisted tunic Yennefer had dressed him in. Tunics like that – the latest fashion – were called doublets. The Witcher had no idea where the name came from. And no desire to find out.

Yennefer didn’t react. Geralt wasn’t expecting her to, knowing well that the enchantress was not generally inclined to react to statements of that kind. But he didn’t give up. He continued to complain. He simply felt like moaning.

‘There’s no music. It’s draughty as hell. There’s nowhere to sit down. Are we going to eat and drink standing up?’

The enchantress gave him a meaningful, violet glance.

‘Indeed,’ she said, surprisingly calmly. ‘We shall be eating standing up. You should also know that stopping too long by the food table is considered an indiscretion.’

‘I shall try to behave,’ he muttered. ‘Particularly since I observe there isn’t much to stop by.’

‘Drinking in an unrestrained way is also considered a breach of etiquette,’ said Yennefer, continuing her instructions and paying absolutely no attention to his grizzling. ‘Avoiding conversations is considered an inexcusable indiscretion—’

‘And if that beanpole in those ridiculous pantaloons points me out to his two girlfriends,’ he interrupted, ‘is that considered a faux pas?’

‘Yes. But a minor one.’

‘What are we going to be doing, Yen?’

‘Circulating around the hall, greeting people, paying them compliments, engaging in conversation . . . Stop tugging your doublet and flattening your hair.’

‘You wouldn’t let me wear a headband . . .’

‘Your headband’s pretentious. Well then, take my arm and let’s go. Standing near the entrance is considered a faux pas.’

They wandered through the hall, which was gradually filling up with guests. Geralt was ravenously hungry but quickly realised Yennefer hadn’t been joking. It became clear that the etiquette observed by mages did indeed demand that one eat and drink very little, and do it with a nonchalant air. To cap it all, every stop at the food table carried with it social obligations. Someone would notice you, express their joy at the fact and then approach and offer their greetings, which were as effusive as they were disingenuous. After the compulsory air kisses or unpleasantly weak handshakes, after the insincere smiles and even less sincere, although well-concocted, compliments, followed a brief and tediously banal conversation about nothing.

The Witcher looked around eagerly, searching for familiar faces, mainly in the hope he wasn’t the only person present who didn’t belong to this magical fraternity. Yennefer had assured him he wouldn’t be, but in spite of that he couldn’t see anyone who wasn’t a member of the Brotherhood, or at least he was unable to recognise anyone.

Pageboys carrying trays weaved among the guests, serving wine. Yennefer didn’t drink at all. The Witcher wanted to get tight, but couldn’t. Instead, he found his doublet was. Under the arms.

Skilfully steering Geralt with her arm, the enchantress pulled him away from the table and led him into the middle of the hall, to the very centre of general interest. His resistance counted for nothing. He realised what this was all about. It was quite simply a display.

Geralt knew what to expect, so with stoical calm he endured the glances of the enchantresses, brimming with insalubrious curiosity, and the enigmatic smirks of the sorcerers. Although Yennefer assured him that propriety and tact forbade the use of magic at this kind of event, he didn’t believe the mages were capable of restraining themselves, particularly since Yennefer was provocatively thrusting him into the limelight. And he was right not to believe. He felt his medallion vibrating several times, and the pricking of magical impulses. Some sorcerers, or more precisely some enchantresses, brazenly tried to read his thoughts. He was prepared for that, knew what was happening, and knew how to respond. He looked at Yennefer walking alongside him, at white-and-black-and-diamond Yennefer, with her raven hair and violet eyes, and the sorcerers trying to sound him out became unsettled and disorientated; confronted with his blissful satisfaction, they were clearly losing their composure and poise. Yes, he answered in his thoughts, you’re not mistaken. There is only she, Yennefer, at my side, here and now, and only she matters. Here and now. And what she was long ago, where she was long ago and who she was with long ago doesn’t have any, doesn’t have the slightest, importance. Now she’s with me, here, among you all. With me, with no one else. That’s what I’m thinking right now, thinking only about her, thinking endlessly about her, smelling the scent of her perfume and the warmth of her body. And you can all choke on your envy.

The enchantress squeezed his forearm firmly and moved closer to his side.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, guiding him towards the tables once again. ‘But without such excessive ostentation, if you don’t mind.’

‘Do you mages always take sincerity for ostentation? Is that why you don’t believe in sincerity, even when you read it in someone’s mind?’

‘Yes. That is why.’

‘But you still thank me?’

‘Because I believe you,’ she said, squeezing his arm even tighter and picking up a plate. ‘Give me a little salmon, Witcher. And some crab.’

‘These crabs are from Poviss. They were probably caught a month ago; and it’s really hot right now. Aren’t you worried . . . ?’

‘These crabs,’ she interrupted, ‘were still creeping along the seabed this morning. Teleportation is a wonderful invention.’

‘Indeed,’ he concurred. ‘It ought to be made more widely available, don’t you think?’

‘We’re working on it. Come on, give me some. I’m hungry.’

‘I love you, Yen.’

‘I said drop the ostentation . . .’ she broke off, tossed her head, drew some black curls away from her cheek and opened her violet eyes wide. ‘Geralt! It’s the first time you’ve ever said that!’

‘It can’t be. You’re making fun of me.’

‘No, no I’m not. You used only to think it, but today you said it.’

‘Is there such a difference?’

‘A huge one.’

‘Yen . . .’

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full. I love you too. Haven’t I ever told you? Heavens, you’ll choke! Lift your arms up and I’ll thump you in the back. Take some deep breaths.’

‘Yen . . .’

‘Keep breathing, it’ll soon pass.’

‘Yen!’

‘Yes. I’m repaying sincerity with sincerity.’

‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘I was waiting,’ she said, squeezing lemon on the salmon. ‘It wouldn’t have been proper to react to a declaration made as a thought. I was waiting for the words. I was able to reply, so I replied. I feel wonderful.’

‘What’s up?’

‘I’ll tell you later. Eat. This salmon is delicious, I swear on the Power, absolutely delicious.’

‘May I kiss you? Right now, here, in front of everyone?’

‘No.’

‘Yennefer!’ A dark-haired sorceress passing alongside freed her arm from the crook of her companion’s elbow and came closer. ‘So you made it? Oh, how divine! I haven’t seen you for ages!’

‘Sabrina!’ said Yennefer, displaying such genuine joy that anyone apart from Geralt might have been deceived. ‘Darling! How wonderful!’

The enchantresses embraced gingerly and kissed each other beside their ears and their diamond and onyx earrings. The two enchantresses’ earrings, resembling miniature bunches of grapes, were identical; but the whiff of fierce hostility immediately floated in the air.

‘Geralt, if I may. This is a school friend of mine, Sabrina Glevissig of Ard Carraigh.’

The Witcher bowed and kissed the raised hand. He had already observed that all enchantresses expected to be greeted by being kissed on the hand, a gesture which awarded them the same status as princesses, to put it mildly. Sabrina Glevissig raised her head, her earrings shaking and jingling. Gently, but ostentatiously and impudently.

‘I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you, Geralt,’ she said with a smile. Like all enchantresses, she didn’t recognise any ‘sirs’, ‘Your Excellencies’ or other forms of address used among the nobility. ‘You can’t believe how delighted I am. You’ve finally stopped hiding him from us, Yenna. Speaking frankly, I’m amazed you put it off for so long. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘I agree,’ replied Yennefer nonchalantly, narrowing her eyes a little and ostentatiously tossing her hair back from her own earrings. ‘Gorgeous blouse, Sabrina. Simply stunning. Isn’t it, Geralt?’

The Witcher nodded and swallowed. Sabrina Glevissig’s blouse, made of black chiffon, revealed absolutely everything there was to reveal, and there was plenty of it. Her crimson skirt, gathered in by a silver belt with a large rose-shaped buckle, was split up the side, in keeping with the latest fashion. Fashion demanded it be split halfway up the thigh, but Sabrina wore hers split to halfway up her hip. And a very nice hip at that.

‘What’s new in Kaedwen?’ asked Yennefer, pretending not to see what Geralt was looking at. ‘Is your King Henselt still wasting energy and resources chasing the Squirrels through the forests? Is he still thinking about a punitive expedition against the elves from Dol Blathann?’

‘Let’s give politics a rest,’ smiled Sabrina. Her slightly too-long nose and predatory eyes made her resemble the classic image of a witch. ‘Tomorrow, at the Council, we’ll be politicking until it comes out of our ears. And we’ll hear plenty of moralising, too. About the need for peaceful coexistence . . . About friendship . . . About the necessity to adopt a loyal position regarding the plans and ambitions of our kings . . . What else shall we hear, Yennefer? What else are the Chapter and Vilgefortz preparing for us?’

‘Let’s give politics a rest.’

Sabrina Glevissig gave a silvery laugh, echoed by the gentle jingling of her earrings.

‘Indeed. Let’s wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow . . . Everything will become clear tomorrow. Oh, politics, and those endless debates, what an awful effect they have on the complexion. Fortunately, I have an excellent cream. Believe me, darling, wrinkles disappear like morning mist . . . Shall I give you the formula?’

‘Thank you, darling, but I don’t need it. Truly.’

‘Oh, I know. I always envied your complexion at school. How many years is it now, by the gods?’

Yennefer pretended she was returning a greeting to someone passing alongside, while Sabrina smiled at the Witcher and joyously thrust out everything the black chiffon wasn’t hiding. Geralt swallowed again, trying not to look too blatantly at her pink nipples, only too visible beneath the transparent material. He glanced timidly at Yennefer. The enchantress smiled, but he knew her too well. She was incandescent.

‘Oh, forgive me,’ said Yennefer suddenly. ‘I can see Philippa over there; I just have to talk to her. Come with me, Geralt. Bye-bye, Sabrina.’

‘Bye, Yenna,’ said Sabrina Glevissig, looking the Witcher in the eyes. ‘Congratulations again on your . . . taste.’

‘Thank you,’ said Yennefer, her voice suspiciously cold. ‘Thank you, darling.’

Philippa Eilhart was accompanied by Dijkstra. Geralt, who’d once had a fleeting contact with the Redanian spy, ought in principle to have been pleased; he had finally met someone he knew, who – like he – didn’t belong to the fraternity. Yet he wasn’t glad at all.

‘How lovely to see you, Yenna,’ said Philippa, giving Yennefer an air kiss. ‘Greetings, Geralt. You both know Count Dijkstra, don’t you?’

‘Who doesn’t?’ said Yennefer, bowing her head and proffering her hand to Dijkstra. The spy kissed it with reverence. ‘I’m delighted to see you again, Your Excellency.’

‘It’s a joy for me to see you again, Yennefer,’ replied the chief of King Vizimir’s secret service. ‘Particularly in such agreeable company. Geralt, my respects come from the bottom of my heart . . .’

Geralt, refraining from telling Dijkstra his respect came from the heart of his bottom, shook the proffered hand – or rather tried to. Its dimensions exceeded the norm which made made shaking it practically impossible.

The gigantic spy was dressed in a light beige doublet, unbuttoned informally. He clearly felt at ease in it.

‘I noticed,’ said Philippa, ‘you talking to Sabrina.’

‘That’s right,’ snorted Yennefer. ‘Have you seen what she’s wearing? You’d either have to have no taste or no shame to . . . She’s bloody older than me by at least— Never mind. And as if she still had anything to show! The revolting cow!’

‘Did she try to question you? Everyone knows she spies for Henselt of Kaedwen.’

‘You don’t say?’ said Yennefer, faking astonishment, which was rightly considered an excellent joke.

‘And you, Your Excellency, are you enjoying our celebration?’ asked Yennefer, after Philippa and Dijkstra had stopped laughing.

‘Extraordinarily,’ said King Vizimir’s spy, giving a courtly bow.

‘If we presume,’ said Philippa, smiling, ‘that the Count is here on business, such an assurance is extremely complimentary. And, like every similar compliment, not very sincere. Only a moment ago, he confessed he’d prefer a nice, murky atmosphere, the stink of flaming brands and scorched meat on a spit. He also misses a traditional table swimming in spilt sauce and beer, which he could bang with his beer mug to the rhythm of a few filthy, drunken songs, and which he could gracefully slide under in the early hours, to fall asleep among hounds gnawing bones. And, just imagine, he remains deaf to my arguments extolling the superiority of our way of banqueting.’

‘Indeed?’ said the Witcher, looking at the spy more benignly. ‘And what were those arguments, if I might ask?’

This time his question was clearly treated as an excellent joke, because both enchantresses began laughing at the same time.

‘Oh, you men,’ said Philippa. ‘You don’t understand anything. How can you show off your dress or your figure if you’re hiding behind a table in the gloom and smoke?’

Geralt, unable to find the words, merely bowed. Yennefer squeezed his arm gently.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I see Triss Merigold over there. I just have to exchange a few words with her . . . Excuse me for abandoning you. Take care, Philippa. We will certainly find an opportunity for a chat today. Won’t we, Your Excellency?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ said Dijkstra, smiling and bowing low. ‘At your service, Yennefer. Your wish is my command.’

They went over to Triss, who was shimmering in shades of blue and pale green. On seeing them, Triss broke off her conversation with two sorcerers, smiled radiantly and hugged Yennefer; the ritual of kissing the air near each other’s ears was repeated. Geralt took the proffered hand, but decided to act contrary to the rules of etiquette; he embraced the chestnut-haired enchantress and kissed her on her soft cheek, as downy as a peach. Triss blushed faintly.

The sorcerers introduced themselves. One of them was Drithelm of Pont Vanis, the other his brother, Detmold. They were both in the service of King Esterad of Kovir. Both proved to be taciturn and both moved away at the first opportunity that presented itself.

‘You were talking to Philippa and Dijkstra of Tretogor,’ observed Triss, playing with a lapis-lazuli heart set in silver and diamonds, which hung around from her neck. ‘You know who Dijkstra is, of course?’

‘Yes, we do,’ said Yennefer. ‘Did he talk to you? Did he try to get anything out of you?’

‘He tried,’ said the enchantress, smiling knowingly and giggling. ‘Quite subtly. But Philippa was doing a good job throwing him off his stride. And I thought they were on better terms.’

‘They’re on excellent terms,’ Yennefer warned her gravely. ‘Be careful, Triss. Don’t breathe a word to him about – about you know who.’

‘I know. I’ll be careful. And by the way . . .’ Triss lowered her voice. ‘How’s she doing? Will I be able to see her?’

‘If you finally decide to run classes at Aretuza,’ smiled Yennefer, ‘you’ll be able to see her very often.’

‘Ah,’ said Triss, opening her eyes widely. ‘I see. Is Ciri . . . ?’

‘Be quiet, Triss. We’ll talk about it later. Tomorrow. After the Council.’

‘Tomorrow?’ said Triss, smiling strangely. Yennefer frowned, but before she had time to ask a question, a slight commotion suddenly broke out in the hall.

‘They’re here,’ said Triss, clearing her throat. ‘They’ve finally arrived.’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Yennefer, tearing her gaze from her friend’s eyes. ‘They’re here. Geralt, at last you’ll have a chance to meet the members of the Chapter and the High Council. If the opportunity presents itself I’ll introduce you, but it won’t hurt if you know who’s who beforehand.’

The assembled sorcerers parted, bowing with respect at the personages entering the hall. The first was a middle-aged but vigorous man in extremely modest woollen clothing. At his side strode a tall, sharp-featured woman with dark, smoothly combed hair.

‘That is Gerhart of Aelle, also known as Hen Gedymdeith, the oldest living sorcerer,’ Yennefer informed Geralt in hushed tones. ‘The woman walking beside him is Tissaia de Vries. She isn’t much younger than Hen, but is not afraid of using elixirs to hide it.’

Behind the couple walked an attractive woman with very long, dark golden hair, and a grey-green dress decorated with lace, which rustled as she moved.

‘Francesca Findabair, also called Enid an Gleanna, the Daisy of the Valleys. Don’t goggle, Witcher. She is widely considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world.’

‘Is she a member of the Chapter?’ he whispered in astonishment. ‘She looks very young. Is that also thanks to magical elixirs?’

‘Not in her case. Francesca is a pure-blooded elf. Observe the man escorting her. He’s Vilgefortz of Roggeveen and he really is young. But incredibly talented.’

In the case of sorcerers, as Geralt knew, the term ‘young’ covered any age up to and including a hundred years. Vilgefortz looked thirty-five. He was tall and well-built, wore a short jerkin of a knightly cut – but without a coat of arms, naturally. He was also fiendishly handsome. It made a great impression, even considering that Francesca Findabair was flowing gracefully along at his side, with her huge, doe eyes and breathless beauty.

‘That short man walking alongside Vilgefortz is Artaud Terranova,’ explained Triss Merigold. ‘Those five constitute the Chapter—’

‘And that girl with a strange face, walking behind Vilgefortz?’

‘That’s his assistant, Lydia van Bredevoort,’ said Yennefer coldly. ‘A meaningless individual, but looking her directly in the face is considered a serious faux pas. Take note of those three men bringing up the rear; they’re all members of the Council. Fercart of Cidaris, Radcliffe of Oxenfurt and Carduin of Lan Exeter.’

‘Is that the whole Council? In its entirety? I thought there were more of them.’

‘The Chapter numbers five, and there are another five in the Council. Philippa Eilhart is another Council member.’

‘The numbers still don’t add up,’ he said, shaking his head. Triss giggled.

‘Haven’t you told him? Do you really not know, Geralt?’

‘Know what, exactly?’

‘That Yennefer’s also a member of the Council. Ever since the Battle of Sodden. Haven’t you boasted about it to him yet, darling?’

‘No, darling,’ said the enchantress, looking her friend straight in the eyes. ‘For one thing, I don’t like to boast. For another, there’s been no time. I haven’t seen Geralt for ages, and we have a lot of catching up to do. There’s already a long list. We’re going through it point by point.’

‘I see,’ said Triss hesitantly. ‘Hmm . . . After such a long time I understand. You must have lots to talk about . . .’

‘Talking,’ smiled Yennefer suggestively, giving the Witcher another smouldering glance, ‘is way down the list. Right at the very bottom, Triss.’

The chestnut-haired enchantress was clearly discomfited and blushed faintly.

‘I see,’ she said, playing in embarrassment with her lapis-lazuli heart.

‘I’m so glad you do. Geralt, bring us some wine. No, not from that page. From that one, over there.’

He complied, sensing at once a note of compulsion in her voice. As he took the goblets from the tray the page was carrying, he discreetly observed the two enchantresses. Yennefer was speaking quickly and quietly, while Triss Merigold was listening intently, with her head down. When he returned, Triss had gone. Yennefer didn’t show any interest in the wine, so he placed the two unwanted goblets on a table.

‘Sure you didn’t go a bit too far?’ he asked coldly. Yennefer’s eyes flared violet.

‘Don’t try to make a fool out of me. Did you think I don’t know about you and her?’

‘If that’s what you—’

‘That’s precisely what,’ she said, cutting him off. ‘Don’t make stupid faces, and refrain from comments. And above all, don’t try to lie to me. I’ve known Triss longer than I’ve known you. We like each other. We understand each other wonderfully and will always do so, irrespective of various minor . . . incidents. Just then it seemed to me she had some doubts. So I put her right, and that’s that. Let’s not discuss it any further.’

He didn’t intend to. Yennefer pulled her curls back from her cheek.

‘Now I shall leave you for a moment; I must talk to Tissaia and Francesca. Have some more food, because your stomach’s rumbling. And be vigilant. Several people are sure to accost you. Don’t let them walk all over you and don’t tarnish my reputation.’

‘You can be sure of that.’

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes.’

‘A short while ago you expressed a desire to kiss me here, in front of everyone. Do you still hold to that?’

‘I do.’

‘Just try not to smudge my lipstick.’

He glanced at the assembly out of the corner of his eye. They were watching the kiss, but not intrusively. Philippa Eilhart, standing nearby, with a group of young sorcerers, winked at him and feigned applause.

Yennefer pulled her mouth away from his and heaved a deep sigh.

‘A trifling thing, but pleasing,’ she purred. ‘All right, I’m going. I’ll be right back. And later, after the banquet . . . Hmm . . .’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Please don’t eat anything containing garlic.’

After she had gone the Witcher abandoned convention, unfastened his doublet, drank both goblets of wine and tried to get down to some serious eating. Nothing came of it.

‘Geralt.’

‘Your Excellency.’

‘Lay off the titles,’ frowned Dijkstra. ‘I’m no count. Vizimir ordered me to introduce myself like that, so as not affront courtiers or sorcerers with my peasant origins. So, how’s it going impressing people with your outfit and your figure? And pretending to have fun?’

‘I don’t have to pretend. I’m not here in a professional capacity.’

‘That’s interesting,’ smiled the spy, ‘but confirms the general opinion, that says you’re special; one of a kind. Because everyone else is here in a professional capacity.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ said Geralt, also deeming it appropriate to smile. ‘I guessed I’d be one of a kind. Meaning out of place.’

The spy inspected the nearby dishes and then picked up and devoured the large, green pod of a vegetable unfamiliar to Geralt.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘thank you for the Michelet brothers. Plenty of people in Redania sighed with relief when you hacked the four of them to death in the port in Oxenfurt. I laughed out loud when the university physician who was summoned to the investigation concluded – after examining the wounds – that someone had used a scythe blade mounted upright.’

Geralt didn’t comment. Dijkstra put another pod into his mouth.

‘It’s a pity,’ he continued, chewing, ‘that after dispatching them you didn’t report to the mayor. There was a bounty on them, dead or alive. A considerable one.’

‘Too many problems with my tax return already,’ said the Witcher, also deciding to sample a green pod, which turned out to taste like soapy celery. ‘Besides, I had to get away quickly, because . . . But I’m probably boring you, Dijkstra. You know everything, after all.’

‘Not a bit of it,’ smiled the spy. ‘I really don’t. Where would I learn such things from, anyway?’

‘From the reports of, oh, I don’t know, Philippa Eilhart.’

‘Reports, tales, rumours. I have to listen to them; it’s my job. But at the same time, my job forces me to sift every detail through a very fine sieve. Recently, just imagine, I heard that someone hacked the infamous Professor and his two comrades to death. It happened outside an inn in Anchor. The person who did it was also in too much of a hurry to collect the bounty.’

Geralt shrugged.

‘Rumours. Sift them through a fine sieve and you’ll see what remains.’

‘I don’t have to. I know what will remain. Most often, it’s a deliberate attempt at disinformation. Ah, and while we’re on the subject of disinformation, how is little Cirilla doing? Poor, sickly little girl, so prone to diphtheria? She’s healthy, I trust?’

‘Drop it, Dijkstra,’ replied the Witcher coldly, looking the spy straight in the eye. ‘I know you’re here in a professional capacity, but don’t be overzealous.’

The spy chortled and two passing sorceresses looked at him in astonishment. And with interest.

‘King Vizimir,’ said Dijkstra, his chuckle over, ‘pays me an extra bonus for every mystery I solve. My zealousness guarantees me a decent living. You can laugh, but I have a wife and children.’

‘I don’t see anything funny about it. Work to support your wife and children, but not at my expense, if you don’t mind. It seems to me there’s no shortage of mysteries and riddles in this hall.’

‘Quite. The whole of Aretuza is one great riddle. You must have noticed. Something’s in the air, Geralt. And, for the sake of clarity, I don’t mean the candelabras.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘I believe you. Because I don’t get it either. And I’d like very much to. Wouldn’t you? Oh, I beg your pardon. Because you’re sure to know it all too. From the reports of, oh, I don’t know, the enchanting Yennefer of Vengerberg. But just think, there were times when I would pick up scraps of information from the enchanting Yennefer too. Ah, where are the snows of yesteryear?’

‘I really don’t know what you mean, Dijkstra. Could you express your thoughts more lucidly? Do your best. On condition you’re not doing it out of professional considerations. Forgive me, but I have no intention of earning you an extra bonus.’

‘Think I’m trying to trick you dishonourably?’ scowled the spy. ‘To get information out of you using deceit? You’re being unfair, Geralt. It simply interests me whether you see the same patterns in this hall that are so obvious to me.’

‘So what’s so obvious to you?’

‘Doesn’t the total absence of crowned heads – which is blatantly apparent at this gathering – surprise you?’

‘It doesn’t surprise me in the least,’ said Geralt, finally managing to stab a marinated olive with a toothpick. ‘I’m sure kings prefer traditional banquets, seated at a table, which one can gracefully slide beneath in the early hours. And what’s more . . .’

‘What is more?’ asked Dijkstra, putting four olives – which he had unceremoniously extracted from the bowl with his fingers – into his mouth.

‘What is more,’ said the Witcher, looking at the small crowd passing through the hall, ‘the kings didn’t bother to make the effort. They sent an army of spies in their stead. Both members of the fraternity and not. Probably in order to find out what’s really in the air here.’

Dijkstra spat the olive stones out onto the table, took a long fork from the silver tray and used it to rummage around in a deep, crystal bowl.

‘And Vilgefortz,’ he said, continuing to rummage, ‘made sure no spy was absent. He has all the royal spies in one pot. Why would Vilgefortz want all the royal spies in one pot, Witcher?’

‘I have no idea. And it interests me little. I told you I’m here as a private individual. I’m – how shall I put it? – outside the pot.’

King Vizimir’s spy fished a small octopus out of the bowl and examined it in disgust.

‘People eat these?’ he said, shaking his head in fake sympathy, and then turning towards Geralt.

‘Listen to me carefully, Witcher,’ he said quietly. ‘Your convictions about privacy, your certainty that you don’t care about anything and that you couldn’t possibly care about anything . . . they perturb me and that inclines me to take a gamble. Do you like a flutter?’

‘Be precise, please.’

‘I suggest a wager,’ said Dijkstra, raising the fork with the octopus impaled on it. ‘I venture that in the course of the next hour, Vilgefortz will ask you to join him in a long conversation. I venture that during this conversation he will prove to you that you aren’t here as a private individual and you are in his pot. Should I be wrong, I’ll eat this shit in front of you, tentacles and all. Do you accept the wager?’

‘What will I have to eat, should I lose?’

‘Nothing,’ said Dijkstra and quickly looked around. ‘But should you lose, you’ll report the entire content of your conversation with Vilgefortz to me.’

The Witcher was silent for a while, and looked calmly at the spy.

‘Farewell, Your Excellency,’ he said at last. ‘Thank you for the chat. It was educational.’

Dijkstra was somewhat annoyed.

‘Would you say so—?’

‘Yes, I would,’ interrupted Geralt. ‘Farewell.’

The spy shrugged his shoulders, threw the octopus and fork into the bowl, turned on his heel and walked away. Geralt didn’t watch him go. He slowly moved to the next table, led by the desire to get his hands on some of the huge pink and white prawns piled up on a silver platter among lettuce leaves and quarters of lime. He had an appetite for them but, still feeling curious eyes on him, wanted to consume the crustaceans in a dignified manner, without losing face. He approached extravagantly slowly, picking at delicacies from the other dishes cautiously and with dignity.

Sabrina Glevissig stood at the next table, deep in conversation with a flame-haired enchantress he didn’t know. The redhead wore a white skirt and a blouse of white georgette. The blouse, like that of Sabrina’s, was totally transparent, but had several strategically placed appliqués and embroideries. The appliqués – noticed Geralt – had an interesting quality: they became opaque and then transparent by turns.

The enchantresses were talking, sustaining themselves with slices of langouste. They were conversing quietly in the Elder Speech. And although they weren’t looking at him, they were clearly talking about him. He discreetly focused his sensitive witcher hearing, pretending to be utterly absorbed by the prawns.

‘. . . with Yennefer?’ enquired the redhead, playing with a pearl necklace, coiled around her neck like a dog’s collar. ‘Are you serious, Sabrina?’

‘Absolutely,’ answered Sabrina Glevissig. ‘You won’t believe it, but it’s been going on for several years. And I’m surprised indeed he can stand that vile toad.’

‘Why be surprised? She’s put a spell on him. She has him under a charm. Think I’ve never done that?’

‘But he’s a witcher! They can’t be bewitched. Not for so long, at any rate.’

‘It must be love then,’ sighed the redhead. ‘And love is blind.’

‘He’s blind, more like,’ said Sabrina, grimacing. ‘Would you believe, Marti, that she dared to introduce me to him as an old school friend? Bloody hell, she’s older than me by . . . Oh, never mind. I tell you, she’s hellishly jealous about that Witcher. Little Merigold only smiled at him and that hag bawled her out and sent her packing in no uncertain terms. And right now . . . Take a look. She’s standing there, talking to Francesca, without ever taking her eyes off her Witcher.’

‘She’s afraid,’ giggled the redhead, ‘that we’ll have our way with him, even if only for tonight. Are you up for it, Sabrina? Shall we try? He’s a fit lad, not like those conceited weaklings of ours with all their complexes and pretensions . . .’

‘Don’t talk so loud, Marti,’ hissed Sabrina. ‘Don’t look at him and don’t grin. Yennefer’s watching us too. And stay classy. Do you really want to seduce him? That would be in bad taste.’

‘Hmm, you’re right,’ agreed Marti after a moment’s thought. ‘But what if he suddenly came over and suggested it himself?’

‘In that case,’ said Sabrina Glevissig, glancing at the Witcher with a predatory, coal-black eye. ‘I’d give it to him without a second thought, even lying on a rock.’

‘I’d even do it lying on a hedgehog,’ sniggered Marti.

The Witcher, staring at the tablecloth, hid his foolish expression behind a prawn and a lettuce leaf, extremely pleased to have the mutation of his blood vessels which prevented him from blushing.

‘Witcher Geralt?’

He swallowed the prawn and turned around. A sorcerer who looked familiar smiled faintly, touching the embroidered facings of his purple doublet.

‘Dorregaray of Vole. But we are acquainted. We met . . .’

‘I remember. Excuse me; I didn’t recognise you right away. Glad to . . .’

The sorcerer smiled a little more broadly, taking two goblets from a tray being carried by a pageboy.

‘I’ve been watching you for some time,’ he said, handing one of the glasses to Geralt. ‘You’ve told everyone Yennefer has introduced you to that you’re enjoying yourself. Is that duplicity or a lack of criticism?’

‘Courtesy.’

‘Towards them?’ said Dorregaray, indicating the banqueters with a sweeping gesture. ‘Believe me, it’s not worth the effort. They’re a vain, envious and mendacious bunch; they don’t appreciate your courtesy. Why, they treat it as sarcasm. With them, Witcher, you have to use their own methods. Be obsessive, arrogant and rude, and then at least you’ll impress them. Will you drink a glass of wine with me?’

‘The gnat’s piss they serve here?’ smiled Geralt pleasantly. ‘With the greatest revulsion. Well, but if you like it . . . then I’ll force myself.’

Sabrina and Marti, listening intently from their table, snorted noisily. Dorregaray sized them both up with a contemptuous glance, turned, clinked his goblet against the Witcher’s and smiled, this time genuinely.

‘A point to you,’ he admitted freely. ‘You learn quickly. Where the hell did you acquire that wit, Witcher? On the road you insist on roaming around, hunting endangered species? Your good health. You may laugh, but you’re one of the few people in this hall I feel like proposing such a toast to.’

‘Indeed?’ said Geralt, delicately slurping the wine and savouring the taste. ‘In spite of the fact I make my living slaughtering endangered species?’

‘Don’t try to trip me up,’ said the sorcerer, slapping him on the back. ‘The banquet has only just begun. A few more people are sure to accost you, so ration out your scathing ripostes more sparingly. But as far as your profession is concerned . . . You, Geralt, at least have enough dignity not to deck yourself out with trophies. But take a good look around. Go on, forget convention for a moment; they like people to stare at them.’

The Witcher obediently fixed his gaze on Sabrina Glevissig’s breasts.

‘Look,’ said Dorregaray, seizing him by the sleeve and pointing at a sorceress walking past, tulle fluttering. ‘Slippers made from the skin of the horned agama. Had you noticed?’

He nodded, ingenuously, since he’d only noticed what her transparent tulle blouse wasn’t covering.

‘Oh, if you please, rock cobra,’ said the sorcerer, unerringly spotting another pair of slippers being paraded around the hall. The fashion, which had shortened hemlines to a span above the ankle, made his task easier. ‘And over there . . . White iguana. Salamander. Wyvern. Spectacled caiman. Basilisk . . . Every one of those reptiles is an endangered species. Can’t people bloody wear shoes of calfskin or pigskin?’

‘Going on about leather, as usual, Dorregaray?’ asked Philippa Eilhart, stopping beside them. ‘And tanning and shoemaking? What vulgar, tasteless subjects.’

‘People find a variety of things tasteless,’ said the sorcerer grimacing contemptuously. ‘Your dress has a beautiful trim, Philippa. Diamond ermine, if I’m not mistaken? Very tasteful. I’m sure you’re aware this species was exterminated twenty years ago owing to its beautiful pelt?’

‘Thirty,’ corrected Philippa, stuffing the last of the prawns – which Geralt hadn’t been quick enough to eat – into her mouth one after the other. ‘I know, I know, the species would surely have come back to life, had I instructed my dressmaker to trim my dress with bunches of raw flax. I considered it. But the colours wouldn’t have matched.’

‘Let’s go to that table over there,’ suggested the Witcher easily. ‘I saw a large bowl of black caviar there. And, since the shovelnose sturgeon has almost totally died out, we ought to hurry.’

‘Eating caviar in your company? I’ve dreamed about that,’ said Philippa, fluttering her eyelashes and smelling enticingly of cinnamon and muskroot as she slipped her arm into his. ‘Let’s not hang around. Will you join us, Dorregaray? You won’t? Well, see you later and enjoy yourself.’

The sorcerer snapped his fingers and turned away. Sabrina Glevissig and her redheaded friend watched them walk away with looks more venomous than the endangered rock cobra’s.

‘Dorregaray,’ murmured Philippa, unashamedly snuggling up to Geralt, ‘spies for King Ethain of Cidaris. Be on your guard. That reptiles and skin talk of his is the prelude to being interrogated. And Sabrina Glevissig was listening closely –’

‘– because she spies for Henselt of Kaedwen,’ he finished. ‘I know; you mentioned it. And that redhead, her friend—’

‘She’s no redhead – it’s dyed. Haven’t you got eyes? That’s Marti Södergren.’

‘Who does she spy for?’

‘Marti?’ Philippa laughed, her teeth flashing behind her vividly painted lips. ‘Not for anyone. Marti isn’t interested in politics.’

‘Outrageous! I thought everyone here was a spy.’

‘Many of them are,’ said the enchantress, narrowing her eyes. ‘But not everyone. Not Marti Södergren. Marti is a healer. And a nymphomaniac. Oh, damn, look! They’ve scoffed all the caviar! Down to the last egg; they’ve licked the plate clean! What are we going to do now?’

‘Now,’ smiled Geralt innocently, ‘you’ll announce that some thing’s in the air. You’ll say I have to reject neutrality and make a choice. You’ll suggest a wager. I daren’t even imagine what the prize might be. But I know I’ll have to do something for you should I lose.’

Philippa Eilhart was quiet for a long time, her eyes fixed on his.

‘I should have guessed,’ she said quietly. ‘Dijkstra couldn’t restrain himself, could he? He made you an offer. And I warned him you detest spies.’

‘I don’t detest spies. I detest spying. And I detest contempt. Don’t propose any wagers to me, Philippa. Of course I can sense something in the air. And it can hang there, for all I care. It doesn’t affect or interest me.’

‘You already told me that. In Oxenfurt.’

‘I’m glad you haven’t forgotten. You also recall the circumstances, I trust?’

‘Very clearly. Back then I didn’t reveal to you who Rience – or whatever his name is – was working for. I let him get away. Oh, you were so angry with me . . .’

‘To put it mildly.’

‘Then the time has come for me to be exonerated. I’ll give you Rience tomorrow. Don’t interrupt and don’t make faces. This isn’t a wager à la Dijkstra. It’s a promise, and I keep my promises. No, no questions, please. Wait until tomorrow. Now let’s concentrate on caviar and trivial gossip.’

‘There’s no caviar.’

‘One moment.’

She looked around quickly, waved a hand and mumbled a spell. The silver dish in the shape of a leaping fish immediately filled with the roe of the endangered shovelnose sturgeon. The Witcher smiled.

‘Can one eat one’s fill of an illusion?’

‘No. But snobbish tastes can be pleasantly titillated by it. Have a try.’

‘Hmm . . . Indeed . . . I’d say it’s tastier than the real thing . . .’

‘And it’s not at all fattening,’ said the enchantress proudly, squeezing lemon juice over a heaped teaspoon of caviar. ‘May I have another goblet of white wine?’

‘At your service. Philippa?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m told etiquette precludes the use of spells here. Wouldn’t it be safer, then, to conjure up the illusion of the taste of caviar alone, without the caviar? Just the sensation? You’d surely be able to . . .’

‘Of course I would,’ said Philippa Eilhart, looking at him through her crystal goblet. ‘The construction of such a spell is easy as pie. But were you only to have the sensation of taste, you’d lose the pleasure the activity offers. The process, the accompanying ritual movements, the gestures, the conversation and eye contact which accompanies the process . . . I’ll entertain you with a witty comparison. Would you like that?’

‘Please do. I’m looking forward to it.’

‘I’d also be capable of conjuring the sensation of an orgasm.’

Before the Witcher had regained the power of speech, a short, slim sorceress with long, straight, straw-coloured hair came over to him. He recognised her at once – she was the one in the horned agama skin slippers and the green tulle top, which didn’t even cover a minor detail like the small mole above her left breast.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I have to interrupt your little flirting session, Philippa. Radcliffe and Detmold would like to talk to you for a moment. It’s urgent.’

‘Well, if it’s like that, I’m coming. Bye, Geralt. We’ll continue our flirting later!’

‘Ah,’ said the blonde, sizing him up. ‘Geralt. The Witcher, the man Yennefer lost her head over? I’ve been watching you and wondering who you might be. It was tormenting me terribly.’

‘I know that kind of torment,’ he replied, smiling politely. ‘I’m experiencing it right now.’

‘Do excuse the gaffe. I’m Keira Metz. Oh, caviar!’

‘Be careful. It’s an illusion.’

‘Bloody hell, you’re right!’ said the sorceress, dropping the spoon as though it was the tail of a black scorpion. ‘Who was so barefaced . . . You? Can you create fourth-level illusions?’

‘I,’ he lied, continuing to smile, ‘am a master of magic. I’m pretending to be a witcher to remain incognito. Do you think Yennefer would bother with an ordinary witcher?’

Keira Metz looked him straight in the eyes and scowled. She was wearing a medallion in the form of an ankh cross; silver and set with zircon.

‘A drop of wine?’ he suggested, trying to break the awkward silence. He was afraid his joke hadn’t been well received.

‘No thank you . . . O fellow master,’ said Keira icily. ‘I don’t drink. I can’t. I plan to get pregnant tonight.’

‘By whom?’ asked the fake-redheaded friend of Sabrina Glevissig, who was dressed in a transparent, white, georgette blouse, decorated with cleverly positioned details, walking over to them. ‘By whom?’ she repeated, innocently fluttering her long eyelashes.

Keira turned and gave her an up-and-down glare, from her white iguana slippers to her pearl-encrusted tiara.

‘What business is it of yours?’

‘It isn’t. Professional curiosity. Won’t you introduce me to your companion, the famous Geralt of Rivia?’

‘With great reluctance. But I know I won’t be able to fob you off. Geralt, this is Marti Södergren, seductress. Her speciality is aphrodisiacs.’

‘Must we talk shop? Oh, have you left me a little caviar? How kind of you.’

‘Careful,’ chorused Keira and the Witcher. ‘It’s an illusion.’

‘So it is!’ said Marti Södergren, leaning over and wrinkling her nose, after which she picked up a goblet and looked at the traces of crimson lipstick on it. ‘Ah, Philippa Eilhart. I should have known. Who else would have dared to do something so brazen? That revolting snake. Did you know she spies for Vizimir of Redania?’

‘And is a nymphomaniac?’ risked the Witcher. Marti and Keira snorted in unison.

‘Is that what you were counting on, fawning over her and flirting with her?’ asked the seductress. ‘If so, you ought to know someone’s played a mean trick on you. Philippa lost her taste for men some time ago.’

‘But perhaps you’re really a woman?’ asked Keira Metz, pouting her glistening lips. ‘Perhaps you’re only pretending to be a man, my fellow master of magic? To remain incognito? Do you know, Marti, he confessed a moment ago that he likes to pretend.’

‘He likes to and knows how to,’ smiled Marti spitefully. ‘Right, Geralt? A while back I saw you pretending to be hard of hearing and unable to understand the Elder Speech.’

‘He has endless vices,’ said Yennefer coldly, walking over and imperiously linking arms with the Witcher. ‘He has practically nothing but vices. You’re wasting your time, ladies.’

‘So it would seem,’ agreed Marti Södergren, still smiling spitefully. ‘Here’s hoping you enjoy the party, then. Come on, Keira, let’s have a goblet of something . . . alcohol-free. Perhaps I’ll also decide to have a try tonight.’

‘Phew,’ he exclaimed, once they’d gone. ‘Right on time, Yen. Thank you.’

‘You’re thanking me? Not sincerely, I should imagine. There are precisely eleven women in this hall flashing their tits through transparent blouses. I leave you for just half an hour, and I catch you talking to two of them –’

Yennefer broke off and looked at the fish-shaped dish.

‘– and eating illusions,’ she finished. ‘Oh, Geralt, Geralt. Come with me. I can introduce you to several people who are worth knowing.’

‘Would one of them be Vilgefortz?’

‘Interesting,’ said the enchantress, squinting, ‘that you should ask about him. Yes, Vilgefortz would like to meet you and talk to you. I warn you that the conversation may appear banal and frivolous, but don’t let that deceive you. Vilgefortz is an expert, exceptionally intelligent old hand. I don’t know what he wants from you, but stay vigilant.’

‘I will,’ he sighed. ‘But I can’t imagine your wily old fox is capable of surprising me. Not after what I’ve been through here. I’ve been mauled by spies and jumped by endangered reptiles and ermines. I’ve been fed non-existent caviar. Nymphomaniacs with no interest in men have questioned my manhood. I’ve been threatened with rape on a hedgehog, menaced by the prospect of pregnancy, and even of an orgasm, but one without any of the ritual movements. Ugh . . .’

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘A little white wine from Cidaris. But there was probably an aphrodisiac in it . . . Yen? Are we going back to Loxia after the conversation with Vilgefortz?’

‘No, we aren’t.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I want to spend the night in Aretuza. With you. An aphrodisiac, you say? In the wine? How fascinating . . .’

‘Oh heavens, oh heavens,’ sighed Yennefer, stretching and throwing a thigh over the Witcher’s. ‘Oh heavens, oh heavens. I haven’t made love for so long . . . For so very long.’

Geralt disentangled his fingers from her curls without responding. Firstly, her statement might have been a trap; he was afraid there might be a hook hidden in the bait. Secondly, he didn’t want to wipe away with words the taste of her delight, which was still on his lips.

‘I haven’t made love to a man who declared his love to me and to whom I declared my love for a very long time,’ she murmured a moment later, when it was clear the Witcher wasn’t taking the bait. ‘I forgot how wonderful it can be. Oh heavens, oh heavens.’

She stretched even more vigorously, reaching out with her arms and seizing the corners of the pillow in both hands, so that her breasts, now flooded in moonlight, took on curves that made themselves felt as a shudder in the Witcher’s lower back. He hugged her, and they both lay still, spent, their ardour cooled.

Outside their chamber cicadas chirped and from far off quiet voices and laughter could also be heard, testimony that the banquet still wasn’t over, in spite of the late hour.

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes, Yen?’

‘Tell me.’

‘About the conversation with Vilgefortz? Now? I’ll tell you in the morning.’

‘Right now, if you please.’

He looked at the writing desk in the corner of the chamber. On it were various books and other objects which the novice who had been temporarily rehoused to accommodate Yennefer in Loxia had been unable to take with her. A plump ragdoll in a ruffled dress, lovingly placed to lean up against the books and crumpled from frequent cuddling, was also there. She didn’t take the doll, he thought, to avoid exposing herself to her friends’ teasing in a Loxia dormitory. She didn’t take her doll with her. And she probably couldn’t fall asleep without it tonight.

The doll stared at him with button eyes. He looked away.

When Yennefer had introduced him to the Chapter, he’d observed the sorcerers’ elite intently. Hen Gedymdeith only gave him a tired glance; it was apparent the banquet had already exhausted the old man. Artaud Terranova bowed with an ambiguous grimace, shifting his eyes from him to Yennefer, but immediately became serious when he realised others were watching him. The blue, elven eyes of Francesca Findabair were as inscrutable and hard as glass. The Daisy of the Valleys smiled when he was introduced to her. That smile, although incredibly beautiful, filled the Witcher with dread. During the introductions Tissaia de Vries, although apparently preoccupied with her sleeves and jewellery, which seemed to required endless straightening, smiled at him considerably less beautifully but with considerably more sincerity. And it was Tissaia who immediately struck up a conversation with him, referring to one of his noble witcher deeds which he, incidentally, could not recall and suspected she had invented.

And then Vilgefortz joined the conversation. Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, a sorcerer of imposing stature, with noble and beautiful features and a sincere and honest voice. Geralt knew he could expect anything from people who looked like that.

They spoke briefly, sensing plenty of anxious eyes on them. Yennefer looked at the Witcher. A young sorceress with friendly eyes, constantly trying to hide the bottom of her face behind a fan, was looking at Vilgefortz. They exchanged several conventional comments, after which Vilgefortz suggested they continue their conversation in private. It seemed to Geralt that Tissaia de Vries was the only person surprised by this proposition.

‘Have you fallen asleep, Geralt?’ muttered Yennefer, shaking him out of his musings. ‘You’re meant to be telling me about your conversation.’

The doll looked at him from the writing desk with its button gaze. He looked away again.

‘As soon as we entered the cloister,’ he began a moment later, ‘that girl with the strange face . . .’

‘Lydia van Bredevoort. Vilgefortz’s assistant.’

‘Yes, that’s right, you said. Just a meaningless person. So, when we entered the cloister that meaningless person stopped, looked at him and asked him something. Telepathically.’

‘It wasn’t an indiscretion. Lydia can’t use her voice.’

‘I guessed as much. Because Vilgefortz didn’t answer her using telepathy. He replied . . .’

‘Yes, Lydia, that’s a good idea,’ answered Vilgefortz. ‘Let’s take a walk through the Gallery of Glory. You’ll have the opportunity to take a look at the history of magic, Geralt of Rivia. I have no doubt you’re familiar with it, but now you’ll have the chance to become acquainted with its visual history, too. If you’re a connoisseur of painting, please don’t be horrified. Most of them are the work of the enthusiastic students of Aretuza. Lydia, be so good as to lighten the gloom around here a little.’

Lydia van Bredevoort passed her hand through the air, and it immediately became lighter in the corridor.

The first painting showed an ancient sailing craft being hurled around by whirlpools among reefs protruding from the surf. A man in white robes stood on the prow of the ship, his head encircled by a bright halo.

‘The first landing,’ guessed the Witcher.

‘Indeed,’ Vilgefortz confirmed. ‘The Ship of Outcasts. Jan Bekker is bending the Power to his will. He calms the waves, proving that magic need not be evil or destructive but may save lives.’

‘Did that event really take place?’

‘I doubt it,’ smiled the sorcerer. ‘It’s more likely that, during the first journey and landing, Bekker and the others were hanging over the side, vomiting bile. After the landing which, by a strange twist of fate, was successful, he was able to overcome the Power. Let’s go on. Here we see Jan Bekker once more, forcing water to gush from the rock, in the very spot where the first settlement was established. And here, if you please, Bekker – surrounded by settlers – drives away the clouds and holds back a tempest to save the harvest.’

‘And here? What event is shown in this painting?’

‘The identification of the Chosen Ones. Bekker and Giambattista put the children of the settlers through a magical test as they arrived, in order to reveal Sources. The selected children were taken from their parents and brought to Mirthe, the first seat of the mages. Right now, you are looking at a historical moment. As you can see, all the children are terrified, and only that determined brown-haired girl is holding a hand out to Giambattista with a completely trusting smile. She became the famous Agnes of Glanville, the first woman to become an enchantress. The woman behind her is her mother. You can see sadness in her expression.’

‘And this crowd scene?’

‘The Novigradian Union. Bekker, Giambattista and Monck are concluding a pact with rulers, priests and druids. A pact of nonaggression codifying the separation of magic and state. Dreadful kitsch. Let’s go on. Here we see Geoffrey Monck setting off up the Pontar, which at that time was still called Aevon y Pont ar Gwennelen, the River of Alabaster Bridges. Monck sailed to Loc Muinne, to persuade the elves there to adopt a group of Source children, who were to be taught by elven sorcerers. It may interest you to know that among those children was a little boy, who came to be known as Gerhart of Aelle. You met him a moment ago. That little boy is now called Hen Gedymdeith.’

‘This,’ said the Witcher, looking at the sorcerer, ‘is just calling out for a battle scene. After all, several years after Monck’s successful expedition, the forces of Marshal Raupenneck of Tretogor carried out a pogrom in Loc Muinne and Est Haemlet, killing all of the elves, regardless of age or sex. And a war began, ending with the massacre at Shaerrawedd.’

‘And your impressive knowledge of history,’ Vilgefortz smiled once again, ‘will remind you, however, that no sorcerer of any note took part in those wars. For which reason the subject did not inspire any of the novices to paint a work to commemorate it. Let’s move on.’

‘Very well. What event is shown in this canvas? Oh, I know. It’s Raffard the White reconciling the feuding kings and putting an end to the Six Years’ War. And here we have Raffard refusing to accept the crown. A beautiful, noble gesture.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Vilgefortz, tilting his head. ‘Well, in any case, it was a gesture with the weight of precedent behind it. Raffard did, however, accept the position of first adviser so became the de facto ruler, since the king was an imbecile.’

‘The Gallery of Glory . . .’ muttered the Witcher, walking up to the next painting. ‘And what do we have here?’

‘The historical moment when the first Chapter was installed and the Law enacted. From the left you see seated: Herbert Stammelford, Aurora Henson, Ivo Richert, Agnes of Glanville, Geoffrey Monck and Radmir of Tor Carnedd. This, if I’m to be honest, also cries out for a battle scene to complete it. For soon after, those who refused to acknowledge the Chapter and submit to the Law were wiped out in a brutal war. Raffard the White died, among others. But historical treatises remain silent about it, so as not to spoil a beautiful legend.’

‘And here . . . Hmm . . . Yes, a novice probably painted this. And a very young one, at that . . .’

‘Undoubtedly. It’s an allegory, after all. I’d call it an allegory of triumphant womanliness. Air, water, earth and fire. And four famous enchantresses, all masters at wielding the forces of those elements. Agnes of Glanville, Aurora Henson, Nina Fioravanti and Klara Larissa de Winter. Look at the next – and more effective – painting. Here you also see Klara Larissa opening the academy for girls here, in the building where we now stand. And those are portraits of renowned Aretuza graduates. This shows a long history of triumphant womanhood and the growing feminisation of the profession: Yanna of Murivel, Nora Wagner, her sister Augusta, Jada Glevissig, Leticia Charbonneau, Ilona Laux-Antille, Carla Demetia Crest, Yiolenta Suarez, April Wenhaver . . . And the only surviving one: Tissaia de Vries . . .’

They continued. The silk of Lydia van Bredevoort’s dress whispered softly, and the whisper contained a menacing secret.

‘And that?’ Geralt stopped. ‘What is this dreadful scene?’

‘The martyrdom of the sorcerer Radmir, flayed alive during the Falka rebellion. In the background burns the town of Mirthe, which Falka had ordered to be consumed by flame.’

‘For which act Falka herself was soon consumed by flame. At the stake.’

‘That is a widely known fact; Temerian and Redanian children still play at burning Falka on Saovine’s Eve. Let’s go back, so that you may see the other side of the gallery . . . Ah, I see you have a question.’

‘I’m wondering about the chronology. I know, naturally, how elixirs of youth work, but the simultaneous appearance of living people and long dead ones in these paintings . . .’

‘You mean: you are astonished that you met Hen Gedymdeith and Tissaia de Vries at the banquet, but Bekker, Agnes of Glanville, Stammelford or Nina Fioravanti are not with us?’

‘No. I know you’re not immortal—’

‘What is death?’ interrupted Vilgefortz. ‘To you?’

‘The end.’

‘The end of what?’

‘Existence. It seems to me we’ve moved from art history to philosophy.’

‘Nature doesn’t know the concept of philosophy, Geralt of Rivia. The pathetic – ridiculous – attempts which people undertake to try to understand nature are typically termed philosophy. The results of such attempts are also considered philosophy. It’s as though a cabbage tried to investigate the causes and effects of its existence, called the result of these reflections “an eternal and mysterious conflict between head and root”, and considered rain an unfathomable causative power. We, sorcerers, don’t waste time puzzling out what nature is. We know what it is; for we are nature ourselves. Do you understand?’

‘I’m trying to, but please talk more slowly. Don’t forget you’re talking to a cabbage.’

‘Have you ever wondered what happened when Bekker forced the water to gush from the rock? It’s generally put very simply: Bekker tamed the Power. He forced the element to be obedient. He subdued nature; controlled it . . . What is your relationship to women, Geralt?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Lydia van Bredevoort turned with a whisper of silk and froze in anticipation. Geralt saw she was holding a wrapped-up painting under one arm. He had no idea where the picture had come from, since Lydia had been empty-handed a moment before. The amulet around his neck vibrated faintly.

Vilgefortz smiled.

‘I enquired,’ he repeated, ‘as to your views concerning the relationship between men and women.’

‘Regarding what respect of that relationship?’

‘Can obedience, in your opinion, be forced upon women? I’m talking about real women, of course, not just the female of the species. Can a real woman be controlled? Overcome? Made to surrender to your will? And if so, how? Answer me.’

The ragdoll didn’t take her eyes off them. Yennefer looked away.

‘Did you answer?’

‘Yes, I did.’

With her left hand, the enchantress squeezed his elbow, and with her right squeezed his fingers, which were touching her breasts.

‘How?’

‘You surely know.’

‘You’ve understood,’ said Vilgefortz a moment later. ‘And you’ve probably always understood. And thus you will also understand that if the concept of will and submission, of commands and obedience, and of male ruler and servant woman will perish and disappear, then unity will be achieved. A community merging into a single entity will be achieved. All will be as one. And if something like that were to occur, death would lose its meaning. Jan Bekker, who was water gushing from the rock, is present there in the banqueting hall. To say that Bekker died is like saying that water has died. Look at that painting.’

Geralt looked.

‘It’s unusually beautiful,’ he said after a moment. At once he felt a slight vibration of his witcher’s medallion.

‘Lydia,’ smiled Vilgefortz, ‘thanks for your acknowledgement. And I congratulate you on your taste. The landscape depicts the meeting between Cregennan of Lod and Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, the legendary lovers, torn apart and destroyed by the time of contempt. He was a sorcerer and she was an elf, one of the elite of Aen Saevherne, or the Knowing Ones. What might have been the beginning of reconciliation was transformed into tragedy.’

‘I know that story. I always treated it as a fairytale. What really happened?’

‘That,’ said the sorcerer, becoming serious, ‘nobody knows. I mean almost nobody. Lydia, hang up your picture over here. Geralt, have a look at another of Lydia’s impressive works. It’s a portrait of Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal taken from an ancient miniature.’

‘Congratulations,’ said the Witcher, bowing to Lydia van Bredevoort, finding it hard to keep his voice from quavering. ‘It’s a true masterpiece.’

His tone didn’t quaver, even though Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal looked at him from the portrait with Ciri’s eyes.

‘What happened after that?’

‘Lydia remained in the gallery. The two of us went out onto the terrace. And he enjoyed himself at my expense.’

‘This way, Geralt, if you would. Step only on the dark slabs, please.’

The sea roared below, and the Isle of Thanedd stood in the white foam of the breakers. The waves broke against the walls of Loxia, directly beneath them. Loxia sparkled with lights, as did Aretuza. The stone block of Garstang towering above them was black and lifeless, however.

‘Tomorrow,’ said the sorcerer, following the Witcher’s gaze, ‘the members of the Chapter and the Council will don their traditional robes: the flowing black cloaks and pointed hats known to you from ancient prints. We will also arm ourselves with long wands and staffs, thus resembling the wizards and witches parents frighten children with. That is the tradition. We will go up to Garstang in the company of several other delegates. And there, in a specially prepared chamber, we will debate. The other delegates will await our return and our decisions in Aretuza.’

‘Are the smaller meetings in Garstang, behind closed doors, also traditional?’

‘But of course. It’s a long tradition and one which has come about through practical considerations. Gatherings of mages are known to be tempestuous and have led to very frank exchanges of views. During one of them, ball lightning damaged Nina Fioravanti’s coiffure and dress. Nina reinforced the walls of Garstang with an incredibly powerful aura and an anti-magic blockade, which took her a year to prepare. From that day on, no spells have worked in Garstang and the discussions have proceeded altogether more peacefully. Particularly when it is remembered to remove all bladed weapons from the delegates.’

‘I see. And that solitary tower on the very summit above Garstang. What is it? Some kind of important building?’

‘It is Tor Lara, the Tower of Gulls. A ruin. Is it important? It probably is.’

‘Probably?’

The sorcerer leaned on the banisters.

‘According to elvish tradition, Tor Lara is connected by a portal to the mysterious, still undiscovered Tor Zireael, the Tower of Swallows.’

‘According to tradition? You haven’t managed to find the portal? I don’t believe you.’

‘You are right not to. We discovered the portal, but it was necessary to block it. There were protests. Everyone was itching to conduct experiments; everyone wanted the fame of being the first to discover Tor Zireael, the mythical seat of elven mages and sages. But the portal is irreversibly warped and transports people chaotically. There were casualties, so it was blocked up. Let’s go, Geralt, it’s getting cold. Carefully. Only walk on the dark slabs.’

‘Why only the dark ones?’

‘These buildings are in ruins. Damp, erosion, strong winds, the salt air; they all have a disastrous effect on the walls. Repairs would cost too much, so we make use of illusion instead of workmen. Prestige, you understand.’

‘It doesn’t apply to everything.’

The sorcerer waved a hand and the terrace vanished. They were standing over a precipice, over an abyss bristling far below with the teeth of rocks jutting from the foam. They were standing on a narrow belt of dark slabs, stretched like a tightrope between the rocky ledge of Aretuza and the pillar holding up the terrace.

Geralt had difficulty keeping his balance. Had he been a man and not a witcher, he would have failed. But even he was rattled. His sudden movement could not have escaped the attention of the sorcerer, and his reaction must also have been visible. The wind rocked him on the narrow footbridge, and the abyss called to him with a sinister roaring of the waves.

‘You’re afraid of death,’ noted Vilgefortz with a smile. ‘You are afraid, after all.’

The ragdoll looked at them with button eyes.

‘He tricked you,’ murmured Yennefer, cuddling up to the Witcher. ‘There was no danger. He’s sure to have protected you and himself with a levitational field. He wouldn’t have taken the risk . . . What happened then?’

‘We went to another wing of Aretuza. He led me to a large chamber, which was probably the office of one of the teachers, or even the rectoress. We sat by a table with an hourglass on it. The sand was trickling through it. I could smell the fragrance of Lydia’s perfume and knew she had been in the chamber before us . . .’

‘And Vilgefortz?’

‘He asked me a question.’

‘Why didn’t you become a sorcerer, Geralt? Weren’t you ever attracted by the Art? Be honest.’

‘I will. I was.’

‘Why, then, didn’t you follow the voice of that attraction?’

‘I decided it would be wiser to follow the voice of good sense.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Years of practice in the witcher’s trade have taught me not to bite off more than I can chew. Do you know, Vilgefortz, I once knew a dwarf who, as a child, dreamed of being an elf. What do you think; would he have become one had he followed the voice of attraction?’

‘Is that supposed to be a comparison? A parallel? If so, it’s utterly ill-judged. A dwarf could not become an elf. Not without having an elf for its mother.’

Geralt remained silent for a long time.

‘I get it,’ he finally said. ‘I should have guessed. You’ve been having a root around in my life history. To what purpose, if you don’t mind?’

‘Perhaps,’ smiled the sorcerer faintly. ‘I’m dreaming of a painting in the Gallery of Glory. The two of us seated at a table and on a brass plaque the title: Vilgefortz of Roggeveen entering into a pact with Geralt of Rivia.’

‘That would be an allegory,’ said the Witcher, ‘with the title: Knowledge Triumphing Over Ignorance. I’d prefer a more realistic painting, entitled: In Which Vilgefortz Explains To Geralt What This Is All About.’

Vilgefortz brought the tips of his fingers together in front of his mouth.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No.’

‘Have you forgotten? The painting I’m dreaming about hangs in the Gallery of Glory, where future generations, who know perfectly well what it’s all about, what event is depicted in the picture, can look at it. On the canvas, Vilgefortz and Geralt are negotiating and concluding an agreement, as a result of which Geralt, following the voice – not of some kind of attraction or predilection, but a genuine vocation – finally joined the ranks of mages. This brings to an end his erstwhile and not particularly sensible existence, which has no future whatsoever.’

‘Just think,’ said the Witcher after a lengthy silence, ‘that not so long ago I believed that nothing more could astonish me. Believe me, Vilgefortz, I’ll remember this banquet and this pageant of incredible events for a long time. Worthy of a painting, indeed. The title would be: Geralt Leaving the Isle of Thanedd, Shaking with Laughter.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said the sorcerer, leaning forward a little. ‘You lost me with the floweriness of your discourse, so liberally sprinkled with sophisticated words.’

‘The causes of the misunderstanding are clear to me. We differ too much to understand each other. You are a mighty sorcerer from the Chapter, who has achieved oneness with nature. I’m a wanderer, a witcher, a mutant, who travels the world and slays monsters for money –’

‘That floweriness,’ interrupted the sorcerer, ‘has been supplanted by banality.’

‘– We differ too greatly,’ said Geralt, not allowing himself to be interrupted, ‘and the minor fact that my mother was, by accident, a sorceress, is unable to erase that difference. But just out of curiosity: who was your mother?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Vilgefortz calmly. The Witcher immediately fell silent.

‘Druids from the Kovir Circle,’ said the sorcerer a moment later, ‘found me in a gutter in Lan Exeter. They took me in and raised me. To be a druid, of course. Do you know what a druid is? It’s a kind of mutant, a wanderer, who travels the world and bows to sacred oaks.’

The Witcher said nothing.

‘And later,’ continued Vilgefortz, ‘my gifts revealed themselves during certain druidical rituals. Gifts which clearly and undeniably pointed to my origins. I was begat by two people, evidently unplanned, and at least one of them was a sorcerer.’

Geralt said nothing.

‘The person who discovered my modest abilities was, of course, a sorcerer, whom I met by accident,’ continued Vilgefortz calmly. ‘He offered me a tremendous gift: the chance of an education and of self-improvement, with a view to joining the Brotherhood of Sorcerers.’

‘And you,’ said the Witcher softly, ‘accepted the offer.’

‘No,’ said Vilgefortz, his voice becoming increasingly cold and unpleasant. ‘I rejected it in a rude – even boorish – way. I unloaded all my anger on the old fool. I wanted him to feel guilty; he and his entire magical fraternity. Guilty, naturally, for the gutter in Lan Exeter; guilty that one or two detestable conjurers – bastards without hearts or human feelings – had thrown me into that gutter at birth, and not before, when I wouldn’t have survived. The sorcerer, it goes without saying, didn’t understand; wasn’t concerned by what I told him. He shrugged and went on his way, by doing so branding himself and his fellows with the stigma of insensitive, arrogant, whoresons, worthy of the greatest contempt.’

Geralt said nothing.

‘I’d had a gutful of druids,’ said Vilgefortz. ‘So I gave up my sacred oak groves and set off into the world. I did a variety of things. I’m still ashamed of some of them. I finally became a mercenary. My life after that unfolded, as you might imagine, predictably. Victorious soldier, defeated soldier, marauder, robber, rapist, murderer, and finally a fugitive fleeing the noose. I fled to the ends of the world. And there, at the end of the world, I met a woman. A sorceress.’

‘Be careful,’ whispered the Witcher, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Be careful, Vilgefortz, that the similarities you’re desperately searching for don’t lead you too far.’

‘The similarities are over,’ said the sorcerer without lowering his gaze, ‘since I couldn’t cope with the feelings I felt for that woman. I couldn’t understand her feelings, and she didn’t try to help me with them. I left her. Because she was promiscuous, arrogant, spiteful, unfeeling and cold. Because it was impossible to dominate her, and her domination of me was humiliating. I left her because I knew she was only interested in me because my intelligence, personality and fascinating mystery obscured the fact that I wasn’t a sorcerer, and it was usually only sorcerers she would honour with more than one night. I left her because . . . because she was like my mother. I suddenly understood that what I felt for her was not love at all, but a feeling which was considerably more complicated, more powerful but more difficult to classify: a mixture of fear, regret, fury, pangs of conscience and the need for expiation, a sense of guilt, loss, and hurt. A perverse need for suffering and atonement. What I felt for that woman was hate.’

Geralt remained silent. Vilgefortz was looking to one side.

‘I left her,’ he said after a while. ‘And then I couldn’t live with the emptiness which engulfed me. And I suddenly understood it wasn’t the absence of a woman that causes that emptiness, but the lack of everything I had been feeling. It’s a paradox, isn’t it? I imagine I don’t need to finish; you can guess what happened next. I became a sorcerer. Out of hatred. And only then did I understand how stupid I was. I mistook stars reflected in a pond at night for those in the sky.’

‘As you rightly observed, the parallels between us aren’t completely parallel,’ murmured Geralt. ‘In spite of appearances, we have little in common, Vilgefortz. What did you want to prove by telling me your story? That the road to wizardly excellence, although winding and difficult, is available to anyone? Even – excuse my parallel – to bastards or foundlings, wanderers or witchers—’

‘No,’ the sorcerer interrupted. ‘I didn’t mean to prove this road is open to all, because that’s obvious and was proved long ago. Neither was there a need to prove that certain people simply have no other path.’

‘And so,’ smiled the Witcher, ‘I have no choice? I have to enter into a pact with you, a pact which should someday become the subject of a painting, and become a sorcerer? On account of genetics alone? Give me a break. I know a little about the theory of heredity. My father, as I discovered with no little difficulty, was a wanderer, a churl, a troublemaker and a swashbuckler. My genes on the spear side may be dominant over the genes on the distaff side. The fact that I can swash a buckler pretty well seems to confirm that.’

‘Indeed,’ the sorcerer derisively smiled. ‘The hourglass has almost run its course, and I, Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, master of magic, member of the Chapter, am still discoursing – not unpleasantly – with a churl and swashbuckler, the son of a churl, a swashbuckler and a wanderer. We are talking of matters which, as everyone knows, are typical fireside debate subjects beloved of churlish swashbucklers. Subjects like genetics, for example. How do you even know that word, my swashbuckling friend? From the temple school in Ellander, where they teach the pupils to read and write just twenty-four runes? Whatever induced you to read books in which words like that and other, similar ones can be found? Where did you perfect your rhetoric and eloquence? And why did you do it? To converse with vampires? Oh, my genetic wanderer, upon whom Tissaia de Vries deigned to smile. Oh, my Witcher, my swashbuckler, who fascinates Philippa Eilhart so much her hands tremble. At the recollection of whom Triss Merigold blushes crimson. Not to mention the effect you have on Yennefer of Vengerberg.’

‘Perhaps it’s as well you aren’t going to mention her. Indeed, so little sand remains in the hourglass I can almost count the grains. Don’t paint any more pictures, Vilgefortz. Tell me what this is all about. Tell me using simple words. Imagine we’re sitting by the fire, two wanderers, roasting a piglet which we just stole, trying and failing to get drunk on birch juice. Just a simple question. Answer it. As one wanderer to another.’

‘What is the simple question?’

‘What kind of pact are you proposing? What agreement are we to conclude? Why do you want me in your pot? In this cauldron, which, it seems to me, is starting to boil? What else is hanging in the air here – apart from candelabras?’

‘Hmm,’ the sorcerer pondered, or pretended to. ‘The question is not simple, but I’ll try to answer it. But not as a wanderer to a wanderer. I’ll answer . . . as one hired swashbuckler to another, similar, swashbuckler.’

‘Suits me.’

‘Then listen, comrade swashbuckler. Quite a nasty scrap is brewing. A bloody fight for life or death, with no mercy shown. One side will triumph, and the other will be pecked apart by ravens. I put it to you, comrade: join the side with the better chance. Join us. Forget the others, spit on them with utter contempt, because they don’t stand a chance. What’s the point of perishing with them? No, no, comrade, don’t scowl at me. I know what you want to say. You want to say you’re neutral. That you don’t give a shit about any of them, that you’ll simply sit out the slaughter, hunkered down in Kaer Morhen, hidden in the mountains. That’s a bad idea, comrade. Everything you love will be with us. If you don’t join us, you’ll lose everything. And then you’ll be consumed by emptiness, nothingness and hatred. You’ll be destroyed by the approaching time of contempt. So be sensible and join the right side when the time comes to choose. And it will come. Trust me.’

‘It’s incredible,’ the Witcher smiled hideously, ‘how much my neutrality outrages everybody. How it makes me subject to offers of pacts and agreements, offers of collaboration, lectures about the necessity to make choices and join the right side. Let’s put an end to this conversation, Vilgefortz. You’re wasting your time. I’m not an equal partner for you in this game. I can’t see any chance of the two of us ending up in a painting in the Gallery of Glory. Particularly not in a battle scene.’

The sorcerer said nothing.

‘Set out on your chessboard,’ said Geralt, ‘the kings, queens, elephants and rooks, and don’t worry about me, because I mean as much on your chessboard as the dust on it. It’s not my game. You say I’ll have to choose? I say you’re wrong. I won’t choose. I’ll respond to events. I’ll adapt to what others choose. That’s what I’ve always done.’

‘You’re a fatalist.’

‘That’s right. Although that’s yet another word I ought not to know. I repeat: it’s not my game.’

‘Really?’ said Vilgefortz, leaning across the table. ‘In this game, Witcher, on the chessboard, stands a black horse. It’s tied to you by bonds of destiny. For good or ill. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? And I’m sure you don’t want to lose her, do you? Just know there’s only one way not to lose her.’

The Witcher’s eyes narrowed.

‘What do you want from that child?’

‘There’s only one way for you to find out.’

‘I’m warning you. I won’t let anyone harm her—’

‘There’s only one way you could prevent that. I offered you that option, Geralt of Rivia. Think over my offer. You have the entire night. Think, as you look up at the sky. At the stars. And don’t mistake them with their reflection in a pond. The sand has run out.’

‘I’m afraid for Ciri, Yen.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘But . . .’

‘Trust me,’ she said, hugging him. ‘Trust me, please. Don’t worry about Vilgefortz. He’s a wily old fox. He wanted to trick you, to provoke you. And he was partly successful. But it’s not important. Ciri is in my care, and she’ll be safe in Aretuza. She’ll be able to develop her abilities here, and no one will interfere with that. No one. But forget about her becoming a witcher. She has other talents. And she’s destined for other work. You can trust me.’

‘I trust you.’

‘That’s significant progress. And don’t worry about Vilgefortz. Tomorrow will explain many matters and solve many problems.’

Tomorrow, he thought. She’s hiding something from me. And I’m afraid to ask what. Codringher was right. I’ve got mixed up in a dreadful mess, but now there’s no way out. I have to wait and see what tomorrow – which is supposed to explain everything – will bring. I have to trust her. I know something’s going to happen. I’ll wait. And adapt to the situation.

He looked at the writing desk.

‘Yen?’

‘I’m here.’

‘When you were a pupil at Aretuza . . . When you slept in a chamber like this . . . Did you have a doll you couldn’t sleep without? Which you put on the writing desk during the day?’

‘No,’ said Yennefer, moving suddenly. ‘I didn’t have a doll of any kind. Don’t ask me about that, Geralt. Please, don’t ask me.’

‘Aretuza,’ he whispered, looking around. ‘Aretuza on the Isle of Thanedd. It’ll become her home. For so many years . . . When she leaves here she’ll be a mature woman . . .’

‘Stop that. Don’t think about it and don’t talk about it. Instead . . .’

‘What, Yen?’

‘Love me.’

He embraced her. And touched her. And found her. Yennefer, in some astonishing way hard and soft at the same time, sighed loudly. The words they had uttered broke off, perished among the sighs and quickened breaths, ceased to have any meaning and were dissipated. So they remained silent, and focused on the search for one another, on the search for the truth. They searched for a long time, lovingly and very thoroughly, fearful of needless haste, recklessness and nonchalance. They searched vigorously, intensively and passionately, fearful of needless self-doubt and indecision. They searched cautiously, fearful of needless tactlessness.

They found one another, conquered their fear and, a moment later, found the truth, which exploded under their eyelids with a terrible, blinding clarity, tore apart the lips pursed in determination with a moan. Then time shuddered spasmodically and froze, everything vanished, and touch became the only functioning sense.

An eternity passed, reality returned and time shuddered once more and set off again, slowly, ponderously, like a great, fully laden cart. Geralt looked through the window. The moon was still hanging in the sky, although what had just happened ought in principle to have struck it down from the sky.

‘Oh heavens, oh heavens,’ said Yennefer much later, slowly wiping a tear from her cheek.

They lay still among the dishevelled sheets, among thrills, among steaming warmth and waning happiness and among silence, and all around whirled vague darkness, permeated by the scent of the night and the voices of cicadas. Geralt knew that, in moments like this, the enchantress’s telepathic abilities were sharpened and very powerful, so he thought about beautiful matters and beautiful things. About things which would give her joy. About the exploding brightness of the sunrise. About fog suspended over a mountain lake at dawn. About crystal waterfalls, with salmon leaping up them, gleaming as though made of solid silver. About warm drops of rain hitting burdock leaves, heavy with dew.

He thought for her and Yennefer smiled, listening to his thoughts. The smile quivered on her cheek along with the crescent shadows of her eyelashes.

‘A home?’ asked Yennefer suddenly. ‘What home? Do you have a home? You want to build a home? Oh . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t . . .’

He was quiet. He was angry with himself. As he had been thinking for her, he had accidentally allowed her to read a thought about herself.

‘A pretty dream,’ said Yennefer, stroking him lightly on the shoulder. ‘A home. A house built with your own hands, and you and I in that house. You would keep horses and sheep, and I would have a little garden, cook food and card wool, which we would take to market. With the pennies earned from selling the wool and various crops we would buy what we needed; let’s say some copper cauldrons and an iron rake. Every now and then, Ciri would visit us with her husband and three children, and Triss Merigold would occasionally look in, to stay for a few days. We’d grow old together, beautifully and with dignity. And should I ever get bored, you would play for me in the evening on your homemade bagpipes. Playing the bagpipes – as everyone knows – is the best remedy for depression.’

The Witcher said nothing. The enchantress cleared her throat softly.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, a moment later. He got up on an elbow, leaned across and kissed her. She moved suddenly, and hugged him. Wordlessly.

‘Say something.’

‘I wouldn’t like to lose you, Yen.’

‘But you have me.’

‘The night will end.’

‘Everything ends.’

No, he thought. I don’t want it to be like that. I’m tired. Too tired to accept the perspective of endings which are beginnings, and starting everything over again. I’d like . . .

‘Don’t talk,’ she said, quickly placing her fingers on his lips. ‘Don’t tell me what you’d like and what you desire. Because it might turn out I won’t be able to fulfil your desires, and that causes me pain.’

‘What do you desire, Yen? What do you dream about?’

‘Only about achievable things.’

‘And about me?’

‘I already have you.’

He remained quiet for a long time, waiting until she broke the silence.

‘Geralt?’

‘Mm?’

‘Love me, please.’

At first, satiated with each other, they were both full of fantasy and invention, creative, imaginative and craving for the new. As usual, it quickly turned out it was at once too much and too little. They understood it simultaneously and once more made love to one another.

When Geralt had recovered his senses, the moon was still in its place. The cicadas were playing wildly, as though they also wanted to conquer anxiety and fear with madness and abandon. From a nearby window in the left wing of Aretuza, someone craving sleep yelled out, fulminating sternly and demanding quiet. From a window on the other side someone else, clearly with a more artistic soul, applauded enthusiastically and congratulated them.

‘Oh, Yen . . .’ whispered the Witcher reproachfully.

‘I had a reason . . .’ She kissed him and then buried her cheek in the pillow. ‘I had a reason to scream. So I screamed. It shouldn’t be suppressed. It would be unhealthy and unnatural. Hold me, please.’

CHAPTER FOUR

The Lara Portal, also known as Benavent’s Portal, after its discoverer. Located on the Isle of Thanedd, on the uppermost floor of the Tower of Gulls. A fixed portal, periodically active. Principles of functioning: unknown. Destination: unknown, but probably skewed, owing to damage. Numerous forks or dispersions possible.

Important information: a chaotic and lethally dangerous portal. All experimentation categorically forbidden. Magic may not be used in the Tower of Gulls or in close proximity to it, particularly not teleportational magic. In exceptional cases, the Chapter will examine applications for permission to enter Tor Lara and for inspections of the portal. Applications should be supported by evidence of research work already in progress and of specialisation in the subject area.

Bibliography: Geoffrey Monck, The Magic of the Elder Folk; Immanuel Benavent, The Portal of Tor Lara; Nina Fioravanti, The Theory and Practice of Teleportation; Ransant Alvaro, The Gates of Mystery.

Prohibita (list of banned artefacts),

Ars Magica, Edition LVIII

In the beginning there was only pulsating, shimmering chaos, a cascade of images and a whirling abyss of sounds and voices. Ciri saw a tower reaching up to the sky with thunderbolts dancing across the roof. She heard the cry of a raptor and suddenly became it. She was flying with enormous speed and beneath her was a stormy sea. She saw a small button-eyed doll and suddenly was that doll, and all around her teemed the darkness, pulsing with the sounds of cicadas. She saw a large black and white tomcat and suddenly was that cat, surrounded by a sombre house, darkened wood panelling and the smell of candles and old books. Several times, she heard someone call her name; summon her. She saw silver salmon leaping up waterfalls, heard the sound of rain drumming against leaves. And then she heard Yennefer’s strange, long-drawn-out scream. And it was that scream that woke her, pulled her out of the chasm of timelessness and chaos.

Now, vainly trying to recall the dream, she could only hear the soft sounds of lute and flute, the jingling of a tambourine, singing and laughter. Dandelion and the group of minstrels he had chanced upon continued to have the time of their lives in the chamber at the end of the corridor.

A shaft of moonlight shone through the window, somewhat lightening the gloom and making the chamber in Loxia resemble a dream world. Ciri threw off the sheet. She was bathed in sweat and her hair was stuck to her forehead. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep the night before; it had been stuffy, even though the window had been wide open. She knew what had caused it. Before leaving with Geralt, Yennefer had encircled the chamber with protective charms. Ostensibly it was in order to prevent anyone from entering, though Ciri suspected their true purpose was to stop her leaving. She was, quite simply, a prisoner. Yennefer, although clearly happy to be back with Geralt, had neither forgiven nor forgotten Ciri’s wilful and reckless flight to Hirundum, even though it had led to her reunion with Geralt.

The meeting with Geralt itself had filled Ciri with sadness and disappointment. The Witcher had been taciturn, tense, restless and demonstrably insincere. Their conversation had faltered and limped along, losing its way in sentences and questions which suddenly broke off. The Witcher’s eyes and thoughts kept running away from her and fleeing into the distance. Ciri knew where they were running to.

Dandelion’s soft, mournful singing and the music he raised from the lute’s strings, murmuring like a stream flowing over pebbles, drifted to her from the chamber at the end of the corridor. She recognised it as the melody the bard had started composing some days before. The ballad – as Dandelion had boasted several times – bore the title Elusive and was intended to earn the poet first place at the annual bard’s tournament due to take place in the later autumn at Vartburg Castle. Ciri listened carefully to the words.

O’er glistening roofs you float

Through lily-strewn rivers you dive

Yet one day I will know your truths

If only I am still alive . . .

Hooves thundered, riders galloped in the night, and on the horizon the sky bloomed with the glow of many fires. A bird of prey screeched and spread its wings, taking flight. Ciri plunged into sleep once more, hearing people calling her name over and over. Once it was Geralt, once Yennefer, once Triss Merigold, finally – several times – a sad, slim, fair-haired girl she didn’t recognise, who looked out at her from a miniature, framed in horn and brass.

Then she saw a black and white cat, and a moment later, she again was that cat, and seeing with its eyes. She was in a strange, dark house. She saw great shelves of books, and a lectern lit by several candlesticks, with two men sitting at it, poring over scrolls. One of the men was coughing and wiping his lips with a handkerchief. The second, a midget with a huge head, sat on a chair on wheels. He had no legs.

‘Extraordinary . . .’ sighed Fenn, running his eyes over the decaying parchment. ‘It’s hard to believe . . . Where did you get these documents?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ Codringher coughed. ‘Have you only now realised who Cirilla, Princess of Cintra, really is? The Child of the Elder Blood; the last offshoot of that bloody tree of hatred! The last branch and, on it, the last poisoned apple . . .’

‘The Elder Blood . . . So far back in time . . . Pavetta, Calanthe, Adalia, Elen, Fiona . . .’

‘And Falka.’

‘By the gods, but that’s impossible. Firstly, Falka had no children! Secondly, Fiona was the legitimate daughter of —’

‘Firstly, we know nothing about Falka’s youth. Secondly, Fenn, don’t make me laugh. You know, of course, that I’m overcome with spasms of mirth at the sound of the word “legitimate”. I believe that document, because in my opinion it’s authentic and speaks the truth. Fiona, Pavetta’s great-great-grandmother, was the daughter of Falka, that monster in human form. Damn it, I don’t believe in all those insane predictions, prophecies and other poppycock, but when I now recall the Ithlinne forecasts . . .’

‘Tainted blood?’

‘Tainted, contaminated, accursed; it can be understood in various ways. And according to legend, if you recall, it was Falka who was accursed – because Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal had put a curse on her mother—’

‘Those are just stories, Codringher.’

‘You’re right: stories. But do you know when stories stop being stories? The moment someone begins to believe in them. And someone believes in the story of the Elder Blood. In particular, in the part that says from Falka’s blood will be born an avenger who will destroy the old world and build a new one on its ruins.’

‘And Cirilla is supposed to be that avenger?’

‘No. Not Cirilla. Her son.’

‘And Cirilla is being hunted by –’

‘– Emhyr var Emreis, Emperor of Nilfgaard,’ finished Codringher coldly. ‘Now do you understand? Cirilla, irrespective of her will, is to become the mother of the heir to the throne. Mother to an arch-prince; the Arch-Prince of Darkness, the descendant and avenger of that she-devil Falka. The destruction and the subsequent rebuilding of the world is meant – it seems to me – to proceed in a guided and controlled way.’

The cripple said nothing for a long time.

‘Don’t you think,’ he finally asked, ‘we should tell Geralt about this?’

‘Geralt?’ sneered Codringher. ‘Who? You mean that simpleton who, not so long ago, tried to persuade me he doesn’t work for gain? Oh, I believe that; he doesn’t work for his own gain. But for someone else’s. And unwittingly, as a matter of fact. Geralt is hunting Rience; Rience may be on a leash but Geralt doesn’t even know there’s a collar around his neck. Should I inform him? And so help the people planning to capture this golden-egg laying hen, in order to blackmail Emhyr or ingratiate themselves with him? No, Fenn. I’m not that stupid.’

‘The Witcher’s on a leash? But who’s holding it?’

‘Think.’

‘Bitch!’

‘You said it. The only person who can influence him. Whom he trusts. But I don’t trust her and never have. So I’m going to join the game myself.’

‘It’s a dangerous one, Codringher.’

‘There aren’t any safe games. Games are either worth a candle or they aren’t. Fenn, old man, don’t you understand what has fallen into our hands? A golden hen, which will lay for us – and no one else – and it’ll be huge egg, with a rich, yellow yolk . . .’

Codringher coughed violently. When he removed the handkerchief from his mouth there were flecks of blood on it.

‘Gold won’t cure that,’ said Fenn, looking at the handkerchief in his partner’s hand. ‘Nor give me back my legs . . .’

‘Who knows?’

Somebody knocked at the door. Fenn fidgeted nervously in his wheeled chair.

‘Are you expecting anyone, Codringher?’

‘I am. The men I’m sending to Thanedd. To fetch our golden hen.’

‘Don’t open it,’ Ciri screamed. ‘Don’t open the door! Death stands behind it! Don’t open the door!’

‘All right, all right, I’m just coming,’ called Codringher, pulling back the bolts, then turning to his meowing cat. ‘And you’ll sit quietly, you accursed little beast . . .’

He broke off. The men in the doorway were not the ones he had been expecting. Instead, three characters he did not know were standing there.

‘The Honourable Mr Codringher?’

‘The master’s away on business,’ said the lawyer, assuming the expression of a halfwit and speaking with a slightly squeaky voice. ‘I am the master’s butler. The name is Dullord, Mikael Dullord. How may I serve your honourable selves?’

‘You cannot,’ said one of the individuals, a tall half-elf. ‘Since your master is not here, we’ll just leave a letter and a message. Here is the letter.’

‘I will pass it on without fail,’ said Codringher, playing the role of a simple lackey perfectly; bowing subserviently and holding out a hand to take a scroll of parchment tied up with a red cord. ‘And the message?’

The cord binding the scroll unwound like a striking snake, lashing and curling itself tightly around his wrist. The tall man jerked hard. Codringher lost his balance and lurched forward, instinctively thrusting his left hand towards the half-elf’s chest to stop himself from falling against him. As he fell he was unable to avoid the dagger which was rammed into his belly. He cried out breathlessly and jerked backwards, but the magic cord around his wrist held fast. The half-elf pulled Codringher towards him and stabbed again. This time the whole of Codringher’s weight bore down on the blade.

‘That’s the message and greetings from Rience,’ hissed the tall half-elf, pulling the dagger upwards powerfully and gutting the lawyer like a fish. ‘Go to hell, Codringher. Straight to hell.’

Codringher’s breath rasped. He felt the dagger blade grate and crunch against his ribs and sternum. He slumped onto the floor, curling up into a ball. He wanted to shout, to warn Fenn, but was only able to screech, and the screech was immediately drowned in a gush of blood.

The tall half-elf stepped over the body and was followed inside by the other two. They were humans.

Fenn was ready for them.

The bowstring thwacked, and one of the thugs crashed onto his back, struck directly in the forehead by a steel ball. Fenn shoved himself backwards in his chair, trying desperately to reload the arbalest with his shaking hands.

The tall man leapt towards him, knocking over the chair with a powerful kick. The midget rolled among the papers strewn over the floor. Waving his small hands and the stumps of his legs helplessly, he resembled a mutilated spider.

The half-elf kicked the arbalest out of Fenn’s reach. Paying no attention to the cripple’s attempts to struggle away, he hurriedly looked through the documents lying on the lectern. His attention was caught by a miniature in a horn and brass frame, showing a fair-haired girl. He picked it up with the scrap of paper attached to it.

The second thug ignored the one who had been hit by the arbalest ball and came closer. The half-elf raised his eyebrows questioningly. The thug shook his head.

The half-elf picked up several documents from the lectern, tucking them away in his coat, along with the miniature. He then took a handful of quills from the inkwell and set light to them with one of the candlesticks. He turned them around slowly, allowing the fire take good hold and then threw them onto the lectern among the scrolls of parchment, which immediately burst into flames.

Fenn screamed.

The tall half-elf took a bottle of ink remover from the burning table, stood over the midget thrashing around on the floor and emptied the contents over him. Fenn gave a tormented howl. The other thug swept an armful of scrolls from a bookshelf and threw them over the cripple.

The fire on the lectern had just reached the ceiling. A second, smaller bottle of solvent exploded with a roar, the flames licking the bookshelves. The scrolls, rolls and files began to blacken, curl up and catch fire. Fenn wailed. The tall half-elf stepped back from the burning pulpit, twisted up a second piece of paper and lit it. The second thug threw another armful of vellum scrolls on the cripple.

Fenn screamed.

The half-elf stood over him, holding the burning brand.

Codringher’s black and white cat alighted on a nearby wall. In its yellow eyes danced the reflection of the fire, which had transformed the pleasant night into this horrific parody of day. People were screaming. Fire! Fire! Water! People ran towards the building. The cat froze, watching them with astonishment and contempt. Those idiots were clearly heading towards the fiery abyss, from which it had only just managed to extricate itself.

Turning away, unconcerned, Codringher’s cat went back to licking its bloodstained paws.

Ciri awoke covered in sweat, with her hands painfully gripping the sheets. Everything was quiet, and the soft darkness was pierced by a dagger-like shaft of moonlight.

A fire. An inferno. Blood. A nightmare . . . I don’t remember, I don’t remember anything . . .

She took a deep breath of the crisp night air. The sense of stuffiness had vanished. She knew why.

The protective charms had stopped working.

Something’s happened, thought Ciri. She jumped out of bed and quickly dressed. She belted on her dagger. She didn’t have a sword any more; Yennefer had taken it from her, giving it to Dandelion for safekeeping. The poet must have gone to sleep, and it was silent in Loxia. Ciri was already wondering whether to go and wake him when she felt a strong pulse and a rush of blood in her ears.

The shaft of moonlight coming through the window became a road. At the end of the road, far away, was a door. The door opened and Yennefer stood there.

‘Come with me.’

Other doors opened behind the sorceress’s back. One after the other. An endless succession. The black shapes of columns crystallised from the darkness. Not columns – perhaps they’re statues . . . I’m dreaming, thought Ciri, I don’t believe my eyes. I’m dreaming. That isn’t a road. It’s light, a shaft of light. I can’t go along that . . .

‘Come with me.’

She obeyed.

Had it not been for the foolish scruples of the Witcher, and his impractical principles, many subsequent events would have run their course quite differently. Many events would probably have not taken place at all. And the history of the world would have unfolded in an alternative way.

But the history of the world unfolded as it unfolded, the sole cause of which was that the Witcher had scruples. When he awoke in the morning with the need to relieve himself, he didn’t do what any other man would have done; he didn’t go out onto the balcony and piss into a flowerpot of nasturtiums. He had scruples. He dressed quietly without waking Yennefer, who was sleeping deeply, motion less and barely breathing. He left the chamber and went out to the garden.

The banquet was still in progress but, as the sounds indicated, only in a fragmentary form. The lights were still burning in the ball room windows, illuminating the atrium and beds of peonies. The Witcher went a little further in, among some dense bushes, where he stared at the lightening sky. The horizon was already burning with the purple streaks of dawn.

As he slowly returned, pondering important matters, his medallion vibrated powerfully. He held it in his hand, feeling the vibrations penetrate his entire body. There was no doubt; someone in Aretuza had cast a spell. Geralt listened carefully and heard some muffled shouts, and a clattering and pounding coming from the cloister in the palace’s left wing.

Anyone else would have turned on their heels at once and walked briskly back to where they’d come from, pretending they hadn’t heard anything. And then perhaps the history of the world would have unfolded differently. But the Witcher had scruples and was accustomed to acting according to foolish, impractical principles.

When he ran into the cloister and the corridor, he saw that a fight was in progress. Several tough-looking men in grey jerkins were in the act of overpowering a short sorcerer who had been thrown to the ground. The fight was being directed by Dijkstra, chief of Vizimir, King of Redania’s intelligence service. Before Geralt was able to take any action he was overpowered himself; two other heavies in grey pinned him to a wall, and a third held the three-pronged blade of a partisan against his chest.

All the heavies had breastplates emblazoned with the Redanian eagle.

‘That’s called “being in the shit”,’ explained Dijkstra quietly, approaching him. ‘And you, Witcher, seem to have an inborn talent for falling into it. Stand there nice and peacefully and try not to attract anyone’s attention.’

The Redanians finally overpowered the short sorcerer and lifted him up, holding him by his arms. It was Artaud Terranova, a member of the Chapter.

The light which made the details visible emanated from an orb suspended above Keira Metz’s head – a sorceress with whom Geralt had been chatting at the banquet the previous evening. He barely recognised her; she had exchanged her flowing tulle for severe male clothing, and she had a dagger at her side.

‘Handcuff him,’ she ordered curtly. A set of handcuffs made of a bluish metal clinked in her hand.

‘Don’t you dare put those on me!’ yelled Terranova. ‘Don’t you dare, Metz! I am a member of the Chapter!’

‘You were. Now you’re a common traitor. And you will be treated as such.’

‘And you’re a lousy whore, who—’

Keira took a step back, swayed her hips and punched him in the face with all her strength. The sorcerer’s head jerked backwards so hard that for a moment Geralt thought it would be torn from his trunk. Terranova lolled in the arms of the men holding him, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. The sorceress didn’t strike him a second time, though her fist was raised. The Witcher saw the flash of brass knuckles on her fingers. He wasn’t surprised. Keira was very lightly built, and a blow like that couldn’t have been dealt with a bare fist.

He didn’t move. The thugs were holding him tightly, and the point of the partisan was pressing against his chest. Geralt wasn’t sure if he would have moved, had he been free, or whether he would have known what to do.

The Redanians snapped the handcuffs around the sorcerer’s wrists, which were twisted behind his back. Terranova cried out, struggled, bent over and retched and Geralt realised what the handcuffs were made of. It was an alloy of iron and dimeritium, a rare metal characterised by its inhibition of magical powers. The inhibition was accompanied by a set of rather unpleasant side effects for sorcerers.

Keira Metz raised her head, pulling her hair back from her forehead. And then she saw him.

‘What the bloody hell is he doing here? How did he get here?’

‘He just stepped in,’ answered Dijkstra unemotionally. ‘He’s got a talent for putting his foot in it. What shall I do with him?’

Keira’s face darkened and she stamped several times with the high heel of her boot.

‘Guard him. I don’t have time now.’

She walked quickly away, followed by the Redanians who were dragging Terranova behind them. The shining orb floated behind the sorceress, although it was already dawn and quickly becoming light. On a signal from Dijkstra, the thugs released Geralt. The spy came closer and looked the Witcher in the eyes.

‘Don’t try anything.’

‘What’s happening here? What—?’

‘And don’t utter a word.’

Keira Metz returned a short time later; but not alone. She was accompanied by a flaxen-haired sorcerer, introduced to Geralt on the previous day as Detmold of Ban Ard. At the sight of the Witcher, he cursed and smacked his fist into his palm.

‘Shit! Is he the one Yennefer’s taken a liking to?’

‘Yes, that’s him,’ said Keira. ‘Geralt of Rivia. The problem is, I don’t know about Yennefer . . .’

‘I don’t know either,’ said Detmold, shrugging his shoulders. ‘In any case, he’s mixed up in this now. He’s seen too much. Take him to Philippa; she’ll decide. Put him in handcuffs.’

‘There’s no need,’ said Dijkstra with a languid air. ‘I’ll answer for him. I’ll take him to where he ought to be.’

‘Excellent,’ nodded Detmold, ‘because we have no time for him. Come on, Keira, it’s a mess up there . . .’

‘Oh, but aren’t they anxious?’ muttered the Redanian spy, watching them walk away. ‘It’s lack of experience, nothing more. And coups d’état and putsches are like green beet soup. They’re best served cold. Let’s go, Geralt. And remember: peacefully and with dignity. Don’t make a scene. And don’t make me regret not having you handcuffed or tied up.’

‘What’s happening, Dijkstra?’

‘Haven’t you guessed yet?’ said the spy, walking beside him, with the three Redanian heavies bringing up the rear. ‘Tell me straight, Witcher. How did you wind up here?’

‘I was worried about the nasturtiums wilting.’

‘Geralt,’ said Dijkstra, frowning at him. ‘You’ve fallen head first into the shit. You’ve swum upwards, and you’re holding your head above the surface, but your feet still aren’t touching the bottom. Someone’s offering you a helping hand, at the risk of falling in and getting covered in it himself. So drop the foolish jokes. Yennefer made you come here, did she?’

‘No. Yennefer’s still asleep in a warm bed. Does that reassure you?’

The huge spy turned suddenly, seized the Witcher by the arms and shoved him against the wall of the corridor.

‘No, it doesn’t reassure me, you bloody fool,’ he hissed. ‘Haven’t you got it yet, you idiot, that decent sorcerers who are faithful to kings aren’t asleep tonight? That they didn’t go to bed at all? Only traitors who have sold out to Nilfgaard are asleep in their warm beds. Traitors, who were preparing a putsch of their own, but for a later date. They didn’t know their plans had been rumbled and their intentions second-guessed. And as you can see, they’re being dragged out of those warm beds, getting smacked in the teeth with knuckledusters, and having dimeritium bracelets wrapped around their wrists. The traitors are finished. Get it? If you don’t want to go down with them, stop playing the fool! Did Vilgefortz manage to recruit you yesterday evening? Or perhaps Yennefer already did. Talk! And fast, before your mouth is flooded with shit!’

‘Green beet soup, Dijkstra,’ reminded Geralt. ‘Take me to Philippa. Peacefully and with dignity. And without causing a scene.’

The spy released him and took a step back.

‘Let’s go,’ he said coldly. ‘Up these stairs. But this conversation isn’t over yet. I promise you.’

It was bright from the light of lanterns and magical orbs floating beneath the column which supported the vaulting, at the point where four corridors joined. The place was heaving with Redanians and sorcerers. Among the latter were two members of the Council: Radcliffe and Sabrina Glevissig. Sabrina, like Keira Metz, was dressed in grey men’s apparel. Geralt realised it was possible to identify the different factions within the putsch by their uniforms.

Triss Merigold crouched on the floor, hunched over a body which was lying in a pool of blood. Geralt recognised the body as that of Lydia van Bredevoort. He knew her by her hair and silk dress. He couldn’t have recognised her by her face because it was no longer a face. It was a horrifying, macabre skull, with shining teeth exposed halfway up the cheeks, and a distorted, sunken jaw, the bones badly knitted together.[2]

‘Cover her up,’ said Sabrina Glevissig softly. ‘When she died, the illusion vanished . . . I said bloody cover her up with something!’

‘How did it happen, Radcliffe?’ asked Triss, withdrawing her hand from the gilded haft of the dagger which was embedded beneath Lydia’s sternum. ‘How could it have happened? This was supposed to be bloodless!’

‘She attacked us,’ muttered the sorcerer and lowered his head. ‘She attacked us as Vilgefortz was being escorted out. There was a scuffle . . . I have no idea . . . It’s her own dagger.’

‘Cover her face!’ said Sabrina, suddenly turning away. She saw Geralt, and her predatory eyes shone like anthracite.

‘How did he get here?’

Triss leapt to her feet and sprang towards the Witcher. Geralt saw her hand right in front of his face. Then he saw a flash, and everything faded into darkness. He couldn’t see. He felt a hand on his collar and a sharp tug.

‘Hold him up or he’ll fall,’ said Triss, her voice unnatural, feigning anger. She jerked him again, pulling him towards her for a moment.

‘Forgive me,’ she whispered hurriedly. ‘I had to do that.’

Dijkstra’s men held him fast.

He moved his head around, activating his other senses. There were movements in the corridors and the air rippled, carrying scents with it. And voices. Sabrina Glevissig swore; Triss mollified her. The Redanians, reeking of an army barracks, dragged the limp body across the floor, rustling the silk of the dress. Blood. The smell of blood. And the smell of ozone; the scent of magic. Raised voices. Footsteps. The nervous clattering of heels.

‘Hurry up! It’s all taking too long! We ought to be in Garstang by now!’

That was Philippa Eilhart. Sounding anxious.

‘Sabrina, find Marti Södergren quickly. Drag her out of bed, if necessary. Gedymdeith’s in a bad way. I think it’s a heart attack. Have Marti see to him but don’t say anything to her or to whoever she’s sleeping with. Triss, find Dorregaray, Drithelm and Carduin and bring them to Garstang.’

‘What for?’

‘They represent the kings. Ethain and Esterad are to be informed about our operation and its consequences. You’ll be taking them . . . Triss, you have blood on your hand! Whose is it?’

‘Lydia’s.’

‘Damn it. When? How?’

‘Is it important how?’ said a cold, calm voice. The voice of Tissaia de Vries. The rustle of a dress. Tissaia was in a ball gown, not a rebel uniform. Geralt listened carefully but could not hear the jingling of dimeritium handcuffs.

‘Are you pretending to be worried?’ repeated Tissaia. ‘Concerned? When revolts are organised, when armed thugs are deployed at night, you have to expect casualties. Lydia is dead. Hen Gedymdeith is dying. A moment ago I saw Artaud with his face carved up. How many more casualties will there be, Philippa Eilhart?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered Philippa resolutely. ‘But I’m not backing down.’

‘Of course not. You don’t back down from anything.’

The air vibrated, and heels thudded on the floor in a familiar rhythm. Philippa walked towards him. He remembered the nervous rhythm of her footsteps when they were walking through the hall at Aretuza together, to feast on caviar. He recalled the scent of cinnamon and muskroot. Now, that scent was mixed with the smell of baking soda. Geralt had no intention of participating in any kind of coup or putsch, but wondered whether – had he decided to – he would have thought about cleaning his teeth beforehand.

‘He can’t see you, Phil,’ said Dijkstra nonchalantly. ‘He can’t see anything and didn’t see anything. The one with the beautiful hair blinded him.’

He heard Philippa’s breath and sensed every one of her movements but moved his head around awkwardly, simulating helplessness. The enchantress was not to be fooled.

‘Don’t bother pretending, Geralt. Triss may have darkened your eyes but she didn’t take away your mind. How the hell did you end up here?’

‘I dropped in. Where’s Yennefer?’

‘Blessed are they who do not know,’ said Philippa, in a voice devoid of mockery. ‘For they will live longer. Be grateful to Triss. It was a soft spell; the blindness will soon pass. And you didn’t see anything you weren’t meant to. Guard him, Dijkstra. I’ll be right back.’

There was a disturbance again. And voices. Keira Metz’s resonant soprano, Radcliffe’s nasal bass. The clatter of heavy Redanian boots. And Tissaia de Vries’s raised voice.

‘Let her go! How could you? How could you do that to her?’

‘She’s a traitress!’ responded Radcliffe’s nasal voice.

‘I will never believe that!’

‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ said Philippa Eilhart, coldly. ‘And Emperor Emhyr has promised the elves freedom. As well as their own, independent state. Here, in these lands. After the humans have been slaughtered, naturally. And that was sufficient for her to betray us without a second thought.’

‘Answer!’ said Tissaia de Vries forcefully. ‘Answer her, Enid!’

‘Answer, Francesca.’

The clinking of dimeritium handcuffs. The singsong, elven lilt of Francesca Findabair, the Daisy of the Valleys, the most beautiful woman in the world.

‘Va vort a me, Dh’oine. N’aen te a dice’n.’

‘Will that suffice, Tissaia?’ barked Philippa. ‘Will you believe me now? You, me, all of us, are – and always were – Dh’oine, humans, to her. And she, Aen Seidhe, has nothing to say to humans. And you, Fercart? What did Vilgefortz and Emhyr promise you, that made you choose treachery?’

‘Go to hell, you debauched slut.’

Geralt held his breath, but this time didn’t hear the sound of brass knuckles hitting bone. Philippa was more composed than Keira. Or she didn’t have any brass knuckles.

‘Radcliffe, take the traitors to Garstang! Detmold, give your arm to Arch-Mistress de Vries. Go. I’ll join you soon.’

Footsteps. The scent of cinnamon and muskroot.

‘Dijkstra.’

‘I’m here, Phil.’

‘Your men are no longer needed here. They may return to Loxia.’

‘Are you absolutely sure—’

‘To Loxia, Dijkstra!’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’ There was scorn in the spy’s voice. ‘The lackeys can leave. They’ve done their bidding. Now it is a private matter for the mages. And thus I, without further ado, will leave Your Grace’s beautiful presence. I didn’t expect gratitude for my help or my contribution to your putsch, but I am certain that Your Grace will keep me in her gracious memory.’

‘Forgive me, Sigismund. Thank you for your help.’

‘Not at all. It was my pleasure. Hey, Voymir, get your men. I want five to stay with me. Take the others downstairs and board The Spada. But do it quietly, on tiptoe, without any fuss, commotion or fireworks. Use side corridors. Don’t breathe a word of this in Loxia or in the harbour. That’s an order!’

‘You didn’t see anything, Geralt,’ said Philippa Eilhart in a whisper, wafting cinnamon, muskroot and baking soda onto the Witcher. ‘You didn’t hear anything. You never spoke to Vilgefortz. Dijkstra will take you to Loxia now. I’ll try to find you when . . . when it’s all over. I promised you as much yesterday and I’ll keep my word.’

‘What about Yennefer?’

‘I’d say he’s obsessed,’ said Dijkstra, returning and shuffling his feet. ‘Yennefer, Yennefer . . . It’s getting tedious. Don’t bother yourself with him, Phil. There are more important things to do. Was the expected item found on Vilgefortz?’

‘Indeed. Here, this is for you.’

‘Oh!’ The rustle of paper being unwrapped. ‘Oh my, oh my! Excellent! Duke Nitert. Splendid! Baron—’

‘Discreetly; no names. And please don’t start the executions immediately after your return to Tretogor. Don’t incite a premature scandal.’

‘Don’t worry. The lads on this list – so greedy for Nilfgaardian gold – are safe. At least for the moment. They’ll become my sweet little puppets. I’ll be able to pull their strings, and later we’ll put those strings around their sweet little necks . . . Just out of curiosity, were there any other lists? Any traitors from Kaedwen, from Temeria, from Aedirn? I’d be delighted to take a look. Just a glimpse . . .’

‘I know you would. But it’s not your business. Radcliffe and Sabrina Glevissig were given those lists, and they’ll know what to do with them. And now I must go. I’m in a hurry.’

‘Phil?’

‘Yes.’

‘Restore the Witcher’s sight so he doesn’t trip on the stairs.’

The banquet in the Aretuza ballroom was still in progress, but it had become more traditional and relaxed. The tables had been pushed aside, and the sorcerers and enchantresses had brought in armchairs, chairs and stools they’d found in other rooms and were lounging in them and amusing themselves in various ways. Most of their amusements were vulgar. A large group, crowded around a bulky cask of rotgut, were carousing, talking and erupting into laughter from time to time. Those who not long before had been delicately spearing exquisite morsels with little silver forks were now unceremoniously chewing mutton ribs held in both hands. Several of them were playing cards, ignoring the rest. Others were asleep. A couple were kissing passionately in the corner, and the ardour they were displaying indicated it wouldn’t stop there.

‘Just look at them, Witcher,’ said Dijkstra, leaning over the banisters of the cloister and looking down at the sorcerers. ‘How merrily they play. Just like children. And meanwhile, their Council has just nicked almost their entire Chapter and are trying them for treason, for cuddling up to Nilfgaard. Look at that couple. They’ll be soon looking for a secluded corner, and before they’ve finish bonking, Vilgefortz will have hanged. Oh, what a strange world it is . . .’

‘Be quiet, Dijkstra.’

The path leading to Loxia was cut into the slopes of the mountain in a zigzag of steps. The steps connected terraces, which were decorated with neglected hedges, flowerbeds and yellowing agaves in flowerpots. Dijkstra stopped at one of the terraces they passed and walked over to a wall with a row of stone chimeras’ heads. Water was trickling from their jaws. The spy leaned over and took a long drink.

The Witcher approached the balustrade. The sea glimmered gold, and the sky was even more kitsch in colour than it was in the paintings filling the Gallery of Glory. Below, he could see the squad of Redanians who had been ordered to leave Aretuza. They were heading for the harbour in well-ordered formation, just crossing a bridge linking the two sides of a rocky cleft.

His attention was suddenly caught by a colourful, lone figure, conspicuous because it was moving quickly. And moving in the opposite direction to the Redanians. Uphill, towards Aretuza.

‘Right,’ said Dijkstra, urging him on with a cough. ‘It’s time we were going.’

‘Go yourself, if you’re in such a hurry.’

‘Yeah, right,’ scowled the spy. ‘And you’ll go back up there to rescue your beloved Yennefer. And stir up trouble like a tipsy gnome. We’re heading for Loxia, Witcher. Are you kidding yourself or something? Do you think I got you out of Aretuza because of some long-hidden love for you? Well I didn’t. I got you out of there because I need you.’

‘For what?’

‘Are you having me on? Twelve young ladies from Redania’s finest families are pupils at Aretuza. I can’t risk a conflict with the honourable rectoress, Margarita Laux-Antille. But the rectoress won’t give me Cirilla, the Princess of Cintra, the girl Yennefer brought to Thanedd. She’ll give her to you, however. When you ask her.’

‘What gave you the ridiculous idea that I’ll ask for her?’

‘The ridiculous assumption that you want to make sure Cirilla will be safe. She’ll be safe in my care, in King Vizimir’s care. In Tretogor. She isn’t safe on Thanedd. Refrain from making any sarcastic comments. Yes, I know the kings didn’t have the most wonderful plans for her at the beginning. But that has changed. Now it’s become clear that Cirilla – alive, safe and in good health – may be worth more in the coming war than ten regiments of heavy horse. Dead, she’s not worth a brass farthing.’

‘Does Philippa Eilhart know what you’re planning?’

‘No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t even know I know the girl’s in Loxia. My erstwhile beloved Phil may put on airs and graces, but Vizimir is still the King of Redania. I carry out his orders, and I don’t give a shit what the sorcerers are plotting. Cirilla will board The Spada and sail to Novigrad, from where she’ll travel to Tretogor. And she’ll be safe. Do you believe me?’

The Witcher leaned over towards one of the chimera heads and drank some of the water trickling from its monstrous maw.

‘Do you believe me?’ repeated Dijkstra, standing over him.

Geralt stood up, wiped his mouth, and punched him in the jaw with all his strength. The spy staggered but didn’t go down. The nearest Redanian leapt forward, intending to seize the Witcher, but grabbed thin air, and immediately sat down, spitting blood and one of his teeth. Then all the others jumped him. There was a chaotic confusion and crush, which was exactly what the Witcher had been hoping for.

One of the Redanians slammed head first into the gargoyle, and the water trickling from its jaws turned red. Another caught the heel of the Witcher’s fist in the windpipe and doubled up as though his genitals had been ripped out. A third, smacked in the eye, fell back with a groan. Dijkstra seized the Witcher in a bearlike grip, and Geralt kicked him hard in the ankle with his heel. The spy howled and cavorted hilariously on one leg.

Another heavy tried to strike the Witcher with his short sword but slashed only the air. Geralt caught hold of his elbow in one hand and his wrist in the other. He spun him around, knocking over two others who were trying to get up. The thug he was holding was strong and had no intention of releasing his sword. So Geralt tightened his grip and the man’s arm broke with a crack.

Dijkstra, still hopping on one leg, seized a partisan from the ground, hoping to pin the Witcher to the wall with its three-pronged blade. Geralt dodged, seized the shaft in both hands and used the principle – well known to scholars – of the lever. The spy, seeing the bricks and mortar of the wall looming, dropped the partisan but was too late to prevent his crotch slamming into the chimera’s head.

Geralt used the partisan to knock another thug off his feet and then held the shaft against the ground and broke it with a kick, shortening it to the length of a sword. He tried out the makeshift club, first by hitting Dijkstra – who was sitting astride the chimera – and then by quietening the moans of the bruiser with the broken arm. The seams of his doublet had burst under both arms some time before, and the Witcher was feeling considerably better.

The last brute on his feet also attacked with a partisan, expecting its length to offer him an advantage. Geralt hit him between the eyebrows, and the bruiser sat down hard on the pot holding the agave. Another of the Redanians – who was unusually stubborn – clung to the Witcher’s thigh and bit him painfully. This angered the Witcher, who deprived the rodent of his ability to bite with a powerful kick.

Dandelion arrived on the steps out of breath, saw what was happening and went as white as a ghost.

‘Geralt!’ he yelled a moment later. ‘Ciri’s disappeared! She isn’t here!’

‘I expected as much,’ answered the Witcher, bashing the next Redanian, who was refusing to lie down quietly, with his club. ‘But you really make a body wait, Dandelion. I told you yesterday that you were to leg it to Aretuza if anything happened! Have you brought my sword?’

‘Both of them!’

‘The other one is Ciri’s, you idiot.’ Geralt whacked the heavy trying to get up from the agave pot.

‘I don’t know much about swords,’ panted the poet. ‘Stop hitting them, by the gods! Can’t you see the Redanian eagle? They’re King Vizimir’s men! This is treachery and rebellion. You could end up in a dungeon for that . . .’

‘On the scaffold,’ mumbled Dijkstra, drawing a dagger and staggering closer. ‘You’ll both be for the scaffold . . .’

He wasn’t able to say anything else because he collapsed on all fours, struck on the side of the head with the stump of the partisan’s shaft.

‘Broken on the wheel,’ pictured Dandelion gloomily. ‘After being rent with red-hot pincers . . .’

The Witcher kicked the spy in the ribs. Dijkstra flopped over on one side like a felled elk.

‘. . . then our bodies quartered,’ continued the poet.

‘Stop that, Dandelion. Give me both swords and get away from here as quickly as possible. Flee from the island. As far away as you can!’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m going back up. I have to save Ciri . . . And Yennefer. Dijkstra, lie there nicely and get your hands off that dagger!’

‘You won’t get away with this,’ panted the spy. ‘I’ll send my men after you . . . I’ll get you . . .’

‘No you won’t.’

‘Oh, I will. I’ve got fifty men on The Spada . . .’

‘And is there a barber surgeon among them?’

‘Eh?’

Geralt came up behind the spy, bent down, seized him by the foot and jerked it, twisting the foot quickly and very powerfully. There was a cracking sound. Dijkstra howled and fainted. Dandelion screamed as if it had been his own ankle.

‘I don’t much care what they do to me after I’ve been quartered,’ muttered the Witcher.

It was quiet in Aretuza. Only a few diehards remained in the ballroom, but now they had too little energy to make a racket. Geralt avoided it, not wanting to be noticed.

He had some difficulty finding the chamber where he’d spent the night with Yennefer. The palace corridors were a veritable labyrinth and all looked alike.

The ragdoll looked at him with its button eyes.

He sat down on the bed, clutching his head. There was no blood on the chamber floor. But a black dress was draped over the back of a chair. Yennefer had changed. Into men’s clothes, the uniform of the conspirators?

Or they’d dragged her out in her underwear. In dimeritium handcuffs.

Marti Södergren, the healer, was sitting in the window alcove. Hearing his footsteps, she raised her head. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

‘Hen Gedymdeith is dead,’ she said in a faltering voice. ‘It was his heart. I couldn’t do a thing . . . Why did they call me so late? Sabrina hit me. She hit me in the face. Why? What has happened?’

‘Have you seen Yennefer?’

‘No, I haven’t. Leave me. I want to be alone.’

‘Show me the shortest way to Garstang. Please.’

Above Aretuza were three terraces covered with shrubs. Beyond them, the mountain slopes became sheer and inaccessible. Garstang loomed up above the precipice. At its foot the palace was a dark, uniformly smooth block of stone growing out of the rocks. Only the marble and stained-glass windows of its upper storey sparkled and the metal roofs of its domes shone like gold in the sun.

The paved road leading to Garstang and on to the summit wound around the mountain like a snake. There was another, shorter, route: a stairway linking the terraces, which vanished into the black maw of a tunnel just beneath Garstang. It was this stairway that Marti Södergren pointed out to the Witcher.

Immediately beyond the tunnel was a bridge joining the two sides of the precipice. Beyond the bridge, the stairway climbed steeply upwards and curved, vanishing around a bend. The Witcher quickened his pace.

The balustrade was decorated with small statues of fauns and nymphs which gave the impression of being alive. They were moving. The Witcher’s medallion began to vibrate intensively.

He rubbed his eyes. The statues were not in fact moving but metamorphosing, transforming from smooth-surfaced carvings to porous, shapeless masses of stone, eroded by strong winds and salt. And an instant later they renewed themselves once more.

He knew what that meant. The illusion disguising Thanedd was becoming unstable and weakening. The bridge was also partly illusory. A chasm with a waterfall roaring at its foot was visible through the hole-riddled camouflage.

There were no dark slabs to indicate a safe way across. He crossed the bridge tentatively, careful of every step, cursing to himself at the time he was wasting. When he reached the far side of the chasm, he heard running footsteps.

He knew who it was at once. Running down the steps towards him was Dorregaray, the sorcerer in the service of King Ethain of Cidaris. He recalled the words of Philippa Eilhart. The sorcerers who represented neutral kings had been invited to Garstang as observers. But Dorregaray was hurtling down the steps at such a speed that it appeared his invitation had suddenly been revoked.

‘Dorregaray!’

‘Geralt?’ panted the sorcerer. ‘What are you doing here? Don’t stay here. Run away! Get down to Aretuza quickly!’

‘What has happened?’

‘Treachery!’

‘What?’

Dorregaray suddenly shuddered and coughed strangely, then toppled forwards and fell onto the Witcher. Before Geralt could catch hold of him he spotted the grey fletching of an arrow sticking out of his back. He and the sorcerer swayed in an embrace. That movement saved the Witcher’s life as a second, identical, arrow, rather than piercing his throat, slammed into the grotesquely grinning face of a stone faun, knocking off its nose and part of its cheek. The Witcher released Dorregaray and ducked down behind the balustrade. The sorcerer collapsed onto him.

There were two archers, and both had squirrels’ tails in their hats. One remained at the top of the staircase, pulling his bowstring back, while the other drew his sword and hurtled down the stairway, several steps at a time. Geralt pushed Dorregaray aside and leapt to his feet, drawing his sword. An arrow sang, but the Witcher interrupted the song, deflecting the arrowhead with a quick blow of his sword. The other elf, already close, hesitated for a moment on seeing the arrow deflected. But only for a moment. He came at the Witcher, swinging his blade and ready to strike. Geralt made a short parry, obliquely, so that the elf’s sword slid across his. The elf lost his balance, the Witcher spun around smoothly and slashed him across the side of the neck below his ear. Just once. Once was enough.

The archer at the top of the stairway bent his bow again but did not have time to release the string. Geralt saw a flash. The elf screamed, spread out his arms and fell forwards, tumbling down the steps. The back of his jerkin was on fire.

Another sorcerer ran down the steps. On seeing the Witcher, he stopped and raised a hand. Geralt didn’t waste time with explanations but flattened himself on the ground as a fiery lightning bolt flew over him with a hiss, pulverising a statue of a faun.

‘Stop!’ he yelled. ‘It’s me, the Witcher!’

‘Damn it,’ the sorcerer panted, running over to Geralt, who could not remember him from the banquet. ‘I took you for one of those elven thugs . . . How is Dorregaray? Is he still alive?’

‘I think so . . .’

‘Quickly, to the other side of the bridge!’

They dragged Dorregaray across. And luck was on their side, because in their haste they paid no attention to the wavering and vanishing illusion. No one was pursuing them, but the sorcerer nonetheless extended a hand, chanting a spell, and sent a lightning bolt to destroy the bridge. The stones crashed down the walls of the abyss.

‘That ought to hold them back,’ he said.

The Witcher wiped away the blood pouring from Dorregaray’s mouth.

‘He has a punctured lung. Can you help him?’

‘I can,’ said Marti Södergren, hauling herself up the steps from the tunnel leading from Aretuza. ‘What’s happening, Carduin? Who shot him?’

‘Scoia’tael,’ said the sorcerer, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. ‘There’s a battle raging in Garstang. Bloody rabble. They’re all as bad as each other! Philippa handcuffed Vilgefortz during the night, and Vilgefortz and Francesca Findabair brought Squirrels to the island! And Tissaia de Vries . . . She’s stirred everything up!’

‘Be clearer, Carduin!’

‘I’m not hanging around here talking! I’m fleeing to Loxia, and from there I’m going to teleport to Kovir. Everyone in Garstang can go ahead and slaughter each other! It’s all meaningless now! It’s war! This mayhem was concocted by Philippa to allow the kings to start a war with Nilfgaard! Meanwhile Meve of Lyria and Demavend of Aedirn have provoked Nilfgaard! Do you understand that?’

‘No,’ said Geralt. ‘And we don’t want to understand it. Where’s Yennefer?’

‘Stop it, you two!’ screamed Marti Södergren, attending to Dorregaray. ‘Help me! Hold him! I can’t pull the arrow out!’

They helped her. Dorregaray groaned and trembled, and then the steps shook. At first Geralt thought it was the magic of Marti’s healing spells. But it was Garstang. The stained-glass windows suddenly exploded and flames could be seen flickering inside the palace. Smoke was billowing out.

‘They’re still fighting,’ said Carduin, grinding his teeth. ‘It’s hot down there, one spell after another . . .’

‘Spells? In Garstang? But there’s an anti-magic aura there!’

‘It was Tissaia’s doing. She suddenly decided whose side she was on. She took down the blockade, removed the aura and neutralised the dimeritium. Then everyone went for each other! Vilgefortz and Terranova on one side, Philippa and Sabrina on the other . . . The columns cracked and the vaulting collapsed . . . And then Francesca opened the entrance to the cellars, and those elven devils suddenly leapt out . . . We told them that we were neutral, but Vilgefortz only laughed. Before we had time to build a shield, Drithelm had been shot in the eye, and Rejean had been spitted like a hedgehog . . . I didn’t wait to see what happened after that. Marti, are you going to be much longer? We have to get out of here!’

‘Dorregaray won’t be able to walk,’ said the healer, wiping her bloody hands on her white ball gown. ‘Teleport us, Carduin.’

‘From here? You must be insane. It’s too close to Tor Lara. The Lara portal gives out emanations which warp any attempts at teleportation. You can’t teleport from here!’

‘He can’t walk! I have to stay with him—’

‘Well stay, then!’ Carduin stood up. ‘And enjoy yourself! Life is dear to me! I’m going back to Kovir! Kovir is neutral!’

‘Splendid,’ said the Witcher, spitting and watching the sorcerer disappear into the tunnel. ‘Friendship and solidarity! But I can’t stay with you either, Marti. I have to go to Garstang. Your neutral comrade smashed up the bridge. Is there another way?’

Marti Södergren sniffed. Then she raised her head and nodded.

He was at the foot of the wall in Garstang when Keira Metz landed on his head.

The way he’d been shown by the healer led through some hanging gardens linked by winding steps. The steps were covered in dense ivy and vines and the vegetation made climbing difficult but it also gave cover. He managed to get to the foot of the palace wall undetected and had been looking for a way in when Keira had fallen on him, and the two of them tumbled into some blackthorn bushes.

‘I’ve lost a tooth,’ said the sorceress, gloomily, lisping slightly. She was dishevelled, dirty and covered in plaster and soot. There was a large bruise on her cheek.

‘And I think I’ve broken my leg,’ she added, spitting blood. ‘Is that you, Witcher? Did I land on you? How come?’

‘I was wondering the same thing myself.’

‘Terranova threw me out of a window.’

‘Can you stand?’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘I want to get inside. Unnoticed. Which way is it?’

‘Are all witchers,’ said Keira, spitting blood again, groaning, and trying to prop herself up on an elbow, ‘insane? There’s a battle going on in Garstang! It’s kicking off so badly the plaster’s falling off the ceiling! Are you looking for trouble?’

‘No. I’m looking for Yennefer.’

‘Oh!’ said Keira, giving up her struggles and lying on her back. ‘I wish someone would love me like that. Carry me.’

‘Another time, perhaps. I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

‘Carry me, I said! I’ll show you the way into Garstang. I have to get that son of a bitch Terranova. Well, what are you waiting for? You won’t find the way yourself, and even if you did, those fucking elves would finish you off . . . I can’t walk, but I’m still capable of casting a few spells. If anyone gets in our way they’ll regret it.’

She cried out when he picked her up.

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. ‘It’s that leg. Did you know you still smell of her perfume? No, not that way. Turn back and go uphill. It’s the second entrance on the Tor Lara side. There may not be any elves there . . . Ouch! Gently, damn it!’

‘Sorry. How did the Scoia’tael get here?’

‘They were hidden in the cellars. Thanedd is as hollow as a nutshell and there’s a huge cavern under it; you could sail a ship in if you knew how. Someone must have told them the way— Ouuuch! Be careful! Stop jolting me!’

‘Sorry. So the Squirrels came here by sea? When?’

‘God knows when. It might have been yesterday, or a week ago. We were preparing to strike at Vilgefortz, and Vilgefortz at us. Vilgefortz, Francesca, Terranova and Fercart . . . They conned us good and proper. Philippa thought they were planning a slow seizure of power in the Chapter, and to put pressure on the kings . . . But they were planning to finish us off during the Conclave . . . Geralt, it’s too painful . . . It’s my leg . . . Put me down for a second. Ouuuch!’

‘Keira, it’s an open fracture. The blood’s seeping through your trousers.’

‘Shut up and listen. Because it’s about your Yennefer. We entered Garstang and went into the debating chamber. There’s an anti-magic blockade there, but it doesn’t affect dimeritium, so we felt safe. There was an argument. Tissaia and the neutrals yelled at us and we yelled at them. And Vilgefortz just said nothing and smiled . . .’

‘I repeat: Vilgefortz is a traitor! He’s in cahoots with Emhyr of Nilfgaard, and he’s inveigled others into the plot! He broke the Law, he betrayed us and the kings . . .’

‘Slow down, Philippa. I know the grace and favour Vizimir surrounds you with mean more to you than the solidarity of the Brotherhood. The same applies to you, Sabrina, for you play an identical role in Kaedwen. Keira Metz and Triss Merigold represent the interests of Foltest of Temeria, and Radcliffe is a tool of Demavend of Aedirn—’

‘What does that have to do with it, Tissaia?’

‘The kings’ interests don’t have to correspond to ours. I know perfectly well what it’s all about. The kings have begun the extermination of elves and other non-humans. Perhaps you, Philippa, regard that as legitimate. Perhaps you, Radcliffe, think it appropriate to help Demavend’s forces in their hunt for the Scoia’tael. But I am opposed to it. And it doesn’t surprise me that Enid Findabair is also against it. But that is not sufficient to call it treachery. Let me finish! I know perfectly well what your kings were planning. I know they want to unleash a war. The measures which were meant to prevent that war may be seen as treachery by Vizimir, but not by me. If you wish to judge Vilgefortz and Francesca; do the same to me!’

‘What war do you speak of? My king, Esterad of Kovir, will not support any acts of aggression against the Nilfgaardian Empire! Kovir is, and will remain, neutral!’

‘You are a member of the Council, Carduin! Not Kovir’s ambassador!’

‘Look who’s talking, Sabrina.’

‘Enough!’ Philippa slammed her fist down on the table. ‘I shall satisfy your curiosity, Carduin. You ask who is preparing a war? Nilfgaard. They intend to attack and destroy us. But Emhyr var Emreis remembers Sodden Hill and has decided to protect himself by removing the mages from the game first. With this in mind, he made contact with Vilgefortz of Roggeveen. He bought him with promises of power and honour. Yes, Tissaia. Vilgefortz, hero of Sodden, sold us out to become the governor and ruler of all the conquered territories of the north. Vilgefortz, helped by Terranova and Fercart, shall rule the provinces which will be established in place of the conquered kingdoms. It is he who will wield the Nilfgaardian scourge over the people who inhabit those lands and will begin toiling as the Empire’s slaves. And Francesca Findabair, Enid an Gleanna, will become queen of the land of the free elves. It will, of course, be a Nilfgaardian protectorate, but it will suffice for the elves so long as Emperor Emhyr will give them a free hand to murder humans. The elves desire nothing so much as to murder Dh’oine.’

‘That is a serious accusation. Which means the proof will also have to be as weighty. But before you throw your proof onto the scale, Philippa Eilhart, be aware of my stance. Proof may be fabricated. Actions and their motives may be misinterpreted. But nothing can change existing facts. You have broken the unity and solidarity of the Brotherhood, Philippa Eilhart. You have handcuffed members of the Chapter like criminals. So do not dare to offer me a position in the new Chapter which your gang of traitors – who have sold out to the kings, rather than to Nilfgaaard – intend to create. We are separated by death and blood. The death of Hen Gedymdeith. And the blood of Lydia van Bredevoort. You spilled that blood with contempt. You were my best pupil, Philippa Eilhart. I was always proud of you. But now I have nothing but contempt for you.’

Keira Metz was as pale as parchment.

‘It’s been quieter in Garstang for some time now,’ she whispered. ‘It’s coming to an end . . . They are chasing each other through the palace. There are five floors and seventy-six chambers and halls. That’s plenty of room for a chase . . .’

‘You were going to tell me about Yennefer. Be quick. I’m worried you’ll faint.’

‘Yennefer? Oh, yes . . . Everything was going according to plan until Yennefer suddenly appeared. And brought that medium into the hall . . .’

‘Who?’

‘A girl, aged perhaps fourteen. Very fair hair and huge, green eyes . . . She began to prophesy before we’d had time to look at her properly. She talked of the events in Dol Angra. No one had any doubt she was speaking the truth. She was in a trance, and in a trance no one lies.’

‘Last night,’ said the medium, ‘armed forces in Lyrian livery and carrying Aedirnian standards committed acts of aggression against the Empire of Nilfgaard. Glevitzingen, a border outpost in Dol Angra, was attacked. King Demavend’s heralds informed the people of the surrounding villages that Aedirn is taking control of the entire country from today. The entire population was incited to rise up against Nilfgaard—’

‘That is impossible! It’s nothing but vile provocation!’

‘You utter that word easily, Philippa Eilhart,’ said Tissaia de Vries calmly. ‘But do not deceive yourself; your cries will not break her trance. Speak on, child.’

‘Emperor Emhyr var Emreis has given the order to answer blows with blows. Nilfgaardian forces entered Lyria and Aedirn at dawn today.’

‘And thus,’ laughed Tissaia, ‘our kings have shown what judicious, enlightened and peace-loving rulers they are. And some of our mages have proved which cause they really serve. Those who might have prevented this imperialist war have been prudently clamped in dimeritium handcuffs and are facing trumped-up charges—’

‘That is nothing but a pack of lies!’

‘Fuck the lot of you!’ roared Sabrina Glevissig suddenly. ‘Philippa! What is this all about? What was the purpose of that brawl in Dol Angra? Hadn’t we agreed not to begin too soon? Why couldn’t that fucking Demavend restrain himself? Why did that slut Meve . . .’

‘Silence, Sabrina!’

‘No, no. Let her speak,’ said Tissaia de Vries, raising her head. ‘Let her speak of Henselt of Kaedwen’s army, which is concentrated on the border. Let her speak of Foltest of Temeria’s forces, which no doubt are already launching the boats which have been hidden in undergrowth by the Jaruga. Let her speak of the expeditionary force under the command of Vizimir of Redania, standing ready on the Pontar. Philippa, did you think we were both blind and deaf?’

‘It’s nothing but an enormous bloody provocation! King Vizimir—’

‘King Vizimir,’ interrupted the fair-haired medium in an unemotional voice, ‘was murdered yesterday evening. Stabbed by an assassin. Redania no longer has a king.’

‘Redania has not had a king for a very long time,’ said Tissaia de Vries, rising to her feet. ‘The Most Honourable Philippa Eilhart, the worthy successor of Raffard the White, ruled in Redania. A person prepared to sacrifice tens of thousands of beings in order to gain absolute power.’

‘Do not listen to her!’ yelled Philippa. ‘Do not listen to that medium! She’s a tool, an unthinking tool . . . Who do you serve, Yennefer? Who instructed you to bring that monster here?’

‘I did,’ said Tissaia de Vries.

‘What happened next? What happened to the girl? To Yennefer?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Keira, closing her eyes. ‘Tissaia suddenly lifted the blockade. With one spell. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. She stunned and blocked us, then freed Vilgefortz and the others . . . And then Francesca opened the entrance to the cellars and suddenly Garstang was swarming with Scoia’tael. They were being led by a freak in armour wearing a winged, Nilfgaardian helmet. Helped by that character with the mark on his face. He knew how to cast spells. And shield himself with magic . . .’

‘Rience.’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know. It was hot . . . The ceiling caved in. Spells and arrows were flying everywhere; it was a massacre . . . Fercart was among their dead, Drithelm and Radcliffe among ours. Marquard, Rejean and Bianca d’Este were killed . . . Triss Merigold was hurt. Sabrina was wounded . . . When Tissaia saw their bodies she understood her mistake, tried to protect us, tried to calm Vilgefortz and Terranova . . . But Vilgefortz ridiculed and laughed at her. Then she lost her head and fled. Oh, Tissaia . . . So many dead . . .’

‘What happened to the girl and to Yennefer?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the sorceress, coughing and spitting blood. She was breathing very shallowly and with obvious difficulty. ‘I passed out after one of the explosions. The one with the scar and his elves overpowered me. Terranova beat me black and blue and then threw me out of a window.’

‘It isn’t just your leg, Keira. You’ve got some broken ribs.’

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I have to. I’ll come back for you.’

‘Yeah, right.’

At first, there was only shimmering chaos, the pulsing of shadows, a confusion of dark and light, and a choir of incoherent voices emerging from the abyss. Suddenly the voices became stronger and, from all around, the screaming and the roaring exploded. The brightness amongst the darkness became a fire consuming the tapestries, seeming to shoot streams of sparks from the walls, the balustrades and the columns supporting the ceiling.

Ciri choked on the smoke and realised it was no longer a dream.

She tried to stand, propping herself up on her arms. Her hand came to rest on something wet, and she looked down. She was kneeling in a pool of blood. Beside her lay a motionless body. The body of an elf. She knew at once.

‘Get up.’

Yennefer was standing beside her. She was holding a dagger.

‘Mistress Yennefer . . . Where are we? I don’t remember . . .’

The enchantress seized her by the hand.

‘I’m with you, Ciri.’

‘Where are we? Why is everything on fire? Who’s that . . . lying there?’

‘I told you once, a long time ago, that chaos is reaching out to seize you. Do you remember? No, you probably don’t. That elf reached out to get you. I had to kill him using a knife, as his paymasters are just waiting for one of us to reveal ourselves by using magic. And it will happen, but not yet . . . Are you totally conscious?’

‘Those sorcerers . . .’ whispered Ciri. ‘The ones in the great hall . . . What did I say to them? And why did I say it? I didn’t want to at all . . . But I couldn’t stop myself! Why? Why, Mistress Yennefer?’

‘Be quiet, my ugly little duckling. I made a mistake. No one’s perfect.’

A roar and a terrifying scream resounded from below.

‘Come on. Quickly. There’s no time.’

They ran along the corridor. The smoke became thicker and thicker. It choked them, blinded them. The walls shook from the explosion.

‘Ciri.’ Yennefer stopped at a junction in the corridors and squeezed the girl’s hand tightly. ‘Listen to me now. Listen carefully. I have to stay here. Do you see those stairs? Go down them . . .’

‘No! Don’t leave me all alone!’

‘I have to. I repeat: go down those stairs. To the very bottom. There’ll be a door and, beyond it a long corridor. At the end of the corridor is a stable and a single, saddled horse. Only one. Lead it out and mount it. It’s a trained horse; it serves messengers riding to Loxia. It knows the way; just spur it on. When you get to Loxia find Margarita. She will look after you. Don’t let her out of your sight—’

‘Mistress Yennefer! No! I don’t want to be alone!’

‘Ciri,’ said the enchantress softly. ‘I once told you that everything I do is for your own good. Trust me. Trust me, I beg you. Now run for it.’

Ciri was already on the steps when she heard Yennefer’s voice once more. The enchantress was standing beside a column, resting her forehead against it.

‘I love you, my daughter,’ she said indistinctly. ‘Run.’

They trapped her halfway down the stairs. At the bottom there were two elves with squirrels’ tails in their hats and, at the top, a man dressed in black. Without thinking, Ciri jumped over the banisters and fled down a side corridor. They ran after her. She was quicker and would have escaped them with ease had the corridor not ended in a window.

She looked through the window. A stone ledge – about two spans wide – ran along the wall. Ciri swung a leg over the windowsill and climbed out. She moved away from the window and pressed her back to the wall. The sea glistened in the distance.

One of the elves leaned out through the window. He had very fair hair and green eyes and wore a silk kerchief around his neck. Ciri moved quickly along the ledge towards the next window. But the man dressed in black was looking out of it. His eyes were dark and intense, and he had a reddish mark on his cheek.

‘We’ve got you, wench!’

She looked down. She could see a courtyard far below her. There was a narrow bridge linking two cloisters above the courtyard, about ten feet below the ledge she was standing on. Except it was not a bridge. It was the remains of a bridge. A narrow, stone footbridge with the remains of a shattered balustrade.

‘What are you waiting for?’ shouted the one with the scar. ‘Get out there and grab her!’

The fair-haired elf stepped gingerly out onto the ledge, pressing his back against the wall. He reached out to grab her. He was getting closer.

Ciri swallowed. The stone footbridge – the remains of the footbridge – was no narrower than the seesaw at Kaer Morhen, and she had landed on that dozens of times. She knew how to cushion her fall and keep her balance. The witchers’ seesaw was only four feet off the ground, however, while the stone footbridge spanned such a long drop that the slabs of the courtyard looked smaller than the palm of her hand.

She jumped, landed, tottered and kept her balance by catching hold of the shattered balustrade. With sure steps, she reached the cloister. She couldn’t resist it; she turned around and showed her pursuers her middle finger, a gesture she had been taught by the dwarf Yarpen Zigrin. The man with the scar swore loudly.

‘Jump!’ he shouted at the fair-haired elf standing on the ledge. ‘After her!’

‘You’re insane, Rience,’ said the elf coldly. ‘Jump yourself.’

As usual, her luck didn’t last. She was caught as she ran down from the cloister and slipped behind a wall into a blackthorn bush. She was caught and held fast in an extremely strong grip by a short, podgy man with a swollen nose and a scarred lip.

‘Got you,’ he hissed. ‘Got you, poppet!’

Ciri struggled and howled because the hands gripping her shoulders transfixed her with a sudden paroxysm of overwhelming pain. The man chuckled.

‘Don’t flap your wings, little bird, or I’ll singe your feathers. Let’s have a good look at you. Let’s have a look at this chick that’s worth so much to Emhyr var Emreis, Imperator of Nilfgaard. And to Vilgefortz.’

Ciri stopped trying to escape. The short man licked his scarred lip.

‘Interesting,’ he hissed again, leaning over towards her. ‘They say you’re so precious, but I wouldn’t even give a brass farthing for you. How appearances deceive. Ha! My treasure! What if, not Vilgefortz, not Rience, not that gallant in the feathered helmet, but old Terranova gave you to Emhyr as a present? Would Emhyr look kindly on old Terranova? What do you say to that, little clairvoyant? You can see the future, after all!’

His breath stank unbearably. Ciri turned her head away, grimacing. He misread the movement.

‘Don’t snap your beak at me, little bird! I’m not afraid of little birds. But should I be, perhaps? Well, false soothsayer? Bogus oracle? Should I be afraid of little birds?’

‘You ought to be,’ whispered Ciri, feeling giddy, a sudden cold sensation overcoming her.

Terranova laughed, throwing his head back. His laugh became a howl of pain. A huge, grey owl had swooped down noiselessly and sunk its talons into his eyes. The sorcerer released Ciri, tore the owl off with a desperate movement and then fell to his knees, clutching his face. Blood poured between his fingers. Ciri screamed and stepped back. Terranova removed his bloodied, mucus-covered fingers from his face and began to chant a spell in a wild, cracked voice. He was not quick enough. A vague shape appeared behind his back, and a witcher’s blade whistled in the air and severed his neck at the base of his skull.

‘Geralt!’

‘Ciri.’

‘This isn’t the time for tenderness,’ said the owl from the top of the wall, transforming into a dark-haired woman. ‘Flee! The squirrels will be here soon!’

Ciri freed herself from Geralt’s arms and looked up in astonishment. The owl-woman sitting on top of the wall looked ghastly. She was blackened, ragged and smeared in ash and blood.

‘You little monster,’ said the owl-woman, looking down at her. ‘For your inopportune augury I ought to . . . But I made your Witcher a promise, and I always keep my promises. I couldn’t give you Rience, Geralt. In exchange I’m giving you her. Alive. Flee, both of you!’

Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach was furious. He had seen the girl he had been ordered to capture, but only for a moment. Then, before he had been able to act, the insane sorcerers unleashed such an inferno in Garstang that no action was possible. Cahir lost his bearings among the smoke and flames, blindly stumbling along corridors, running up and down stairs and through cloisters, and cursing Vilgefortz, Rience, himself and the entire world.

He happened upon an elf who told him the girl had been seen outside the palace, fleeing along the road to Aretuza. And then fortune smiled upon Cahir. The Scoia’tael found a saddled horse in the stable.

‘Run, Ciri, run. They’re close. I’ll stop them, you run. Fast as you can! Just like you used to on the assault course!’

‘Are you abandoning me too?’

‘I’ll be right behind you. But don’t look back!’

‘Give me my sword, Geralt.’

He looked at her. Ciri stepped back involuntarily. She had never seen him with an expression like that before.

‘If you had a sword, you might have to kill with it. Can you do it?’

‘I don’t know. Give me my sword.’

‘Run. And don’t look back.’

Horses’ hooves thudded on the road. Ciri looked back. And she froze, paralysed with fear.

She was being pursued by a black knight in a helmet decorated with raptor wings. The wings whooshed, and the black cloak streamed behind him. Horseshoes sent up sparks from the cobblestones.

She was unable to move.

The black horse burst through the roadside bushes, and the knight shouted loudly. Cintra was in that cry. The night, slaughter, blood and conflagration were in that cry. Ciri overcame her overwhelming fear and darted away. She leapt over a hedge and plunged into a small courtyard with a fountain. There was no way out; it was encircled by smooth, high walls. She could hear the horse snorting behind her. She turned, stumbled backwards and shuddered as she felt a hard, unyielding wall behind her. She was trapped.

The bird of prey flapped its wings, taking flight. The black knight urged his horse on and jumped the hedge separating him from the courtyard. Hooves thudded on the slabs, and the horse slipped, skidded and sat back on its haunches. The knight swayed in the saddle and toppled over. The horse regained its footing but the knight fell off, his armour clattering on the stones. He was on his feet immediately, though, and quickly trapped Ciri, who was pinned into a corner.

‘You will not touch me!’ she screamed, drawing her sword. ‘You will never touch me again!’

The knight moved slowly towards her, rising up like a huge, black tower. The wings on his helmet moved to and fro and whispered.

‘You will not escape me now, o Lion Cub of Cintra,’ he said, and his cruel eyes burned in the slit of his helmet. ‘Not this time. This time you have nowhere to run, o reckless maiden.’

‘You will not touch me,’ she repeated in a voice of stifled horror, her back pressed against the stone wall.

‘I have to. I am carrying out orders.’

As he held out his hand to seize her, Ciri’s fear subsided, to be replaced by savage fury. Her tense muscles, previously frozen in terror, began to work like springs. All the moves she had learned in Kaer Morhen performed themselves, smoothly and fluidly. Ciri jumped; the knight lunged towards her but was unprepared for the pirouette which spun her effortlessly out of reach of his hands. Her sword whined and stung, striking unerringly between the plates of his armour. The knight staggered and dropped to one knee as a stream of scarlet blood spurted from beneath his spaulder. Screaming fiercely, Ciri whirled around him with another pirouette and struck the knight again, this time directly on the bell of his helmet, knocking him down onto his other knee. Fury and madness had utterly blinded her, and she saw nothing except the loathsome wings. The black feathers were strewn in all directions. One wing fell off, and the other was resting on the bloodied spaulder. The knight, still vainly trying to get up from his knees, tried to seize her sword in his armoured glove and grunted painfully as the witcher blade slashed through the chainmail sleeve into his hand. The next blow knocked off his helmet, and Ciri jumped back to gather momentum for the last, mortal blow.

She did not strike.

There was no black helmet, no raptor’s wings, whose whistling had tormented her in her nightmares. There was no black knight of Cintra. There was a pale, dark-haired young man with stupefyingly blue eyes and a mouth distorted in a grimace of fear, kneeling in a pool of blood. The black knight of Cintra had fallen beneath the blows of her sword, had ceased to exist. Only hacked-up feathers remained of the forbidding wings. The terrified, cowering young man bleeding profusely was no one. She did not know him; she had never seen him before. He meant nothing to her. She wasn’t afraid of him, nor did she hate him. And neither did she want to kill him.

She threw her sword onto the ground.

She turned around, hearing the cries of the Scoia’tael approaching fast from Garstang. She knew that in a moment they would trap her in the courtyard. She knew they would catch up with her on the road. She had to be quicker than them. She ran over to the black horse, which was clattering its horseshoes on the paved ground, and urged it into a gallop with a cry, leaping into the saddle in full flight.

‘Leave me . . .’ groaned Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, pushing away the elves who were trying to lift him up with his good hand. ‘I’m fine. It’s just a scratch . . . After her. Get the girl . . .’

One of the elves screamed, and blood spurted into Cahir’s face. Another Scoia’tael reeled and fell to his knees, his fingers clutching his mutilated belly. The remaining elves leapt back and scattered all around the courtyard, swords flashing.

They had been attacked by a white-haired fiend, who had fallen on them from a wall, from a height that would have broken a normal man’s legs. It ought to have been impossible to land gently, whirl in an impossibly fast pirouette, and a split second later begin killing. But the white-haired fiend had done it. And the killing had begun.

The Scoia’tael fought fiercely. They had the advantage, but they had no chance. A massacre was played out before Cahir’s eyes, wide with terror. The fair-haired girl, who had wounded him a moment earlier, had been fast, had been unbelievably lithe, had been like a mother cat defending her kittens. But the white-haired fiend who had fallen amongst the Scoia’tael was like a Zerrikan tiger. The fair-haired maid of Cintra, who for some unknown reason had not killed him, seemed insane. The white-haired fiend was not insane. He was calm and cold. And killed calmly and coldly.

The Scoia’tael had no chance. Their corpses piled up on the slabs of the courtyard. But they did not yield. Even when only two of them remained, they did not run away, but attacked the white-haired fiend once more. The fiend hacked off the arm of one of them above the elbow as Cahir watched. He hit the other elf with an apparently light, casual blow, which nonetheless threw him backwards. It tipped him over the lip of the fountain and hurled him into the water. The water brimmed over the edge of the basin in ripples of crimson.

The elf with the severed arm knelt by the fountain, staring vacantly at the blood gushing from the stump. The white-haired fiend seized him by the hair and cut his throat with a rapid slash of his sword.

When Cahir opened his eyes the fiend was standing over him.

‘Don’t kill me . . .’ he whispered, giving up his efforts to rise from the ground, now slippery with blood. His hand, slashed by the fair-haired girl, had gone numb and did not hurt.

‘I know who you are, Nilfgaardian,’ said the white-haired fiend, kicking the helmet with the hacked-up wings. ‘You have been pursuing her doggedly and long. But now you will harm her no more.’

‘Don’t kill me . . .’

‘Give me one reason. Just one. Make haste.’

‘It was I . . .’ whispered Cahir. ‘It was I who got her out of Cintra. From the fire . . . I rescued her. I saved her life . . .’

When he opened his eyes, the fiend was no longer there. Cahir was alone in the courtyard with the bodies of the elves. The water in the fountain soughed, spilling over the edge of the basin, washing away the blood on the ground. Cahir fainted.

At the foot of the tower stood a building which seemed to be a single, large hall, or perhaps some kind of peristyle. The roof over the peristyle, probably illusory, was full of holes. It was supported by columns and pilasters carved in the shape of scantily clad caryatids with generous breasts. The same kinds of caryatids supported the arch of the entrance through which Ciri had vanished. Beyond the doorway, Geralt noticed some steps leading upwards. Towards the tower.

The Witcher cursed under his breath. He did not understand why she had fled there. He had seen her horse fall as he rushed after her along the tops of the walls. He saw her leap nimbly to her feet, but instead of running along the winding road encircling the peak, she had suddenly rushed uphill, towards the solitary tower. Only later did he notice the elves on the road. Those elves – busy shooting arrows at some men running uphill – saw neither Ciri nor himself. Reinforcements were arriving from Aretuza.

He intended to follow Ciri up the steps when he heard a sound. From above. He quickly turned around. It was not a bird.

Vilgefortz flew down through a hole in the roof, his wide sleeves swishing, and slowly alighted on the floor.

Geralt stood in front of the entrance to the tower, drew his sword and heaved a sigh. He had sincerely hoped that the dramatic, concluding fight would be played out between Vilgefortz and Philippa Eilhart. He didn’t have the least bit of interest in this kind of drama.

Vilgefortz brushed down his jerkin, straightened his cuffs, looked at the Witcher and read his mind.

‘Infernal drama,’ he sighed. Geralt made no comment.

‘Did she go into the tower?’

He made no answer. The sorcerer nodded his head.

‘So we have an epilogue then,’ he said coldly. ‘The denouement that draws the play to a close. Or is it perhaps fate? Do you know where those steps lead? To Tor Lara. To the Tower of Gulls. There is no way out of there. It’s all over.’

Geralt stepped back between two of the caryatids holding up the doorway, in order to protect his flanks.

‘Yes indeed,’ he drawled, keeping his eyes on the sorcerer’s hands. ‘It’s all over. Half of your accomplices are dead. The bodies of the elves who were brought to Thanedd are piled up all the way to Garstang. The others ran away. Sorcerers and Dijkstra’s men are arriving from Aretuza. The Nilfgaardian who was supposed to take Ciri has probably bled to death already. And Ciri is up there in the tower. No way out of there? I’m glad to hear it. That means there’s only one way in. The one I’m blocking.’

Vilgefortz bridled.

‘You’re incorrigible. You are still incapable of assessing the situation correctly. The Chapter and Council have ceased to exist. The forces of Emperor Emhyr are marching north. Deprived of the mages’ assistance and advice, the kings are as helpless as children. In the face of Nilfgaard, their kingdoms are tumbling like sandcastles. I proposed this to you yesterday and repeat it today: join the victors. Spit on the losers.’

‘It is you who’s lost. You were only a tool to Emhyr. He wanted Ciri, which is why he sent that character with the wings on his helmet. I wonder what Emhyr will do to you when you report this fiasco.’

‘You’re shooting wildly, Witcher. And you’re wide of the mark, naturally. What if I told you that Emhyr is my tool?’

‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

‘Geralt, be sensible. Do you really want to play at theatrics, play out the banal final battle between good and evil? I repeat my proposition of yesterday. It is by no means too late. You can still make a choice. You can join the right side—’

‘Join the side I thinned out a little today?’

‘Don’t grin. Your demonic smiles make no impression on me. Those few elves you hacked down? Artaud Terranova? Trifles, meaningless details. They can be waved aside.’

‘But of course. I know your philosophy. Death has no meaning, right? Particularly other people’s?’

‘Don’t be trite. It’s a pity about Artaud but, well, too bad. Let’s call it . . . settling old scores. After all, I tried to kill you twice. Emhyr grew impatient, so I sent some assassins after you. Each time I did it with genuine reluctance. You see, I still hope they’ll paint a picture of us one day.’

‘Abandon that hope, Vilgefortz.’

‘Put away your sword. Let’s go up into Tor Lara together. We’ll reassure the Child of the Elder Blood, who is sure to be dying of fright up there somewhere. And then let’s leave. Together. You’ll be by her side. You will see her destiny fulfilled. And Emperor Emhyr? Emperor Emhyr will get what he wanted. Because I forgot to tell you that although Codringher and Fenn are dead, their work and ideas are still alive and doing very well, thank you.’

‘You are lying. Leave this place before I spit on you.’

‘I really have no desire to kill you. I kill with reluctance.’

‘Indeed? What about Lydia van Bredevoort?’

The sorcerer sneered.

‘Speak not that name, Witcher.’

Geralt gripped the hilt of his sword tightly and smiled scornfully.

‘Why did Lydia have to die, Vilgefortz? Why did you order her death? She was meant to distract attention from you, wasn’t she? She was meant to give you time to become resistant to dimeritium, to send a telepathic signal to Rience, wasn’t she? Poor Lydia, the artist with the damaged face. Everyone knew she was expendable. Everyone knew that except her.’

‘Be silent.’

‘You murdered Lydia, wizard. You used her. And now you want to use Ciri? With my help? No. You will not enter Tor Lara.’

The sorcerer took a step back. Geralt tensed up, ready to jump and strike. Vilgefortz did not raise his hand, however, but simply held it out to one side. A stout, two-yard staff suddenly materialised in his hand.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘what hinders you from making a sensible assessment of the situation. I know what complicates and obstructs your attempts at making a correct prediction of the future. Your arrogance, Geralt. I will disabuse you of arrogance. And I will do so with the help of this magic staff here.’

The Witcher squinted and raised his blade a little.

‘I’m trembling with impatience.’

A few weeks later, having been healed by the dryads and the waters of Brokilon, Geralt wondered what mistakes he had made during the fight. And came to the conclusion he hadn’t made any. His only mistake was made before the fight. He ought to have fled before it even began.

The sorcerer was fast, his staff flickering in his hands like lightning. Geralt’s astonishment was even greater when, during a parry, the staff and sword clanged metallically. But there was no time for astonishment. Vilgefortz attacked, and the Witcher had to contort himself using body-swerves and pirouettes. He was afraid to parry. The bloody staff was made of iron; and magical to boot.

Four times, he found himself in a position from which he was able to counterattack and deliver a blow. Four times, he struck. To the temple, to the neck, under the arm, to the thigh. Each blow ought to have been fatal. But each one was parried.

No human could have parried blows like that. Geralt slowly began to understand. But it was already too late.

He didn’t see the blow that finally caught him. The impact drove him against the wall. He rebounded from it but was unable to jump aside or dodge. The blow had knocked the breath out of him. He was caught by a second blow, this time on the shoulder, and once again flew backwards, smashing his head against a protruding caryatid’s breast on one of the pilasters. Vilgefortz leapt closer, swung the staff and thumped him in the belly, below the ribs. Very hard. Geralt doubled up and was then hit on the side of the head. His knees suddenly went weak and crumpled beneath him. And the fight was over. In principle.

He feebly tried to protect himself with his sword. The blade, caught between the wall and the pilaster, broke under a blow with a shrill, vibrating whine. He tried to protect his head with his left hand, but the staff fell with enough force to break his forearm. The pain utterly blinded him.

‘I could smash your brain out through your ears,’ said Vilgefortz from far away. ‘But this was supposed to be a lesson. You were mistaken, Witcher. You mistook the stars reflected in a pond at night for the sky. Oh, are you vomiting? Good. Concussion. Bleeding from the nose? Excellent. Well, I shall see you later. One day. Perhaps.’

Now Geralt could see nothing and hear nothing. He was sinking, submerging into something warm. He thought Vilgefortz had gone. He was astonished, then, when a fierce blow from the iron staff struck his thigh, smashing the shaft of his femur.

If anything occurred after that, he did not remember it.

‘Hang in there, Geralt. Don’t give up,’ repeated Triss Merigold endlessly. ‘Hang in there. Don’t die . . . Please don’t die . . .’

‘Ciri . . .’

‘Don’t talk. I’ll soon get you out of here. Hold on . . . Damn I’m too weak, by the gods . . .’

‘Yennefer . . . I have to—’

‘You don’t have to do anything! You can’t do anything! Hang in there. Don’t give up . . . Don’t faint . . . Don’t die, please . . .’

She dragged him across the floor, which was littered with bodies. He saw his chest and belly covered in blood, which was streaming from his nose. He saw his leg. It was twisted at a strange angle and seemed much shorter than the intact one. He didn’t feel any pain. He felt cold. His entire body was cold, numb and foreign. He wanted to puke.

‘Hold on, Geralt. Help is coming from Aretuza. It’ll soon be here . . .’

‘Dijkstra . . . If Dijkstra gets his hands on me . . . I’m finished . . .’

Triss swore. Desperately.

She dragged him down the steps, his broken leg and arm bouncing down them. The pain returned. It bored into his guts and his temples, and it radiated all the way to his eyes, to his ears, to the top of his head. He didn’t scream. He knew screaming would bring him relief, but he didn’t scream. He just opened his mouth, which also brought him relief.

He heard a roar.

At the top of the stair stood Tissaia de Vries. Her hair was dishevelled, her face covered in dust. She raised both her hands, and her palms flamed. She screamed a spell and the flames dancing on her fingers hurtled downwards in the form of a blinding sphere, roaring with fire. The Witcher heard the clatter of walls crashing down below and the dreadful cries of people being burnt.

‘No, Tissaia!’ screamed Triss in desperation. ‘Don’t do it!’

‘They will not enter here,’ said the arch-mistress, without turning her head. ‘This is Garstang, on the Isle of Thanedd. No one invited those royalist lackeys, who carry out the orders of their short-sighted kings!’

‘You’re killing them!’

‘Be silent, Triss Merigold! The attack on the unity of the Brotherhood has failed. The island is still ruled by the Chapter! The kings should keep their hands off the Chapter’s business! This is our conflict and we shall resolve it ourselves! We will resolve our business and then put an end to this senseless war, for it is we, sorcerers, who bear the responsibility for the fate of the world!’

A ball of lightning shot from her hands, and the redoubled echo of the explosion roared among the columns and stone walls.

‘Begone!’ she screamed again. ‘You will not enter this place! Begone!’

The screaming from below subsided. Geralt understood that the attackers had withdrawn from the stairway, had beaten a retreat. Tissaia’s outline blurred in front of his eyes. It wasn’t magic. He was losing consciousness.

‘Run, Triss Merigold,’ the enchantress’s words came from far away, as if from behind a wall. ‘Philippa Eilhart has already fled; she flew away on owl’s wings. You were her accomplice in this wicked conspiracy and I ought to punish you. But there has been enough blood, death and misfortune! Begone! Go to Aretuza and join your allies! Teleport away. The portal in the Tower of Gulls no longer exists. It was destroyed along with the tower. You can teleport without fear. Wherever you wish. To your King Foltest, for instance, for whom you betrayed the Brotherhood!’

‘I will not leave Geralt . . .’ groaned Triss. ‘He cannot fall into the hands of the Redanians . . . He’s gravely injured . . . He has internal bleeding, and I have no more strength! I don’t have the strength to open the portal! Tissaia! Help me please!’

Darkness. Bitter cold. From far away, from behind a stone wall, the voice of Tissaia de Vries:

‘I shall help you.’

CHAPTER FIVE

Evertsen Peter, b. 1234, confidant of Emperor Emhyr Deithwen and one of the true authors of the Empire’s might. The chief chamberlain of the army during the time of the Northern Wars (q.v.), from 1290 imperial treasurer of the crown. In the final period of Emhyr’s rule, he was raised to the rank of coadjutor of the Empire. During the rule of Emperor Morvran Voor he was falsely accused of misappropriation of funds, found guilty, imprisoned and died in 1301 in Winneburg Castle. Posthumously rehabilitated by Emperor Jan Calveit in 1328.

Effenberg and Talbot, Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi,

Volume V

May Ye All Wail, for the Destroyer of Nations is upon us. Your lands shall they trample and divide with rope. Your cities razed shall be, their dwellers expelled. The bat, owl and raven your homes shall infest, and the serpent will therein make its nest . . .

Aen Ithlinnespeath

The captain of the squad reined back his mount, removed his helmet and used his fingers to comb his thinning hair, which was matted with sweat.

‘Journey’s over,’ he repeated, seeing the troubadour’s questioning gaze.

‘What? How d’you mean?’ said Dandelion, astonished. ‘Why?’

‘We aren’t going any further. Do you see? The river you see glinting down there is the Ribbon. We were only told to escort you to the Ribbon. That means it’s time we were off.’

The rest of the troops stopped behind them, but none of the soldiers dismounted. They were all looking around nervously. Dandelion shielded his eyes with a hand and stood up in the stirrups.

‘Where can you see that river?’

‘I said it’s down there. Ride down the ravine and you’ll be there in no time.’

‘You could at least escort me to the bank,’ protested Dandelion, ‘and show me the ford . . .’

‘There’s nothing much to show. Since May the weather’s been baking hot, so the water level’s dropped. There isn’t much water in the Ribbon. Your horse won’t have any problem crossing it . . .’

‘I showed your commander the letter from King Venzlav,’ said the troubadour, puffing up. ‘He read the contents and I heard him order you to escort me to the very edge of Brokilon. And you’re going to abandon me here in this thicket? What’ll happen if I get lost?’

‘You won’t get lost,’ muttered another soldier gloomily, who had come closer but had not so far spoken. ‘You won’t have time to get lost. A dryad’s arrow will find you first.’

‘What cowardly simpletons,’ Dandelion sneered. ‘I see you’re afraid of the dryads. But Brokilon only begins on the far bank of the Ribbon. The river is the border. We haven’t crossed it yet.’

‘Their border,’ explained the leader, looking around, ‘extends as far as their arrows do. A powerful bow shot from that bank will send an arrow right to the edge of the forest and still have enough impetus to pierce a hauberk. You insisted on going there. That’s your business, it’s your hide. But life is dear to me. I’m not going any further. I’d rather shove my head in a hornets’ nest!’

‘I’ve explained to you,’ said Dandelion, pushing his hat back and sitting up in the saddle, ‘that I’m riding to Brokilon on a mission. I am, it may be said, an ambassador. I do not fear dryads. But I would like you to escort me to the bank of the Ribbon. What’ll happen if brigands rob me in that thicket?’

The gloomy soldier laughed affectedly.

‘Brigands? Here? In daylight? You won’t meet a soul here during the day. Latterly, the dryads have been letting arrows fly at anyone who appears on the bank of the Ribbon, and they’re not above venturing deeper into our territory either. No, no need to be afraid of brigands.’

‘That’s true,’ agreed the captain. ‘A brigand would have to be pretty stupid to be riding along the Ribbon during the day. And we’re not idiots. You’re riding alone, without armour or weapons, and you don’t look, forgive me, anything like a fighting man. You can see that a mile off. That may favour you. But if those dryads see us, on horseback and armed, you won’t be able to see the sun for arrows.’

‘Ah, well. There’s nothing else for it.’ Dandelion patted his horse’s neck and looked down towards the ravine. ‘I shall have to ride alone. Farewell, soldiers. Thank you for the escort.’

‘Don’t be in such a rush,’ said the gloomy soldier, looking up at the sky. ‘It’ll be evening soon. Set off when the haze starts rising from the water. Because, you know . . .’

‘What?’

‘An arrow’s not so sure in the fog. If fate smiles on you, the dryads might miss. But they seldom miss . . .’

‘I told you—’

‘All right, all right. I’ve got it. You’re going to them on some kind of mission. But I’ll tell you something else. They don’t care whether it’s a mission or a church procession. They’ll let fly at you, and that’s that.’

‘You insist on frightening me, do you?’ said the poet snootily. ‘What do you take me for, a court scribbler? I, my good men, have seen more battlegrounds than the lot of you. And I know more about dryads than you. If only that they never fire without warning.’

‘It once was thus, you’re right,’ said the leader quietly. ‘Once they gave warnings. They shot an arrow into a tree trunk or into the road, and that marked the border that you couldn’t cross. If a fellow turned back right then, he could get out in one piece. But now it’s different. Now they shoot to kill at once.’

‘Why such cruelty?’

‘Well,’ muttered the soldier, ‘it’s like this. When the kings made a truce with Nilfgaard, they went after the elven gangs with a will. You can tell they’re putting the screws on, for there isn’t a night that survivors don’t flee through Brugge, seeking shelter in Brokilon. And when our boys hunt the elves, they sometimes mix it with the dryads too, those who come to the elves’ aid from the far side of the Ribbon. And our army has also been known to go too far . . . Get my drift?’

‘Yes,’ said Dandelion, looking at the soldier intently and shaking his head. ‘When you were hunting the Scoia’tael you crossed the Ribbon. And you killed some dryads. And now the dryads are taking their revenge in the same way. It’s war.’

‘That it is. You took the words right out of my mouth. War. It was always a fight to kill – never to let live – but now it’s worse than ever. There’s a fierce hatred between them and us. I’ll say it one more time: if you don’t have to, don’t go there.’

Dandelion swallowed.

‘The whole point,’ he said, sitting tall in the saddle and working hard to assume a resolute expression and strike a dashing pose, ‘is that I do have to. And I’m going. Right now. Evening or no evening, fog or no fog. Duty calls.’

The years of practice paid off. The troubadour’s voice sounded beautiful and menacing, austere and cold. It rang with iron and valour. The soldiers looked at him in unfeigned admiration.

‘Before you set off,’ said the leader, unfastening a flat, wooden canteen from his saddle, ‘neck down some vodka, minstrel, sir. Have a good old swig . . .’

‘It’ll make the dying easier,’ added the gloomy one, morosely.

The poet sipped from the canteen.

‘A coward,’ he declared with dignity, when he’d stopped coughing and had got his breath back, ‘dies a hundred times. A brave man dies but once. But Dame Fortune favours the brave and holds cowards in contempt.’

The soldiers looked at him in even greater admiration. They didn’t know and couldn’t have known that Dandelion was quoting from a heroic epic poem. Moreover, from one written by someone else.

‘I shall repay you for the escort with this,’ said the poet, removing a jingling, leather pouch from his bosom. ‘Before you return to the fort, before you’re once again embraced by strict mother-duty, stop by at a tavern and drink my health.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the leader, blushing somewhat. ‘You are generous, although we— Forgive us for leaving you alone, but . . .’

‘It’s nothing. Farewell.’

The bard adjusted his hat to a jaunty angle over his left ear, prodded his horse with his heels and headed into the ravine, whistling ‘The Wedding Party at Bullerlyn’, a well-known and extremely indecent cavalry song.

‘The cornet in the fort said he was a freeloader, a coward and a knobhead. But he’s a valiant, military gentleman, even if he is a poe-taster.’ The voice of the gloomy soldier was carried to Dandelion’s ears.

‘Truly spoken,’ responded the captain. ‘He isn’t faint-hearted, you couldn’t say that. He didn’t even bat an eyelid, I noticed. And on top of that, he’s whistling, can you hear? Ho, ho . . . Heard what he said? That he’s an embarrassador. You can be sure they don’t make any old bugger an embarrassador. You’ve got to have your head screwed on to be made an embarrassador . . .’

Dandelion quickened his pace in order to get away as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to sabotage the reputation he’d just earned himself. And he knew, with his mouth drying up in terror, that he wouldn’t be able to whistle for much longer.

The ravine was sombre and damp, and the wet clay and carpet of rotten leaves lying on it muffled the thudding of his dark bay gelding’s hooves. He’d called the horse ‘Pegasus’. Pegasus walked slowly, head hanging down. He was one of those rare specimens of horse who could never care less.

The forest had come to an end, but a wide, reedy meadow still separated Dandelion from the banks of the river, which was marked by a belt of alders. The poet reined Pegasus in. He looked around carefully but didn’t see anything. He listened out intently but only heard the singing of frogs.

‘Well, boy,’ he croaked. ‘It’s do or die. Gee up.’

Pegasus lifted his head a little and stuck up his ears, which normally hung down, questioningly.

‘You heard right. Off you go.’

The gelding set off reluctantly, the boggy ground squelching beneath his hooves. Frogs fled with long hops. A duck took flight a few paces in front of them, fluttering and quacking, briefly stopping the troubadour’s heart, after which it began pounding very hard and very rapidly. Pegasus showed no interest in the duck whatsoever.

‘The hero rode . . .’ mumbled Dandelion, wiping the cold sweat from the nape of his neck with a handkerchief taken from inside his jerkin, ‘rode fearlessly through the wilderness, heedless of the leaping lizards and flying dragons . . . He rode and rode . . . Until he reached a vast expanse of water . . .’

Pegasus snorted and stopped. They were by the river, among reeds and bulrushes, which stood taller than his stirrups. Dandelion wiped his sweaty forehead and tied the handkerchief around his neck. He had been staring at the alder thicket on the far bank until his eyes watered. He saw nothing and no one. The surface of the water rippled from waterweed being swayed by the current, while overhead turquoise and orange kingfishers flitted past. The air twinkled with swarming insects. Fish gulped down mayflies, leaving huge rings on the surface of the water.

Everywhere, as far as the eye could see, there were beaver lodges – piles of cut branches, and felled and gnawed tree trunks – being washed by the lazy current.

There’s an astonishing abundance of beavers here, thought the poet. And no small wonder. No one bothers those bloody tree-chewers. Neither robbers, hunters nor forest beekeepers venture into this region; not even those interfering fur trappers would dare set their snares here. The ones who tried would have got an arrow through the throat, and the crayfish would have nibbled on them in the ooze by the riverbank. And I, the idiot, am forcing my way out here of my own free will; here, by the Ribbon, over which hangs a cadaverous stench, a stench which even the scent of sweet flag and mint cannot mask . . .

He sighed heavily.

Pegasus slowly planted his forelegs into the water, lowered his muzzle towards the surface, drank long, and then turned his head and looked at Dandelion. The water dripped from his muzzle and nostrils. The poet nodded, sighed once more and sniffed loudly.

‘The hero gazed on the maelstrom,’ he quietly declaimed, trying not to let his teeth chatter. ‘He gazed on it and travelled on, for his heart knew not trepidation.’

Pegasus lowered his head and ears.

‘Knew not trepidation, I said.’

Pegasus shook his head, jingling the rings on his reins and bit. Dandelion dug a heel into his side. The gelding entered the water with pompous resignation.

The Ribbon was shallow but very overgrown. Before they had reached the centre of the current, Pegasus was dragging long plaits of waterweed. The horse walked slowly and with effort, trying to shake the annoying pondweed off with every step.

The rushes and alders of the far bank were close. So close that Dandelion felt his stomach sinking low, very low, right down to the saddle itself. He knew that in the centre of the river, entangled in the waterweed, he was an excellent target; a sitting duck. In his mind’s eye he could already see bows bending, bowstrings being pulled back and sharp arrowheads being aimed at him.

He squeezed the horse’s sides with his calves, but Pegasus was having none of it. Instead of picking up speed, he stopped and lifted his tail. Balls of dung splashed into the water. Dandelion gave a long groan.

‘The hero,’ he muttered, closing his eyes, ‘was unable to cross the raging rapids. He fell in action, pierced by many missiles. He was hidden for ages long in the azure depths, rocked by jade-green algae. All traces of him vanished. Only horse shit remained, borne by the current to the distant sea . . .’

Pegasus, clearly relieved, headed jauntily towards the bank without any encouragement, and when he reached the bank, and was finally free of waterweed, even took the liberty of breaking into a canter, utterly soaking Dandelion’s trousers and boots. The poet didn’t notice it, though, since the vision of arrows aimed at his belly hadn’t left him for a moment, and dread crept down his neck and back like a huge, cold, slimy leech. For beyond the alders, less than a hundred paces away, beyond the vivid green band of riverside grass, rose up a vertical, black, menacing wall of trees.

It was Brokilon.

On the bank, a few steps downstream, lay the white skeleton of a horse. Nettles and bulrushes had grown through its ribcage. Some other – smaller – bones, which didn’t come from a horse, were also lying there. Dandelion shuddered and looked away.

Squelching and splashing, the gelding, urged on by Dandelion, hauled himself out of the riverside swamp, the mud smelling unpleasantly. The frogs stopped croaking for a moment. It all went very quiet. Dandelion closed his eyes. He stopped declaiming and improvising. His inspiration and daring had evaporated. Only cold, revolting fear remained; an intense sensation, but one utterly bereft of creative impulses.

Pegasus perked up his floppy ears and dispassionately shambled towards the Forest of the Dryads. Called by many the Forest of Death.

I’ve crossed the border, thought the poet. Now it will all be settled. While I was by the river and in the water, they could be magnanimous. But not now. Now I’m an intruder. Just like that one . . . I might end up a skeleton, too; a warning for people to heed . . . If there are dryads here at all. If they’re watching me . . .

He recalled watching shooting tournaments, competitions and archery displays at country markets. Straw targets and mannequins, studded or torn apart by arrowheads. What does a man feel when he’s hit by an arrow? The impact? Pain? Or perhaps . . . nothing?

There were either no dryads nearby, or they hadn’t made up their minds what to do with this lone rider, because the poet rode up to the forest petrified with fear but in one piece. Entry to the trees was barred by a dense tangle of scrub and fallen trunks, bristling with roots and branches, but in any case Dandelion didn’t have the slightest intention of riding up to the very edge, much less of heading deeper into the forest. He was capable of making himself take risks – but not of committing suicide.

He dismounted very slowly and fastened the reins to a protruding root. He didn’t usually do that; Pegasus wasn’t inclined to wander away from his master. Dandelion was not certain, however, how the horse would react to the whistle and whir of arrows. Up until now he had tried not to expose either Pegasus or himself to sounds of that kind.

He removed a lute from the saddle’s pommel. It was a unique, magnificent instrument with a slender neck. This was a present from a she-elf, he recalled, stroking the inlaid wood. It might end up returning to the Elder Folk . . . Unless the dryads leave it by my dead body . . .

Close by lay an old tree, blown down in a gale. The poet sat down on the trunk, rested the lute on his knee, licked his lips and wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers.

The day was drawing to a close. A haze rose from the Ribbon, forming a grey-white shroud enveloping the meadows. It was cooler now. The honking of cranes sounded and died away, leaving only the croaking of frogs.

Dandelion plucked the strings. Once, then twice, then a third time. He twisted the pegs, tuned the lute and began to play. And a moment later, to sing.

Yviss, m’evelienn vente cáelm en tell

Elaine Ettariel Aep cór me lode deith ess’viell

Yn blath que me darienn

Aen minne vain tegen a me

Yn toin av muirednn que dis eveigh e aep llea . . .

The sun vanished behind the trees. It immediately became dark in the shade of Brokilon’s mighty trees.

Ueassan Lamm feainne renn, ess’ell,

Elaine Ettariel,

Aep cor . . .

He didn’t hear – but he felt – somebody’s presence.

‘N’te mirę daetre. Sh’aente vort.’

‘Don’t shoot . . .’ he whispered, obediently not looking around. ‘N’aen aespar a me . . . I come in peace . . .’

‘N’ess a tearth. Sh’aente.’

He obeyed, although his fingers had turned cold and numb on the strings, and he had difficulty making any sound whatsoever emerge from his throat. But there was no hostility in the dryad’s voice and he was a professional, dammit.

Ueassan Lamm feainne renn, ess’ell,

Elaine Ettariel,

Aep cor aen tedd teviel e gwen

Yn blath que me darienn

Ess yn e evellien a me

Que shaent te cáelm a’vean minne me striscea . . .

This time he took the liberty of glancing over his shoulder. Whatever was crouching by the tree trunk, very near, resembled a bush entwined in ivy. But it wasn’t a bush. Bushes didn’t have such large, shining eyes.

Pegasus snorted softly, and Dandelion knew that behind him in the darkness someone was stroking his horse’s muzzle.

‘Sh’aente vort,’ requested the dryad squatting behind him once again. Her voice was like the pattering of rain on leaves.

‘I . . .’ he began. ‘I am . . . The comrade of the witcher Geralt . . . I know that Geralt— That Gwynbleidd is among you in Brokilon. I have come . . .’

‘N’te dice’en. Sh’aente, va.’

‘Sh’aent,’ gently asked a second dryad from behind him, virtually in unison with a third. And maybe a fourth. He couldn’t be certain.

‘Yea, sh’aente, taedh,’ said the thing that a moment earlier the poet had taken to be a birch sapling standing a few paces in front of him, in a silvery, girlish voice. ‘Ess’laine . . . Taedh . . . Sing . . . Sing some more about Ettariel . . . Yes?’

He did as she asked.

To adore you, is all my life

Fair Ettariel

Let me keep, then, the treasure of memories

And the magical flower;

A pledge and sign of your love.

Silvered by drops of dew as if by tears . . .

This time he heard steps approaching.

‘Dandelion.’

‘Geralt!’

‘Yes, it’s me. You can stop that racket now.’

‘How did you find me? How did you know I was in Brokilon?’

‘Triss Merigold . . . Bloody hell . . .’ said Dandelion. He tripped again and would have fallen, had a passing dryad not seized him in a dextrous and astonishingly powerful grip for one so slight.

‘Gar’ean, táedh,’ she warned in silver tones. ‘Va cáelm.’

‘Thank you. It’s awfully dark here . . . Geralt? Where are you?’

‘Here. Don’t lag behind.’

Dandelion quickened his pace, stumbled once more and almost fell on the Witcher, who had stopped in the dark in front of him. The dryads passed by them silently.

‘It’s hellishly dark . . . Is it much further?’

‘No. We’ll soon be at the camp. Who, apart from Triss, knows I’m hiding here? Did you let it slip to anyone?’

‘I had to tell King Venzlav. I needed safe conduct through Brugge. You wouldn’t believe the times we live in . . . I also had to have permission for the expedition to Brokilon. But anyway, Venzlav knows you and likes you . . . He appointed me an envoy. Just imagine. I’m sure he’ll keep it secret, I asked him to. Don’t get annoyed now, Geralt . . .’

The Witcher came closer. Dandelion couldn’t see the expression on his face, only the white hair and bristles of several days’ beard growth, which was visible even in the dark.

‘I’m not annoyed,’ said the Witcher, placing his hand on Dandelion’s shoulder. It seemed as though his voice, which up until then had been cold, was somewhat changed. ‘I’m glad you’re here, you whoreson.’

‘It’s so cold here,’ said Dandelion, shuddering and making the branches they were sitting on creak under him. ‘We could get a fire going—’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ muttered the Witcher. ‘Have you forgotten where you are?’

‘Are you serious . . . ?’ The troubadour glanced around timidly. ‘Oh. No fire, right?’

‘Trees hate fire. And they do too.’

‘Dammit. Are we going to sit here and freeze? And in the bloody dark? I can’t see my hand in front of my face . . .’

‘Keep it by your side then.’

Dandelion sighed, hunched forward and rubbed his arms. He heard the Witcher beside him breaking some thin twigs in his fingers.

A small green light suddenly flared up in the dark, first of all dim and faint, then quickly becoming brighter. After the first one, many others began to glimmer around them, moving and dancing like fireflies or will-o’-the-wisps above a marsh. The forest suddenly came to life with a shimmering of shadows, and Dandelion began to see the silhouettes of the dryads surrounding them. One of them approached and put something on the ground near them, which looked like a hot, glowing tangle of plants. The poet reached a hand out carefully and took hold of it. The green glow was totally cold.

‘What is it, Geralt?’

‘Rotten wood and a special kind of moss. It only grows here in Brokilon. And only they know how to weave it all together to make it give off light. Thank you, Fauve.’

The dryad did not answer, but neither did she go away, remaining squatting alongside the pair. She had a garland on her brow, and her long hair fell to her shoulders. Her hair looked green in the light and may actually have been green. Dandelion knew that dryads’ hair could be of the weirdest colours.

‘Taedh,’ she said melodically, raising her flashing eyes to the troubadour. Her fine-featured face was crossed diagonally by two parallel dark stripes of painted camouflage. ‘Ess’ve vort shaente aen Ettariel? Shaente a’vean vort?’

‘No . . . Later perhaps,’ he answered politely, carefully searching for words in the Elder Speech. The dryad sighed and leaned over, gently stroking the neck of the lute, which was lying nearby. She rose nimbly to her feet. Dandelion watched her as she disappeared into the forest towards the others, whose shadows showed faintly in the dim light of the small green lanterns.

‘I trust I didn’t offend her, did I?’ he asked softly. ‘They have their own dialect, and I don’t know polite expressions . . .’

‘Check whether you’ve got a knife in your guts,’ said the Witcher, with neither mockery nor humour in his voice. ‘Dryads react to insults by sticking a knife in your belly. Don’t worry, Dandelion. I’d say they’re willing to forgive you a good deal more than slips of the tongue. The concert you gave at the edge of the forest was clearly to their liking. Now you’re ard táedh, “the great bard”. They’re waiting for the next part of ‘The Flower of Ettariel’. Do you know the rest? It’s not your ballad, after all.’

‘It’s my translation. I also embellished it somewhat with elven music. Didn’t you notice?’

‘No.’

‘As I thought. Fortunately, dryads are more receptive to art. I read somewhere that they’re exceptionally musical. Which is why I came up with my cunning plan. For which, incidentally, you haven’t yet praised me.’

‘My congratulations,’ said the Witcher after a moment’s silence. ‘It was indeed cunning. And fortune smiled on you, as usual. They shoot accurately at two hundred paces. They don’t usually wait until someone crosses onto their bank of the river and begins to sing. They are very sensitive to unpleasant smells. So when the corpse falls into the Ribbon and gets carried away by the current, they don’t have to put up with the stench.’

‘Oh, whatever,’ said the poet, clearing his throat and swallowing. ‘The most important thing is I pulled it off and found you. Geralt, how did you . . .’

‘Do you have a razor?’

‘Eh? Of course I do.’

‘Lend it to me tomorrow morning. This beard of mine is driving me insane.’

‘Didn’t the dryads have any? Hmm . . . I guess not, they don’t have much need for them, do they? Of course, I’ll lend it to you. Geralt?’

‘What?’

‘I don’t have any grub with me. Should ard táedh, the great bard, hold out any hopes of supper when visiting dryads?’

‘They don’t eat supper. Never. And the guards on Brokilon’s border don’t eat breakfast either. You’ll have to survive until noon. I’ve already got used to it.’

‘But when we get to their capital, the famous, Duen Canell, concealed in the very heart of the forest . . .’

‘We’ll never get there, Dandelion.’

‘What? I thought . . . But you— I mean they’ve given you sanctuary. After all . . . they tolerate . . .’

‘You’ve chosen the right word.’

They both said nothing for a long time.

‘War,’ said the poet finally. ‘War, hatred and contempt. Everywhere. In everyone’s hearts.’

‘You’re being poetic.’

‘But that’s what it’s like.’

‘Precisely. Right, tell me your news. Tell me what’s been happening in the world while they’ve been tending to me here.’

‘First,’ said Dandelion, coughing softly, ‘tell me what really happened in Garstang.’

‘Didn’t Triss tell you?’

‘Yes, she did. But I’d like to hear your version.’

‘If you know Triss’s version, you know a more complete and probably more faithful version already. Tell me what’s happened since I’ve been here.’

‘Geralt,’ whispered Dandelion. ‘I don’t know what happened to Yennefer and Ciri . . . No one does. Triss doesn’t either . . .’

The Witcher shifted suddenly, making the branches creak.

‘Did I ask you about Ciri or Yennefer?’ he said in a different voice. ‘Tell me about the war.’

‘Don’t you know anything? Hasn’t any news reached you here?’

‘Yes, it has. But I want to hear everything from you. Speak, please.’

‘The Nilfgaardians,’ began the bard after a moment’s silence, ‘attacked Lyria and Aedirn. Without declaring war. The reason was supposedly an attack by Demavend’s forces on some border fort in Dol Angra, which happened during the mages’ conclave on Thanedd. Some people say it was a setup. That they were Nilfgaardians disguised as Demavend’s soldiers. We’ll probably never find out what really happened. In any case, Nilfgaard’s retaliation was swift and overwhelming; the border was crossed by a powerful army, which must have been concentrated in Dol Angra for weeks, if not months. Spalla and Scala, the two Lyrian border strongholds, were captured right away, in just three days. Rivia was prepared for a siege lasting months but capitulated after two days under the pressure of the guilds and the merchants who were promised that, should the town open its gates and pay a ransom, it wouldn’t be sacked . . .’

‘Was the promise kept?’

‘Yes.’

‘Interesting.’ The Witcher’s voice changed again a little. ‘Promises being kept in these times? I won’t mention that, in the past, no one would have dreamed of making promises like that, because no one would have expected them. Craftsmen and merchants never opened the gates of strongholds, they defended them; each guild had its own tower or machicolations.’

‘Money has no fatherland, Geralt. The merchants don’t care whose rule they make their money under. And the Nilfgaardian palatine doesn’t care who he levies taxes on. Dead merchants don’t make money or pay taxes.’

‘Go on.’

‘After the capitulation of Rivia the Nilfgaardian Army headed northwards at great speed, almost without encountering any resistance. The armies of Demavend and Meve withdrew, unable to form a front in the deciding battle. The Nilfgaardians reached Aldersberg. In order to prevent the stronghold being blockaded, Demavend and Meve decided to join battle. The positions of their armies could have been better . . . Bugger it, if there were more light here I’d draw you—’

‘Don’t draw anything. And keep it brief. Who won?’

‘Have you heard, sir?’ said a reeve, out of breath and sweating, pushing through the group gathered around the table. ‘A messenger has arrived from the field! We have triumphed! The battle is won! Victory! It is our day, our day! We have vanquished our foe, we have beaten him into the ground!’

‘Silence,’ scowled Evertsen. ‘My head is splitting from your cries. Yes, I’ve heard, I’ve heard. We’ve vanquished the foe. It is our day, it is our field and it is also our victory. What a sensation.’

The bailiffs and reeves fell silent and looked at their superior in astonishment.

‘Do you not rejoice, Chamberlain, sir?’

‘That I do. But I’m able to do it quietly.’

The reeves were silent and looked at one another. Young pups, thought Evertsen. Overexcited young whippersnappers. Actually, I’m not surprised at them. But for heaven’s sake, there, on the hill, even Menno Coehoorn and Elan Trahe, forsooth, even the grizzly bearded General Braibant, are yelling, jumping for joy and slapping each other’s backs in congratulation. Victory! It is our day! But who else’s day could it have been? The kingdoms of Aedirn and Lyria only managed to mobilise three thousand horse and ten thousand foot, of which one-fifth had already been blockaded in the first days of the invasion, cut off in its forts and strongholds. Part of the remaining army had to withdraw to protect its flanks, threatened by far-reaching raids by light horse and diversionary strikes by units of Scoia’tael. The remaining five or six thousand – including no more than twelve hundred knights – joined battle on the fields outside Aldersberg. Coehoorn sent an army of thirteen thousand to attack them, including ten armoured companies, the flower of the Nilfgaard knighthood. And now he’s overjoyed, he’s yelling, he’s thwacking his mace against his thigh and calling for beer . . . Victory! What a sensation.

With a sudden movement, he gathered together the maps and papers lying on the table, lifted his head and looked around.

‘Listen carefully,’ he said brusquely to the reeves. ‘I shall be issuing instructions.’

His subordinates froze in anticipation.

‘Each one of you,’ he began, ‘heard Field Marshal Coehoorn’s speech yesterday, to his officers. I would like to point out, gentlemen, that what the marshal said to his men does not apply to you. You are to execute other assignments and orders. My orders.’

Evertsen pondered for a moment and wiped his forehead.

‘“War to the castles, peace to the villages,” Coehoorn said to his commanders yesterday. You know that principle,’ he added at once. ‘You learned it in officer training. That principle applied until today; from tomorrow you’re to forget it. From tomorrow a different principle applies, which will now be the battle cry of the war we are waging. The battle cry and my orders run: War on everything alive. War on everything that can burn. You are to leave scorched earth behind you. From tomorrow, we take war beyond the line we will withdraw behind after signing the treaty. We are withdrawing, but there is to be nothing but scorched earth beyond that line. The kingdoms of Rivia and Aedirn are to be reduced to ashes! Remember Sodden! The time of revenge is with us!’

Evertsen cleared his throat loudly.

‘Before the soldiers leave the earth scorched behind them,’ he said to the listening reeves, ‘your task will be to remove from that earth and that land everything you can, anything that may increase the riches of our fatherland. You, Audegast, will be responsible for loading and transporting all harvested and stored crops. Whatever is still in the fields and what Coehoorn’s gallant knights don’t destroy is to be taken.’

‘I have too few men, Chamberlain, sir—’

‘There will be enough slaves. Put them to work. Marder and you . . . I’ve forgotten your name . . . ?’

‘Helvet. Evan Helvet, Chamberlain, sir.’

‘You’ll be responsible for livestock. Gather it into herds and drive it to the designated points for quarantine. Beware of rot-foot and other diseases. Slaughter any sick or suspect specimens and burn the carcasses. Drive the rest south along the designated routes.’

‘Yes, sir.’

And now a special task, thought Evertsen, scrutinising his subordinates. To whom shall I entrust it? They’re all striplings, milk still wet on their cheeks, they’ve seen little, they’ve experienced nothing . . . Oh, I miss those old, hardened bailiffs of mine. Wars, wars, always wars . . . Soldiers are always falling, and in great numbers, but the losses among bailiffs, even though much fewer in number, are more telling. You don’t see the deficit among the active troops, because fresh recruits always keep replacing them, for every man wants to be a soldier. But who wants to be a bailiff or a reeve? Who, when asked by their sons on returning home what they did during the war, wants to say he measured bushels of grain, counted stinking pelts and weighed wax as he led a convoy of carts laden with spoils along rutted roads, covered in ox shit, and drove herds of lowing and bleating beasts, swallowing dust and flies and breathing in the stench . . . ?

A special mission. The foundry in Gulet, with its huge furnaces. The puddling furnaces, the zinc ore foundry and the huge ironworks in Eysenlaan, annual production of five hundred hundredweight. The foundries and wool manufactories in Aldersberg. The maltings, distilleries, weaving mills and dyeworks in Vengerberg . . .

Dismantle and remove. Thus ordered Emperor Emhyr, the White Flame Dancing on the Barrows of his Enemies. As simple as that. Dismantle and remove, Evertsen.

An order’s an order. It must be carried out.

That leaves the most important things. The ore mines and their yield. Coinage. Valuables. Works of art. But I’ll take care of that myself. In person.

Alongside the black columns of smoke which were visible on the horizon rose other plumes. And yet others. The army was implementing Coehoorn’s orders. The Kingdom of Aedirn had become a land of fires.

A long column of siege engines trundled along the road, rumbling and throwing up clouds of dust. Towards Aldersberg, which was still holding out. And towards Vengerberg, King Demavend’s capital.

Peter Evertsen looked and counted and calculated. And added up the money. Peter Evertsen was the grand chamberlain of the Empire; during the war the army’s chief bailiff. He had held that position for twenty-five years. Figures and calculations; they were his life.

A mangonel costs five hundred florins, a trebuchet two hundred, an onager at least a hundred and fifty, the simplest ballista eighty. A trained crew requires nine and a half florins of monthly pay. The column heading for Vengerberg, including horses, oxen and minor tackle, is worth at least three hundred marks. Sixty florins can be struck from a mark of pure ore weighing half a pound. The annual yield of a mine is five or six thousand marks . . .

The siege column was overtaken by some light cavalry. Evertsen recognised them as the Duke of Winneburg’s tactical company, one of those redeployed from Cintra, by the designs on its pennants. Yes, he thought, they have something to be pleased about. The battle won, the army from Aedirn routed. Reserves will not be deployed in a heavy battle against the regular army. They will be pursuing forces in retreat, wiping out scattered, leaderless groups. They will murder, pillage and burn. They’re pleased because it promises to be a pleasant, jolly little war. A little war that isn’t exhausting. And doesn’t leave you dead.

Evertsen was calculating.

The tactical company combines ten ordinary companies and numbers two thousand horse. Although the Winneburgians will probably not take part in any large battles now, no fewer than a sixth of their number will fall in skirmishes. Then there will be camps and bivouacs, rotten victuals, filth, lice, mosquitoes, contaminated water. Then the inevitable will come: typhus, dysentery and malaria, which will kill no fewer than a quarter. To that you should include an estimate for unpredictable occurrences, usually around one-fifth of the total. Eight hundred will return home. No more. And probably far fewer.

Cavalry companies continued to pass along the road; and infantry corps followed the cavalry. These, in turn, were followed by marching longbowmen in yellow jerkins and round helmets, crossbowmen in flat kettle hats, pavisiers and pikemen. Beyond them marched shield bearers, veterans from Vicovaro and Etolia armoured like crabs, then a colourful hodgepodge: hirelings from Metinna, mercenaries from Thurn, Maecht, Gheso and Ebbing . . .

The troops marched briskly in spite of the intense heat, and the dust stirred up by their heavy boots billowed above the road. Drums pounded, pennants fluttered, and the blades of pikes, lances, halberds and guisarmes swayed and glittered. The soldiers marched jauntily and cheerfully. This was a victorious army. An undefeated army. Onward, lads, forward, into battle! On Vengerberg! Destroy our foe! Avenge Sodden! Enjoy this merry little war, stuff our money bags with loot and then home. And then home!

Evertsen watched. And calculated.

‘Vengerberg fell after a week-long siege,’ finished Dandelion. ‘It may surprise you, but the guilds courageously defended their towers and the sections of wall assigned to them until the very end. So the entire garrison and all the townspeople were slaughtered; it must have been around six thousand people. When news of it got out, a great flight began. Defeated regiments and civilians began to flee to Temeria and Redania en masse. Crowds of fugitives headed along the Pontar Valley and the passes of Mahakam. But not all of them managed to escape. Mounted Nilfgaardian troops followed them and cut off their escape . . . You know what I’m driving at?’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t know much about . . . I don’t know much about war, Dandelion.’

‘I’m talking about captives. About slaves. They wanted to take as many prisoners as possible. It’s the cheapest form of labour for Nilfgaard. That’s why they pursued the fugitives so doggedly. It was a huge manhunt, Geralt. Easy pickings. Because the army had run away, and no one was left to defend the fleeing civilians.’

‘No one?’

‘Almost no one.’

‘We won’t make it in time . . .’ Villis wheezed, looking around. ‘We won’t get away . . . Damn it, the border is so close . . . So close . . .’

Rayla stood up in her stirrups, and looked at the road winding among the forested hills. The road, as far as the eye could see, was strewn with people’s abandoned belongings, dead horses, and with wagons and handcarts pushed to the side of the road. Behind them, beyond the forests, black columns of smoke rose into the sky. Screams and the intensifying sounds of battle could be heard ever closer.

‘They’re wiping out the rearguard . . .’ Villis wiped the soot and sweat from his face. ‘Can you hear it, Rayla? They’ve caught up with the rearguard, and they’re putting them to the sword! We’ll never make it!’

‘We’re the rearguard now,’ said the mercenary drily. ‘Now it’s our turn.’

Villis blenched, and one of the soldiers standing close by gave a loud sigh. Rayla tugged at the reins, and turned around her mount, which was snorting loudly and barely able to lift its head.

‘There’s no chance of our getting away,’ she said calmly. ‘The horses are ready to drop. They’ll catch up with us and slaughter us before we make it to the pass.’

‘Let’s dump everything and hide among the trees,’ said Villis, not looking at her. ‘Individually, every man for himself. Maybe some of us will manage to . . . survive.’

Rayla didn’t answer, but indicated the mountain pass with a glance and a wave of her head, then the road and the rearmost ranks of the long column of refugees trudging towards the border. Villis understood. He cursed bitterly, leapt from his saddle, staggered and leaned on his sword.

‘Dismount!’ he yelled to the soldiers hoarsely. ‘Block the road with anything you can! What are you staring at? Your mother bore you once and you only die once! We’re the army! We’re the rearguard! We have to hold back our pursuers, delay them . . .’

He fell silent.

‘Should we delay the pursuers, the people will manage to cross into Temeria, to cross the mountains,’ ended Rayla, also dismounting. ‘There are women and children among them. What are you gawping at? It’s our trade. This is what we’re paid for, remember?’

The soldiers looked at one another. For a moment Rayla thought they would actually run away, that they would rouse their wet and exhausted horses for a last, desperate effort, that they would race past the column of fugitives, towards the pass – and safety. She was wrong. She had misjudged them.

They upset a cart on the road. They quickly built a barricade. A makeshift barricade. Not very high. And absolutely ineffectual.

They didn’t have to wait long. Two horses, snorting and stumbling, lurched into the ravine, strewing flecks of froth around. Only one of them bore a rider.

‘Blaise!’

‘Ready yourselves . . .’ The mercenary slid from the saddle into a soldier’s arms. ‘Ready yourselves, dammit . . . They’re right behind me . . .’

The horse snorted, skittered a few paces sideways, fell back on its haunches, collapsed heavily on its side, kicked, stretched its neck out, and uttered a long neigh.

‘Rayla . . .’ wheezed Blaise, looking away. ‘Give me . . . Give me something. I’ve lost my sword . . .’

Rayla, looking at the smoke from fires rising into the sky, gestured with her head to an axe leaning against the overturned cart. Blaise seized the weapon and staggered. The left leg of his trousers was soaked in blood.

‘What about the others, Blaise?’

‘They were slaughtered,’ the mercenary groaned. ‘Every last man. The entire troop . . . Rayla, it’s not Nilfgaard . . . It’s the Squirrels . . . It was the elves who overhauled us. The Scoia’tael are in front, ahead of the Nilfgaardians.’

One of the soldiers wailed piercingly, and another sat down heavily on the ground, burying his face in his hands. Villis cursed, tightening the strap of his cuirass.

‘To your positions!’ yelled Rayla. ‘Behind the barricade! They won’t take us alive! I swear to you!’

Villis spat, then tore the three-coloured, black, gold and red rosette of King Demavend’s special forces from his spaulder, throwing it into the bushes. Rayla, cleaning and polishing her own badge, smiled wryly.

‘I don’t know if that’ll help, Villis. I don’t know.’

‘You promised, Rayla.’

‘I did. And I’ll keep my promise. To your positions, boys! Grab your crossbows and longbows!’

They didn’t have to wait long.

After they had repelled the first wave, there were only six of them left alive. The battle was short but fierce. The soldiers mobilised from Vengerberg fought like devils and were every bit as savage as the mercenaries. Not one of them fell into the hands of the Scoia’tael alive. They chose to die fighting. And they died shot through by arrows; died from the blows of lance and sword. Blaise died lying down, stabbed by the daggers of two elves who pounced on him, dragging him from the barricade. Neither of the elves got up again. Blaise had a dagger too.

The Scoia’tael gave them no respite. A second group charged. Villis, stabbed with a lance for the third time, fell to the ground.

‘Rayla!’ he screamed indistinctly. ‘You promised!’

The mercenary, dispatching another elf, swung around.

‘Farewell, Villis,’ she said, placing the point of her sword beneath his sternum and pushing hard. ‘See you in hell!’

A moment later, she stood alone. The Scoia’tael encircled her from all sides. The soldier, smeared with blood from head to foot, raised her sword, whirled around and shook her black plait. She stood among the elves, terrible and hunched like a demon. The elves retreated.

‘Come on!’ she screamed savagely. ‘What are you waiting for? You will not take me alive! I am Black Rayla!’

‘Glaeddyv vort, beanna,’ responded a beautiful, fair-haired elf in a calm voice. He had the face of a cherub and the large, cornflower-blue eyes of a child. He had emerged from the surrounding group of Scoia’tael, who were still hanging back hesitantly. His snow-white horse snorted, tossed its head powerfully up and down and energetically pawed at the bloodstained sand of the road.

‘Glaeddyv vort, beanna,’ repeated the rider. ‘Throw down your sword, woman.’

The mercenary laughed horribly and wiped her face with her cuff, smearing sweat mixed with dust and blood.

‘My sword cost too much to be thrown away, elf!’ she cried. ‘If you want to take it you will have to break my fingers! I am Black Rayla! What are you waiting for?’

She did not have to wait long.

‘Did no one come to relieve Aedirn?’ asked the Witcher after a long pause. ‘I understood there were alliances. Agreements about mutual aid . . . Treaties . . .’

‘Redania,’ said Dandelion, clearing his throat, ‘is in disarray after Vizimir’s death. Did you know King Vizimir was murdered?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Queen Hedwig has assumed power, but bedlam has broken out across the land. And terror. Scoia’tael and Nilfgaardian spies are being hunted. Dijkstra raged through the entire country; the scaffolds were running with blood. Dijkstra is still unable to walk so he’s being carried in a sedan chair.’

‘I can imagine it. Did he come after you?’

‘No. He could have, but he didn’t. Oh, but never mind. In any case, Redania – plunged into chaos itself – was incapable of raising an army to support Aedirn.’

‘And Temeria? Why didn’t King Foltest of Temeria help Demavend?’

‘When the fighting began in Dol Angra,’ said Dandelion softly, ‘Emhyr var Emreis sent an envoy to Vizima . . .’

‘Blast!’ hissed Bronibor, staring at the closed doors. ‘What are they spending so long debating? Why did Foltest abase himself so, to enter negotiations? Why did he give an audience to that Nilfgaardian dog at all? He ought to have been executed and his head sent back to Emhyr! In a sack!’

‘By the gods, voivode,’ choked the priest Willemer. ‘He is an envoy, don’t forget! An envoy’s person is sacrosanct and inviolable! It is unfitting—’

‘Unfitting? I’ll tell you what’s unfitting! It is unfitting to stand idly by and watch as the invader wreaks havoc in countries we are allied to! Lyria has already fallen and Aedirn is falling! Demavend will not hold Nilfgaard off by himself! We ought to dispatch an expeditionary force to Aedirn immediately. We ought to relieve Demavend with an assault on the Jaruga’s left bank! There are few forces there. Most of the regiments have been redeployed to Dol Angra! And we’re standing here debating! We’re yapping instead of fighting! And on top of that we are playing host to a Nilfgaardian envoy!’

‘Quite, voivode,’ said Duke Hereward of Ellander, giving the old warrior a scolding look. ‘This is politics. You have to be able to look a little further than a horse’s muzzle and a lance. The envoy must be heard. Emperor Emhyr had reason to send him here.’

‘Of course he had reason,’ snarled Bronibor. ‘Right now, Emhyr is crushing Aedirn and knows that if we cross the border, bringing Redania and Kaedwen with us, we’ll defeat him and throw him back beyond Dol Angra, to Ebbing. He knows that were we to attack Cintra, we’d strike him in his soft underbelly and force him to fight on two fronts! That is what he fears! So he’s trying to intimidate us, to stop us from intervening. That is the mission the Nilfgaardian envoy came here with. And no other!’

‘Then we ought to hear out the envoy,’ repeated the duke, ‘and take a decision in keeping with the interests of our kingdom. Demavend unwisely provoked Nilfgaard and has suffered the consequences. And I’m in no hurry to die for Vengerberg. What is happening in Aedirn is no concern of ours.’

‘Not our concern? What, by a hundred devils, are you drivelling on about? You consider it other people’s business that the Nilfgaardians are in Aedirn and Lyria, on the right bank of the Jaruga, when only Mahakam separates us from them? You don’t have an ounce of common sense . . .’

‘Enough of this feuding,’ warned Willemer. ‘Not another word. The king is coming out.’

The chamber doors opened. The members of the Royal Council rose, scraping their chairs. Many of the seats were vacant. The crown hetman and most of the commanders were with their regiments: in the Pontar Valley, in Mahakam and by the Jaruga. The chairs which were usually occupied by sorcerers were also vacant. Sorcerers . . . Yes, thought Willemer, the priest, the places occupied by sorcerers here, at the royal court in Vizima, will remain vacant for a long time. Who knows, perhaps for ever?

King Foltest crossed the hall quickly and stood by his throne but did not sit down. He simply leaned over, resting his fists on the table. He was very pale.

‘Vengerberg is under siege,’ said the King of Temeria softly, ‘and will fall any day now. Nilfgaard is pushing northwards relentlessly. The surrounded troops continue to fight, but that will change nothing. Aedirn is lost. King Demavend has fled to Redania. The fate of Queen Meve is unknown.’

The Council was silent.

‘In a few days, the Nilfgaardians will take our eastern border, by which I mean the mouth of the Pontar Valley,’ Foltest went on, still very softly. ‘Hagge, Aedirn’s last fortress, will not withstand them for long, and Hagge is on our eastern border. And on our southern border . . . something very unfortunate has occurred. King Ervyll of Verden has sworn fealty to Emperor Emhyr. He has surrendered and opened the strongholds at the mouth of the Jaruga. Nilfgaardian garrisons are already installed in Nastrog, Rozrog and Bodrog, which were supposed to have protected our flank.’

The Council was silent.

‘Owing to that,’ continued Foltest, ‘Ervyll has retained his royal title, but Emhyr is his sovereign. Verden remains a kingdom but, de facto, is now a Nilfgaardian province. Do you understand what that means? The situation has turned about face. The Verdenian strongholds and the mouth of the Jaruga are in Nilfgaard’s hands. I cannot attempt to cross the river. And I cannot weaken the army stationed there by forming a corps which could enter Aedirn and support Demavend’s forces. I cannot do that. Responsibility for my country and my subjects rests on me.’

The Council was silent.

‘Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, the imperator of Nilfgaard,’ said the king, ‘has offered me a proposition . . . an agreement. I have accepted that proposition. I shall now present this proposition to you. And you, when you have heard me out, will understand . . . Will agree that— Will say . . .’

The Council was silent.

‘You will say . . .’ concluded Foltest. ‘You will say I am bringing you peace.’

‘So Foltest crumbled,’ muttered the Witcher, breaking another twig in his fingers. ‘He struck a deal with Nilfgaard. He left Aedirn to its fate . . .’

‘Yes,’ agreed the poet. ‘However, he sent his army to the Pontar Valley and occupied and manned the stronghold at Hagge. And the Nilfgaardians didn’t march into the Mahakam pass or cross the Jaruga in Sodden. They didn’t attack Brugge, which, after its capitulation and Ervyll’s fealty, they have in their clutches. That was without doubt the price of Temeria’s neutrality.’

‘Ciri was right,’ whispered the Witcher. ‘Neutrality . . . Neutrality is always contemptible.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. But what about Kaedwen, Dandelion? Why didn’t Henselt of Kaedwen come to Demavend and Meve’s aid? They had a pact, after all; they were bound by an alliance. But even if Henselt, following Foltest’s example, pisses on the signatures and seals on documents, and the royal word means nothing to him, he cannot be stupid, can he? Doesn’t he understand that after the fall of Aedim and the deal with Temeria, it will be his turn; that he’s next on the Nilfgaardian list? Kaedwen ought to support Demavend out of good sense. There may no longer be faith nor truth in the world, but surely good sense still exists. What say you, Dandelion? Is there still good sense in the world? Or do only contemptibility and contempt remain?’

Dandelion turned his head away. The green lanterns were close. They were surrounding them in a tight ring. He hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now he understood. All the dryads had been listening in to his story.

‘You say nothing,’ said Geralt, ‘which means that Ciri was right. That Codringher was right. You were all right. Only I, the naive, anachronistic and stupid witcher, was wrong.’

Centurion Digod, known by the nickname Half-Gallon, opened the tent flap and entered, panting heavily and snarling angrily. The decurions jumped to their feet, assuming military poses and expressions. Zyvik dextrously threw a sheepskin over the small barrel of vodka standing among the saddles, before the eyes of the centurion had time to adjust to the gloom. Not to save themselves from punishment, because Digod wasn’t actually a fervent opponent of drinking on duty or in the camp, but more in order to save the barrel. The centurion’s nickname had not come about by accident; the story went that, in favourable conditions, he was capable of knocking back half a gallon of hooch, vigorously and with impressive speed. The centurion could polish off a standard soldier’s quart mug as if it were a gill, in one draught, and seldom got his ears wet doing it.

‘Well, Centurion, sir?’ asked Bode, the bowmen’s decurion. ‘What have the top brass decided? What are our orders? Are we crossing the border? Tell us!’

‘Just a moment,’ grunted Half-Gallon. ‘What bloody heat . . . I’ll tell you everything in a moment. But first, give me something to drink because my throat’s bone dry. And don’t tell me you haven’t got any; I can smell the vodka in this tent a mile off. And I know where it’s coming from. From under that there sheepskin.’

Zyvik, muttering an oath, took out the barrel. The decurions crowded together in a tight group and clinked cups and tin mugs.

‘Aaaah,’ said the centurion, wiping his whiskers and eyes. ‘Ooooh, that’s foul stuff. Keep pouring, Zyvik.’

‘Come on, tell us quickly,’ said Bode, becoming impatient. ‘What orders? Are we marching on the Nilfgaardians or are we going to hang around on the border like a bunch of spare pricks at a wedding?’

‘Itching for a scrap?’ Half-Gallon wheezed lengthily, spat, and sat down hard on a saddle. ‘In a hurry to get over the border, towards Aedirn? You can’t wait, eh? What fierce wolf cubs you are, doing nothing but standing there growling, baring your fangs.’

‘That’s right,’ said old Stahler coldly, shuffling from one foot to the other. His legs were as crooked as a spider’s, which befitted an old cavalryman. ‘That’s right, Centurion, sir. This is the fifth night we’ve slept in our boots, at the ready. And we want to know what’s happening. Is it a scrap or back to the fort?’

‘We’re crossing the border,’ announced Half-Gallon brusquely. ‘Tomorrow at dawn. Five brigades, with the Dun Banner leading the way. And now pay attention, because I’m going to tell you what was told to us centurions and warrant officers by the voivode and the Honourable Margrave Mansfeld of Ard Carraigh, who’d come straight from the king. Prick up your ears, because I won’t tell you twice. And they’re unusual orders.’

The tent fell silent.

‘The Nilfgaardians have passed through Dol Angra,’ said the centurion. ‘They crushed Lyria, and reached Aldersberg in four days, where they routed Demavend’s army in a decisive battle. Right away, after only six days’ siege, they took Vengerberg by means of treachery. Now they’re heading swiftly northwards, driving the armies back from Aedirn towards the Pontar Valley and Dol Blathanna. They’re heading towards us, towards Kaedwen. So the orders for the Dun Banner are as follows: cross the border and march hard south, straight for the Valley of the Flowers. We have three days to get to the River Dyfne. I repeat, three days, which means we’ll be marching at a trot. And, when we get there, not a step across the Dyfne. Not a single step. Shortly after, the Nilfgaardians will show up on the far bank. We do not, heed my words well, engage them. In no way, understood? Even if they try to cross the river, we’re only to show them . . . show them our colours. That it’s us, the Kaedwen Army.’

Although it seemed impossible, the silence in the tent grew even more palpable.

‘What?’ mumbled Bode finally. ‘We aren’t to fight the Nilfgaardians? Are we going to war or not? What’s this all about, Centurion, sir?’

‘That’s our orders. We aren’t going to war, but . . .’ Half-Gallon scratched his neck ‘ . . . but to give fraternal help. We’re crossing the border to give protection to the people of Upper Aedirn . . . Wait, what am I saying . . . Not from Aedirn, but from Lormark. That’s what the Honourable Margrave Mansfeld said. Yes, and he said that Demavend has suffered a defeat. He’s tripped up and is lying flat on his face, because he governed poorly and his politics were crap. So that’s the end of him and the end of the whole of Aedirn with him. Our king lent Demavend a pretty penny because he gave him help. One cannot allow wealth like that to be lost, so now it’s time to get that money back with interest. Neither can we let our compatriots and brothers from Lormark be taken prisoner by Nilfgaard. We have to, you know, liberate them. For those are our ancient lands: Lormark. They were once under Kaedwen rule and now they shall return to its rule. All the way to the River Dyfne. That’s the agreement Our Grace, King Henselt, has concluded with Emhyr of Nilfgaard. Agreements or no agreements, the Dun Banner is to station itself by the river. Do you understand?’

No one answered. Half-Gallon grimaced and waved a hand.

‘Ah, sod the lot of you. You don’t understood shit, I see. But don’t worry yourselves, because I didn’t either. For His Majesty the King, the margraves, the voivodes and nobles are there to think. And we’re the army! We have to follow orders: get to the River Dyfne in three days, stop there and stand like a wall. And that’s it. Pour, Zyvik.’

‘Centurion, sir . . .’ stammered Zyvik. ‘And what will happen . . . What will happen if the army of Aedirn resists? Or bars the road? After all, we’re passing through their country armed. What then?’

‘Should our compatriots and brothers,’ continued Stahler spitefully, ‘the ones we’re supposedly liberating . . . Should they begin to shoot arrows at us or throw stones? Eh?’

‘We are to be on the banks of the Dyfne in three days,’ said Half-Gallon forcefully. ‘And no later. Whoever tries to delay or stop us is clearly an enemy. And our enemies can be cut to ribbons. But heed my words well! Listen to the orders! Burn no villages, nor cottages. Take no goods from anyone. Do not plunder. Rape no women! Make sure you and your men remember this, for should anyone break this order, they will hang. The voivode must have repeated this ten times: we aren’t fucking invading, we’re coming to give a helping hand! Why are you grinning, Stahler? It’s a bloody order! And now get to your units on the double. Get ’em all on their feet. The horses and tack are to shine like the full moon! In the afternoon, all companies are to fall in for inspection; the voivode himself will be drilling them. If I have to be ashamed of one of the platoons, the decurion will remember me. Oh yes, he’ll remember! You have your orders!’

Zyvik was the last to leave the tent. Squinting in the bright sunlight, he watched the commotion which had taken over the camp. Decurions were rushing to their units, centurions were running about and cursing, and noblemen, cornets and pages were getting under each other’s feet. The heavy cavalry from Ban Ard was trotting around the field, stirring up clouds of dust. The heat was horrendous.

Zyvik quickened his pace. He passed four bards from Ard Carraigh who had arrived the previous day and were sitting in the shadow cast by the margrave’s richly decorated tent. The bards were just composing a ballad about the victorious military operation, about the prowess of the king, the prudence of the commanders and the bravery of the humble foot soldier. As usual, to save time, they were doing it before the operation.

‘Our brothers greeted us, they greeted us with breaaad and salt . . .’ sang one of the bards, trying out his lyrics. ‘They greeted their saviours and liberators, they greeted them with breaaad and salt . . . Hey, Hrafhir, think up a clever rhyme for “salt”.’

The second bard suggested a rhyme. Zyvik did not hear what it was.

The platoon, camped among some willows by a pond, leapt up on seeing him.

‘Make ready!’ roared Zyvik, standing a good way back, so that the smell of his breath would not influence the morale of his subordinates. ‘Before the sun rises another four fingers there’ll be a full inspection! Everything’s to be shining like the sun. Arms, tack, trappings and your mounts. There will be an inspection, and if I have to be ashamed of one of you before the centurion, I’ll tear that soldier’s legs off. Look lively!’

‘We’re going into battle,’ guessed cavalryman Kraska, tucking his shirt quickly into his trousers. ‘Are we going into battle, Decurion, sir?’

‘What do you think? Or maybe we’re off to a dance, to a Lammas party? We’re crossing the frontier. The entire Dun Banner sets off tomorrow at dawn. The centurion didn’t say in what array, but we know our platoon will be leading as usual. Now look lively, move your arses! Hold on, come back. I’ll say this right now, because there’ll be no time later. It won’t be a typical little war, lads. The honourable gentlemen have thought up some modern idiocy. Some kind of liberation, or some such. We aren’t going to fight the enemy, but we’re heading towards our, what was it, eternal lands, to bring, you know, fraternal help. Now pay attention to what I say: you’re not to touch the folk of Aedirn, not to loot—’

‘What?’ said Kraska, mouth agape. ‘What do you mean, don’t loot? And what are we going to feed our horses on, Decurion, sir?’

‘You can loot fodder for the horses, but nothing else. Don’t cut anyone up, don’t burn any cottages down, don’t destroy any crops . . . Shut your trap, Kraska! This isn’t a village gathering. It’s the fucking army! Carry out the orders or you hang! I said: don’t kill, don’t murder, and don’t—’

Zyvik broke off and pondered.

‘And if you rape any women, do it on the quiet. Out of sight,’ he finished a moment later.

*

‘They shook hands,’ finished Dandelion, ‘on the bridge on the River Dyfne. Margrave Mansfeld of Ard Carraigh and Menno Coehoorn, the commander-in-chief of the Nilfgaardian armies from Dol Angra. They shook hands over the bleeding, dying Kingdom of Aedirn, sealing a criminal division of the spoils. The most despicable gesture history has ever known.’

Geralt remained silent.

‘On the subject of despicableness,’ he said, surprisingly calmly, a moment later, ‘what about the sorcerers, Dandelion? The ones from the Chapter and the Council.’

‘Not one of them remained with Demavend,’ began the poet, soon after, ‘while Foltest drove all those who had served him out of Temeria. Philippa is in Tretogor, helping Queen Hedwig to bring the chaos reigning in Redania under control. With her is Triss and three others, whose names I can’t recall. Several of them are in Kaedwen. Many of them escaped to Kovir and Hengfors. They chose neutrality, because Esterad Thyssen and Niedamir, as you know, were, and are, neutral.’

‘I know. What about Vilgefortz? And the people who stuck by him?’

‘Vilgefortz has disappeared. It was expected he would surface in Aedirn after its capture, as Emhyr’s viceroy . . . But there’s no trace of him. Neither of him nor any of his accomplices. Apart from . . .’

‘Go on, Dandelion.’

‘Apart from one sorceress, who has become a queen.’

Filavandrel aep Fidhail waited for the answer in silence. The queen, who was staring out of the window, was also silent. The window looked out onto the gardens which, not so long ago, had been the pride and delight of the previous ruler of Dol Blathanna, the governor of the despot from Vengerberg. Fleeing before the arrival of the Free Elves, who were coming in the vanguard of Emperor Emhyr’s army, the human governor had managed to take most of the valuables from the ancient elven palace, and even some of the furniture. But he could not take the gardens. So he destroyed them.

‘No, Filavandrel,’ said the queen finally. ‘It is too early for that, much too early. Let us not think about extending our borders, for at present we are not even certain of their exact positions. Henselt of Kaedwen has no intention of abiding by the agreement and withdrawing from the Dyfne. Our spies inform us he has by no means abandoned his thoughts of aggression. He may attack us any day.’

‘So we have achieved nothing.’

The queen slowly held out a hand. An Apollo butterfly, which had flown in through the window, alighted on her lace cuff, folding and unfolding its pointed wings.

‘We’ve achieved more,’ said the queen softly, in order not to frighten away the butterfly, ‘than we could have hoped for. We have finally recovered our Valley of the Flowers after a hundred years—’

‘I would not name it thus.’ Filavandrel smiled sadly. ‘Now, after the armies have passed through, it should be called the Valley of the Ashes.’

‘We have our own country once more,’ finished the queen, looking at the butterfly. ‘We are a people again, no longer outcasts. And the ash will nourish the soil. In spring the valley will blossom anew.’

‘That is too little, Daisy. It is ever too little. We’ve come down a station or two. Not long ago we boasted we would push the humans back to the sea, whence they came. And now we have narrowed our borders and ambitions to Dol Blathann . . .’

‘Emhyr Deithwen gave us Dol Blathanna as a gift. What do you expect from me, Filavandrel? Am I to demand more? Do not forget that even in receiving gifts there should be moderation. Particularly when it concerns gifts from Emhyr, because he gives nothing for nothing. We must keep the lands he gave us. And the powers at our disposal are barely sufficient to retain Dol Blathanna.’

‘Let us then withdraw our commandos from Temeria, Redania and Kaedwen,’ suggested the white-haired elf. ‘Let us withdraw all Scoia’tael forces who are fighting the humans. You are now queen, Enid, and they will obey your orders. Now that we have our own small scrap of land, there is no sense in their continuing to fight. Their duty is to return and defend the Valley of the Flowers. Let them fight as a free people in defence of their own borders. Right now they are falling like bandits in the forests!’

The elf bowed her head.

‘Emhyr has not permitted that,’ she whispered. ‘The commandos are to fight on.’

‘Why? To what end?’ said Filavandrel aep Fidhail, sitting up abruptly.

‘I will say more. We are not to support nor to help the Scoia’tael. This was the condition set by Foltest and Henselt. Temeria and Kaedwen will respect our rule in Dol Blathanna, but only if we officially condemn the Squirrels’ aggression and distance ourselves from them.’

‘Those children are dying, Daisy. They are dying every day, perishing in an unequal contest. As a direct result of these secret pacts with Emhyr, humans will attack the commandos and crush them. They are our children, our future! Our blood! And you tell me we should dissociate ourselves from them? Que’ss aen me dicette, Enid? Vorsaeke’llan? Aen vaine?’

The butterfly took flight, flapping its wings, and flew towards the window, then spun around, caught by currents of hot summer air. Francesca Findabair, known as Enid an Gleanna, once a sorceress and presently the Queen of Aen Seidhe, the Free Elves, raised her head. Tears glistened in her beautiful blue eyes.

‘The commandos,’ she repeated softly, ‘must continue to fight. They must disrupt the human kingdoms and hinder their preparations for war. That is the order of Emhyr and I may not oppose Emhyr. Forgive me, Filavandrel.’

Filavandrel aep Fidhail looked at her and bowed low.

‘I forgive you, Enid. But I do not know if they will.’

‘Did not one sorcerer think the matter over a second time? Even when Nilfgaard was slaughtering and burning in Aedirn, did none of them abandon Vilgefortz or join Philippa?’

‘Not one.’

Geralt was silent for a long time.

‘I can’t believe,’ he said finally, very softly, ‘I can’t believe none of them left Vilgefortz when the real causes and effects of his treachery came to light. I am – as is generally known – a naive, stupid and anachronistic witcher. But I still cannot believe that the conscience of not one sorcerer was pricked.’

Tissaia de Vries penned her practised, decorative signature beneath the final sentence of the letter. After lengthy reflection, she also added an ideogram signifying her true name alongside. A name no one knew. A name she had not used for a very long time. Not since she became an enchantress.

Skylark.

She put her pen down, very carefully, very precisely, across the sheet of parchment. For a long while she sat motionless, staring at the red orb of the setting sun. Then she stood up and walked over to the window. For some time she looked at the roofs of houses. Houses in which ordinary people were at that moment going to bed, tired by their ordinary, human lives and hardship; full of ordinary human anxiety about their fates, about tomorrow. The enchantress glanced at the letter lying on the table. At the letter addressed to ordinary people. The fact that most ordinary people couldn’t read was of no significance.

She stood in front of the looking glass. She straightened her hair. She smoothed her dress. She brushed a nonexistent speck from her puffed sleeve. She straightened the ruby necklace on her breast.

The candlesticks beneath the looking glass stood unevenly. Her servant must have moved them while she was cleaning.

Her servant. An ordinary woman. An ordinary human with eyes full of fear about what was happening. An ordinary human, adrift in these times of contempt. An ordinary human, searching in her – in an enchantress – for hope and certainty about tomorrow . . .

An ordinary human whose trust she had betrayed.

The sound of steps, the pounding of heavy soldiers’ boots, drifted up from the street. Tissaia de Vries did not even twitch, did not even turn to face the window. It was unimportant to her whose steps they were. Royal soldiers? A provost with orders to arrest the traitress? Hired assassins? Vilgefortz’s hit men? She could not care less.

The steps faded into the distance.

The candlesticks beneath the looking glass stood out of kilter. The enchantress straightened them and corrected the position of a tablecloth, so that its corner was exactly in the centre, symmetrically aligned with the candlesticks’ quadrangular bases. She unfastened the gold bracelets from her wrists and placed them perfectly evenly on the smoothed cloth. She examined the tablecloth critically but could not find the tiniest fault. Everything was lying evenly and neatly. As it should have lain before.

She opened the drawer in the dresser and took out a short knife with a bone handle.

Her face was proud and fixed. Expressionless.

It was quiet in the house. So quiet, the sound of a wilted petal falling on the tabletop could be heard.

The sun, as red as blood, slowly sank below the roofs of the houses.

Tissaia de Vries sat down on the chair by the table, blew out a candle, straightened the quill lying across the letter one more time and severed the arteries in both wrists.

The fatigue caused by the daylong journey had made itself felt. Dandelion awoke and realised he had probably fallen asleep during the story, dropping off in mid-sentence. He shifted and almost rolled off the pile of branches. Geralt was no longer lying alongside him to balance the makeshift bed.

‘Where did I . . .’ he said, coughing. He sat up. ‘Where did I get to? Ah, the sorcerers . . . Geralt? Where are you?’

‘Here,’ said the Witcher, barely visible in the gloom. ‘Go on, please. You were just going to tell me about Yennefer.’

‘Listen,’ said the poet, knowing perfectly well he’d had absolutely no intention of even mentioning the person in question. ‘I really know nothing . . .’

‘Don’t lie. I know you.’

‘If you know me so well,’ said the troubadour, beginning to bristle, ‘why the bloody hell are you making me speak? Since you know me through and through, you ought to know why I’m keeping my counsel, why I’m not repeating the gossip I’ve heard! You also ought to be able to guess what the gossip is and why I want to spare you it!’

‘Que suecc’s?’ said one of the dryads sleeping nearby, on being woken by his raised voice.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Witcher softly.

Almost all of the green lanterns of Brokilon were out; only a few of them still glimmered gently.

‘Geralt,’ said Dandelion, interrupting the silence. ‘You’ve always maintained that you don’t get involved, that nothing matters to you . . . She may have believed that. She believed that when she began this game with Vilgefortz—’

‘Enough,’ said Geralt. ‘Not another word. When I hear the word “game” I feel like killing someone. Oh, give me that razor. I want to have that shave at last.’

‘Now? It’s still dark . . .’

‘It’s never too dark for me. I’m a freak.’

After the Witcher had snatched the pouch of toiletries from him and headed off towards the stream, Dandelion realised he had shaken off all drowsiness. The sky was already lightening with the promise of dawn. He got up and walked into the forest, carefully stepping over the dryads, who were sleeping cuddled together.

‘Are you one of those who had a hand in this?’

He turned around suddenly. The dryad leaning against a pine tree had hair the colour of silver, visible even in the half-light of the dawn.

‘A most deplorable sight,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Someone who has lost everything. You know, minstrel, it is interesting. Once, I thought it was impossible to lose everything, that something always remains. Always. Even in times of contempt, when naivety is capable of backfiring in the cruellest way, one cannot lose everything. But he . . . he lost several pints of blood, the ability to walk properly, the partial use of his left hand, his witcher’s sword, the woman he loves, the daughter he had gained by a miracle, his faith . . . Well, I thought, he must have been left with something. But I was wrong. He has nothing now. Not even a razor.’

Dandelion remained silent. The dryad did not move.

‘I asked if you had a hand in this,’ she began a moment later. ‘But I think there was no need. It’s obvious you had a hand in it. It’s obvious you are his friend. And if someone has friends, and he loses everything in spite of that, it’s obvious the friends are to blame. For what they did, or for what they didn’t do.’

‘What could I have done?’ he whispered. ‘What could I have done?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered the dryad.

‘I didn’t tell him everything . . .’

‘I know.’

‘I’m not guilty of anything.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘No! I am not . . .’

He jumped to his feet, making the branches of his makeshift bed creak. Geralt sat beside him, rubbing his face. He smelled of soap.

‘Aren’t you?’ he asked coolly. ‘I wonder what else you dreamed about. That you’re a frog? Calm down. You aren’t. Did you dream that you’re a chump? Well, that dream might have been prophetic.’

Dandelion looked all around. They were completely alone in the clearing.

‘Where is she? Where are they?’

‘On the edge of the forest. Get ready, it’s time you left.’

‘Geralt, I spoke with a dryad a moment ago. She was talking in the Common Speech without an accent and told me . . .’

‘None of the dryads in that group spoke the Common Speech without an accent. You dreamed it, Dandelion. This is Brokilon. Many things can be dreamed here.’

A lone dryad was waiting for them at the edge of the forest. Dandelion recognised her at once – it was the one with the greenish hair who had brought them light during the night and encouraged him to continue singing. The dryad raised a hand, instructing them to stop. In her other hand she was holding a bow with an arrow nocked. The Witcher put his hand on the troubadour’s shoulder and squeezed it hard.

‘Is something going on?’ whispered Dandelion.

‘Indeed. Be quiet and don’t move.’

The dense fog hanging over the Ribbon valley stifled voices and sounds, but not so much that Dandelion was unable to hear the splash of water and the snorting of horses. Riders were crossing the river.

‘Elves,’ he guessed. ‘Scoia’tael? They’re fleeing to Brokilon, aren’t they? An entire commando unit . . .’

‘No,’ muttered Geralt, staring into the fog. The poet knew the Witcher’s eyesight and hearing were incredibly acute and sensitive, but he was unable to guess if his assessment was based on vision or hearing. ‘It isn’t a commando unit. It’s what’s left of one. Five or six riders, three riderless horses. Stay here, Dandelion. I’m going over there.’

‘Gar’ean,’ said the greenhaired dryad in warning, raising her bow. ‘Nfe va, Gwynbleidd! Ki’rin!’

‘Thaess aep, Fauve,’ replied the Witcher unexpectedly brusquely. ‘M’aespar que va’en, ell’ea? Go ahead and shoot. If not, lock me up and don’t try to frighten me, because there’s nothing you can frighten me with. I must talk to Milva Barring, and I will do so whether you like it or not. Stay there, Dandelion.’

The dryad lowered her head. Her bow too.

Nine horses emerged from the fog, and Dandelion saw that indeed only six of them were bearing riders. He saw the shapes of dryads emerging from the undergrowth and heading to meet them. He noticed that three riders had to be helped to dismount and had to be supported in order to walk towards the trees of Brokilon and safety. The other dryads stole like wraiths across the hillside, which was covered with wind-fallen trees, and vanished into the fog hanging above the Ribbon. A shout, the neighing of horses and the splash of water came from the opposite bank. It also seemed to the poet that he could hear the whistle of arrows. But he was not certain.

‘They were being pursued . . .’ he muttered. Fauve turned around, gripping her bow.

‘You sing a song, taedh,’ she snapped. ‘N’te shaent a’minne, not about Ettariel. No, my darling. The time is not right. Now is time to kill, yes. Such a song, yes!’

‘I,’ he stammered, ‘am not to blame for what is happening . . .’

The dryad was silent for a moment and looked to one side.

‘Also not I,’ she said and quickly disappeared into the undergrowth.

The Witcher was back before an hour had passed. He was leading two saddled horses: Pegasus and a bay mare. The mare’s saddlecloth bore traces of blood.

‘She’s one of the elves’ horses, isn’t she? One of those who crossed the river?’

‘Yes,’ replied Geralt. His face and voice were changed and unfamiliar. ‘The mare belongs to the elves. But she will be serving me for the moment. And when I have the chance, I’ll exchange her for a horse that knows how to carry a wounded rider and, when its rider falls, remains by him. It’s clear this mare wasn’t taught to do that.’

‘Are we leaving?’

‘You’re leaving,’ said the Witcher, throwing the poet Pegasus’s reins. ‘Farewell, Dandelion. The dryads will escort you a couple of miles upstream so you won’t fall into the hands of the soldiers from Brugge, who are probably still hanging around on the far bank.’

‘What about you? Are you staying here?’

‘No. I’m not.’

‘You’ve learned something. From the Squirrels. You know something about Ciri, don’t you?’

‘Farewell, Dandelion.’

‘Geralt . . . Listen to me—’

‘Listen to what?’ shouted the Witcher, before his voice suddenly faltered. ‘I can’t leave— I can’t just leave her to her fate. She’s completely alone . . . She cannot be left alone, Dandelion. You’ll never understand that. No one will ever understand that, but I know. If she remains alone, the same thing will happen to her as once happened to me . . . You’ll never understand that . . .’

‘I do understand. Which is why I’m coming with you.’

‘You’re insane. Do you know where I’m headed?’

‘Yes, I do. Geralt, I— I haven’t told you everything. I’m . . . I feel guilty. I didn’t do anything; I didn’t know what to do. But now I know. I want to go with you. I want to be by your side. I never told you . . . about Ciri and the rumours that are circulating. I met some acquaintances from Kovir, and they in turn had heard the reports of some envoys who had returned from Nilfgaard . . . I imagine those rumours may even have reached the Squirrels’ ears. That you’ve already heard everything from those elves who crossed the Ribbon. But let . . . let me tell you . . .’

The Witcher stood thinking for a long time, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

‘Get on your horse,’ he finally said, his voice sounding different. ‘You can tell me on the way.’

That morning there was an unusual commotion in Loc Grim Palace, the imperator’s summer residence. All the more unusual since commotions, emotions or excitement were not at all customary for the Nilfgaardian nobility and demonstrating anxiety or excitement was regarded as a sign of immaturity. Behaviour of that kind was treated by the Nilfgaardian noblemen as highly reprehensible and contemptible, to such an extent that even callow youths, from whom few would have demanded greater maturity, were expected to refrain from any displays of animation.

That morning, though, there were no young men in Loc Grim. Young men wouldn’t have had any reason to be in Loc Grim. Stern, austere aristocrats, knights and courtiers were filling the palace’s enormous throne room, every one of them dressed in ceremonial courtly black, enlivened only by white ruffs and cuffs. The men were accompanied by a small number of equally stern, austere ladies, whom custom permitted to brighten the black of their costume with a little modest jewellery. They all pretended to be dignified, stern and austere. But they were all extremely excited.

‘They say she’s ugly. Skinny and ugly.’

‘But she allegedly has royal blood.’

‘Illegitimate?’

‘Not a bit of it. Legitimate.’

‘Will she ascend to the throne?’

‘Should the imperator so decide . . .’

‘By thunder, just look at Ardal aep Dahy and Count de Wett . . . Look at their faces; as though they’d drunk vinegar . . .’

‘Be quiet, Your Excellency . . . Do their expressions surprise you? If the rumours are true, Emhyr will be giving the ancient houses a slap in the face. He will humiliate them—’

‘The rumours won’t be true. The imperator won’t wed that foundling! He couldn’t possibly . . .’

‘Emhyr will do whatever he wants. Heed your words, Your Excellency. Be careful of what you say. There have been people who said Emhyr couldn’t do this or that. And they all ended up on the scaffold.’

‘They say he has already signed a decree concerning an endowment for her. Three hundred marks annually, can you imagine?’

‘And the title of princess. Have any of you seen her yet?’

‘She was placed under the care of Countess Liddertal on her arrival and her house was cordoned off by the guard.’

‘They have entrusted her to the countess, in order that she may instil some idea of manners in the little chit. They say your princess behaves like a farm girl . . .’

‘What’s so strange about that? She comes from the north, from barbaric Cintra—’

‘Which makes the rumours about a marriage to Emhyr all the more unlikely. No, no, it’s utterly beyond the pale. The imperator is to marry de Wett’s youngest daughter, as planned. He will not marry that usurper!’

‘It is high time he finally married somebody. For the sake of the dynasty . . . It is high time we had a little archduke . . .’

‘Then let him be wed, but not to that stray!’

‘Quiet, don’t gush. I give you my word, noble lords, that that marriage will not happen. What purpose could such a match serve?’

‘It’s politics, Countess. We are waging a war. That bond would have political and strategic significance . . . The dynasty of which the princess is a member has legal titles and confirmed feudatory rights to the lands on the Lower Yarra. Were she to become the imperator’s spouse . . . Ha, it would be an excellent move. Just look over there, at King Esterad’s envoys; how they whisper . . .’

‘So you support this outlandish relationship, Duke? Or you’ve simply been counselling Emhyr, is that it?’

‘It’s my business, Margrave, what I do or don’t support. And I would advise you not to question the imperator’s decisions.’

‘Has he already made his decision then?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘You are in error then, to doubt it.’

‘What do you mean by that, madam?’

‘Emhyr has sent Baroness Tarnhann away from the court. He has ordered her to return to her husband.’

‘He’s broken off with Dervla Tryffin Broinne? It cannot be! Dervla has been his favourite for three years . . .’

‘Now she has been expelled from the court.’

‘It’s true. They say the golden-haired Dervla kicked up an awful fuss. Four royal guardsmen had to manhandle her into the carriage . . .’

‘Her husband will be overjoyed . . .’

‘I doubt that.’

‘By the Great Sun! Emhyr has broken off with Dervla? He’s broken off with her for that foundling? For that savage from the North?’

‘Quiet . . . Quiet, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Who supports this? Which faction supports this?’

‘Be quiet, I said. They’re looking at us—’

‘That wench – I mean princess – is said to be ugly . . . When the imperator sees her . . .’

‘Are you trying to say he hasn’t seen her yet?’

‘He hasn’t had time. He only returned from Darn Ruach an hour ago.’

‘Emhyr never had a liking for ugly women. Aine Dermott, Clara aep Gwydolyn Gor . . . And Dervla Tryffin Broinne was a true beauty.’

‘Perhaps the foundling will grow pretty with time . . .’

‘After she’s been given a good scrubbing? They say princesses from the north seldom wash—’

‘Heed your words. You may be speaking about the imperator’s spouse!’

‘She is still a child. She is no more than fourteen.’

‘I say again, it would be a political union . . . Purely formal . . .’

‘Were that the case, the golden-haired Dervla would remain at court. The foundling from Cintra would politically and formally ascend the throne beside Emhyr . . . But in the evening Emhyr would give her a tiara and the crown jewels to play with and would visit Dervla’s bedchamber . . . At least until the chit attained an age when she could safely bear him a child.’

‘Hmm . . . Yes, you may have something there. What is the name of the . . . princess?’

‘Xerella, or something of the kind.’

‘Not a bit of it. She is called . . . Zirilla. Yes, I think it’s Zirilla.’

‘A barbarous name.’

‘Be quiet, damn it . . .’

‘And show a little dignity. You’re squabbling like unruly children!’

‘Heed your words! Be careful that I do not treat them as an affront!’

‘If you’re demanding satisfaction, you know where to find me, Margrave!’

‘Silence! Be quiet! The imperator . . .’

The herald did not have to make a special effort. One blow of his staff on the floor was sufficient for the black-bereted heads of the aristocrats and knights to bow down like ears of corn blown in the wind. The silence in the throne room was so complete that the herald did not have to raise his voice especially, either.

‘Emhyr var Emreis, Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Monrudd!’

The White Flame Dancing on the Barrows of his Foes. He marched down the double file of noblemen with his usual brisk step, vigorously waving his right hand. His black costume was identical to that of the courtiers, aside from the lack of a ruff. The imperator’s dark hair – largely unkempt as usual – was kept reasonably neat by a narrow gold band, and the imperial chain of office glistened on his neck.

The Emhyr sat down on the throne quite carelessly, placing an elbow on the armrest and his chin in his hand. He did not throw a leg over the other armrest, signifying that etiquette still applied. None of the bowed heads rose by even an inch.

The imperator cleared his throat loudly without changing his position. The courtiers breathed again and straightened up. The herald struck his staff on the floor once again.

‘Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, the Queen of Cintra, the Princess of Brugge and Duchess of Sodden, heiress of Inis Ard Skellig and Inis An Skellig, and suzerain of Attre and Abb Yarra!’

All eyes turned towards the doors, where the tall and dignified Stella Congreve, Countess of Liddertal, was standing. Alongside the countess walked the holder of all those impressive titles. Skinny, fair-haired, extremely pale, somewhat stooped, in a long, blue dress. A dress in which she very clearly felt awkward and uncomfortable.

Emhyr Deithwen sat up on his throne, and the courtiers immediately bowed low again. Stella Congreve nudged the fair-haired girl very gently, and the two of them filed between the double row of bowing aristocrats, all members of the leading houses of Nilfgaard. The girl walked stiffly and hesitantly. She’ll stumble, thought the countess.

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon stumbled.

Ugly, scrawny little thing, thought the countess, as she neared the throne. Clumsy and, what’s more, rather bovine. But I shall make her a beauty. I shall make her a queen, Emhyr, just as you ordered.

The White Flame of Nilfgaard watched them from his position on the throne. As usual, his eyes were somewhat narrowed and the hint of a sneer played on his lips.

The Queen of Cintra stumbled a second time. The imperator placed an elbow on the armrest of the throne and touched his cheek with his hand. He was smiling. Stella Congreve was close enough to recognise that smile. She froze in horror. Something is not right, she thought, something is not right. Heads will fall. By the Great Sun, heads will fall . . .

She regained her presence of mind and curtseyed, making the girl follow suit.

Emhyr var Emreis did not rise from the throne. But he bowed his head slightly. The courtiers held their breath.

‘Your Majesty,’ said Emhyr. The girl cowered. The imperator was not looking at her. He was looking at the noblemen gathered in the hall.

‘Your Majesty,’ he repeated. ‘I’m glad to be able to welcome you to my palace and my country. I give you my imperial word that the day is close when all the titles belonging to you will return to you, along with the lands which are your legal inheritance, which legally and incontrovertibly belong to you. The usurpers, who lord it over your estates, have declared war on me. They attacked me, stating that they were defending your just rights. May the entire world know that you are turning to me – not to them – for help. May the entire world know that here, in my land, you enjoy the reverence and royal name deserving of a queen, while among my enemies you were merely an outcast. May the entire world know that in my country you are safe, while my enemies not only denied you your crown, but even made attempts on your life.’

The Emperor of Nilfgaard fixed his gaze on the envoys of Esterad Thyssen, the King of Kovir, and on the ambassador of Niedamir, the King of the Hengfors League.

‘May the entire world know the truth, and among them also the kings who pretended not to know where rightness and justice lay. And may the entire world know that help will be given to you. Your enemies and mine will be defeated. Peace will reign once again in Cintra, in Sodden and Brugge, in Attre, on the Isles of Skellige and at the mouth of the Yarra Delta, and you will ascend the throne to the joy of your countrymen and every one to whom justice is dear.’

The girl in the blue dress lowered her head even further.

‘Before that happens,’ said Emhyr, ‘you will be treated with the respect due to you, by me and by all of my subjects. And since the flame of war still blazes in your kingdom, as evidence of the honour, respect and friendship of Nilfgaard, I endow you with the title of Duchess of Rowan and Ymlac, lady of the castle of Darn Rowan, where you will now travel, in order to await the arrival of more peaceful, happier times.’

Stella Congreve struggled to control herself, not allowing even a trace of astonishment to appear on her face. He’s not going to keep her with him, she thought, but is sending her to Darn Rowan, to the end of the world; somewhere he never goes. He has no intention of courting this girl. He isn’t considering a quick marriage. He doesn’t even want to see her. Why, then, has he got rid of Dervla? What is this all about?

She recovered and quickly took the princess by the hand. The audience was over. The emperor didn’t look at them as they were leaving the hall. The courtiers bowed.

Once they had left Emhyr var Emreis slung a leg over the armrest of his throne.

‘Ceallach,’ he said. ‘To me.’

The seneschal stopped in front of the emperor at the distance decreed by etiquette and bowed.

‘Closer,’ said Emhyr. ‘Come closer, Ceallach. I shall speak quietly. And what I say is meant for your ears only.’

‘Your Highness.’

‘What else is planned for today?’

‘Receiving accrediting letters and granting a formal exequatur to the envoy of King Esterad of Kovir,’ recited the seneschal rapidly. ‘Appointing viceroys, prefects and palatines in the new provinces and palatinates. Ratifying the title of Count and appanage of—’

‘We shall grant the envoy his exequatur and receive him in a private audience. Postpone the other matters until tomorrow.’

‘Yes, Your Royal Highness.’

‘Inform the Viscount of Eiddon and Skellen that immediately after the audience with the ambassador they are to report to the library. In secret. You are also to be there. And bring that celebrated mage of yours, that soothsayer . . . What was his name?’

‘Xarthisius, Your Highness. He lives in a tower outside the city—’

‘Where he lives is of no interest to me. Send for him. He is to be brought to my apartments. Quietly, with a minimum of fuss, clandestinely.’

‘Your Highness . . . Is it wise, for that astrologer—’

‘That is an order, Ceallach.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Before three hours had passed, all of those summoned were present in the imperial library. The summons didn’t surprise Vattier de Rideaux, the Viscount of Eiddon. Vattier was the chief of military intelligence. Vattier was often summoned by Emhyr; they were at war, after all. Neither did the summons surprise Stefan Skellen – also known as Tawny Owl – who served the imperator as coroner and as the authority on special services and operations. Nothing ever surprised Tawny Owl.

The third person summoned, however, was astonished to be asked to attend. Particularly since the emperor addressed him first.

‘Master Xarthisius.’

‘Your Imperial Highness.’

‘I must establish the whereabouts of a certain individual. An individual who has either gone missing or is being hidden. Or is perhaps imprisoned. The sorcerers I previously gave this task to failed me. Will you undertake it?’

‘At what distance is this individual – may this individual be – residing?’

‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t need your witchcraft.’

‘I beg your forgiveness, Your Imperial Highness . . .’ stammered the astrologer. ‘The point is that great distances hinder astromancy, they practically preclude it . . . Hum, hum . . . And should this individual be under magical protection . . . I can try, but—’

‘Keep it brief, master.’

‘I need time . . . And ingredients for the spells . . . If the alignment of stars is auspicious, then . . . Hum, hum . . . Your Imperial Highness, what you request is an exacting task . . . I need time—’

Much more of this and Emhyr will order him to be stuck on a spike, thought Tawny Owl. If the wizard doesn’t stop jabbering . . .

‘Master Xarthisius,’ interrupted the imperator surprisingly politely, even gently. ‘You will have everything you need at your disposal. Including time. Within reason.’

‘I shall do everything in my power,’ declared the astrologer. ‘But I shall only be able to determine the approximate location . . . I mean the region or radius—’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Astromancy . . .’ stammered Xarthisius. ‘At great distances astromancy only permits approximate localisations . . . Very approximate, with considerable tolerance . . . With very considerable tolerance. I truly know not whether I will be able—’

‘You will be able, master,’ drawled the imperator and his dark eyes flashed balefully. ‘I am utterly confident in your abilities. And as far as tolerance is concerned, the less is yours, the greater will be mine.’

Xarthisius cowered.

‘I must know the precise birth date of this individual,’ he mumbled. ‘To the hour; if possible . . . An object which belonged to the individual would also be invaluable . . .’

‘Hair,’ said Emhyr quietly. ‘Would hair suffice?’

‘Oooh!’ said the astrologer, brightening up. ‘Hair! That would expedite things considerably . . . Ah, and if I could also have faeces or urine . . .’

Emhyr’s eyes narrowed menacingly and the wizard cowered and made a low bow.

‘I humbly apologise, Your Imperial Highness . . .’ he grunted. ‘Please forgive me . . . Of course . . . Indeed, hair will suffice . . . Will absolutely suffice . . . When might I be given it?’

‘It will be supplied to you today, along with the date and hour of birth. I won’t keep you any longer, master. Return to your tower and start examining the constellations.’

‘May the Great Sun keep you ever in its care, Your Imperial—’

‘Yes, yes. You may withdraw.’

Now for us, thought Tawny Owl. I wonder what’s in store for us.

‘Should anyone,’ said the imperator slowly, ‘breathe a word of what is about to be said, they will be quartered. Vattier!’

‘Yes, Your Highness.’

‘How did that . . . princess . . . end up here? Who was involved?’

‘She came from the stronghold in Nastrog,’ said the chief of intelligence. ‘She was escorted here by guardsmen commanded by . . .’

‘That’s not what I bloody mean! How did that girl end up in Nastrog, in Verden? Who had her brought to the stronghold? Who is currently the commandant there? Is it the man who sent the report? Godyvron something?’

‘Godyvron Pitcairn,’ said Vattier de Rideaux quickly, ‘was of course informed about Rience and Count Cahir aep Ceallach’s mission. Three days after the events on the Isle of Thanedd, two people showed up in Nastrog. To be precise: one human and the other a half-blood elf. It was they who, citing the names Rience and Count Cahir, handed the princess over to Godyvron.’

‘Aha,’ said the imperator, smiling, and Tawny Owl felt a shiver running down his back. ‘Vilgefortz vouched he would capture Cirilla on Thanedd. Rience assured me of the same. Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach received clear orders in this matter. And so, three days after the scandal on the island, Cirilla is brought to Nastrog on the River Yarra; not by Vilgefortz, nor Rience, nor Cahir, but by a human and a half-elf. Did it not occur to Godyvron to arrest them?’

‘No. Shall he be punished for it, Your Highness?’

‘No.’

Tawny Owl swallowed. Emhyr was silent, rubbing his forehead, and the huge diamond in his ring shone like a star. A moment later, the imperator looked up.

‘Vattier.’

‘Your Highness?’

‘Mobilise all your subordinates. Order them to arrest Rience and Count Cahir. I presume the two of them are residing in territories as yet unoccupied by our forces. You will use Scoia’tael or Queen Enid’s elves to achieve that end. Take the two captives to Darn Ruach and subject them to torture.’

‘What information is required, Your Highness?’ said Vattier de Rideaux, narrowing his eyes and pretending not notice the paleness on the face of Seneschal Ceallach.

‘None. Later, when they’re softened up a little, I shall ask them personally. Skellen!’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘That old fool Xarthisius; if that jabbering copromancer manages to determine what I’ve ordered him to, then you will organise a search for a certain individual in the area he indicates. You will receive a description. It’s possible that the astrologer will indicate a region under our control, and then you will mobilise everyone responsible for that region. The entire civilian and military apparatus. It is a matter of the highest priority. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, sire. May I . . . ?’

‘No, you may not. Sit down and listen, Tawny Owl. Xarthisius will probably not come up with anything. The individual I have ordered him to search for is probably in foreign territory and under magical protection. I’d give my head that the individual I’m looking for is in the same place as our good friend, the sorcerer Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, who has mysteriously vanished. That is also why, Skellen, you will assemble and prepare a special unit, which you will personally command. Use the best men you have. They are to be ready for everything . . . and not superstitious. I mean not afraid of magic.’

Tawny Owl raised his eyebrows.

‘Your unit,’ concluded Emhyr, ‘will be charged with attacking and capturing the hideout of Vilgefortz, former good friend and ally that he was, the whereabouts of which is currently unknown to me, and which is probably quite well camouflaged and defended.’

‘Yes, sire,’ said Tawny Owl emotionlessly. ‘I presume that the individual being sought, whom they will probably find there, is not to be harmed.’

‘You presume correctly.’

‘What about Vilgefortz?’

‘He can be . . .’ The emperor smiled cruelly. ‘In his case he ought to be harmed, once and for all. Terminally harmed. This also applies to any other sorcerers you happen to find in his hideout. Without exception.’

‘Yes, sire. Who is responsible for finding Vilgefortz’s hideout?’

‘You are, Tawny Owl.’

Stefan Skellen and Vattier de Rideaux exchanged glances. Emhyr leaned back in his chair.

‘Is everything clear? If so . . . What is it, Ceallach?’

‘Your Highness . . .’ whined the seneschal, to whom no one had paid any attention up until that moment. ‘I beg you for mercy . . .’

‘There is no mercy for traitors. There is no mercy for those who oppose my will.’

‘Cahir . . . My son . . .’

‘Your son . . .’ said Emhyr, narrowing his eyes. ‘I don’t yet know what your son is guilty of. I would like to hope that he is only guilty of stupidity and ineptitude and not of treachery. If that is the case he will only be beheaded and not broken on the wheel.’

‘Your Highness! Cahir is not a traitor . . . Cahir could not have—’

‘Enough, Ceallach, not another word. The guilty will be punished. They attempted to deceive me and I will not forgive them for that. Vattier, Skellen, in one hour, report for your signed instructions, orders and authorisations. You will then set about executing your tasks at once. And one more thing: I trust I do not have to add that the poor girl you saw in the throne room a short while ago is to remain to everyone Cirilla, Queen of Cintra and Duchess of Rowan. To everyone. I order you to treat it as a state secret and a matter of the gravest national importance.’

All those present looked at the imperator in astonishment. Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd smiled faintly.

‘Have you not understood? Instead of the real Cirilla of Cintra I’ve been sent some kind of dolt. Those traitors probably told themselves that I would not recognise her. But I will know the real Ciri. I would know her at the end of the world and in the darkness of hell.’

CHAPTER SIX

The behaviour of the unicorn is greatly mystifying. Although exceptionally timid and fearful of people, if it should chance upon a maiden who has not had carnal relations with a man it will at once run to her, kneel before her and,without any fear whatsoever, lay its head in her lap. It is said that in the dim and distant past there were maidens who made a veritable practice of this. They remained unmarried and in abstinence for many years in order to be employed by hunters as a lure for unicorns. It soon transpired, however, that the unicorn only approached youthful maidens, paying absolutely no attention to older ones. Being a wise creature, the unicorn indubitably knows that remaining too long in the state of maidenhood is suspicious and counter to the natural order.

Phaysiologus

The heat woke her. It burnt her skin like a torturer’s glowing irons.

She could barely move her head, for something held it fast. She pulled away and howled in pain, feeling the skin over her temple tear and split. She opened her eyes. The boulder on which she had been resting her head was dark brown from dry, congealed blood. She touched her temple and felt the remains of a hard, cracked scab under her fingers. The scab, which had been stuck to the boulder and then torn from it when she moved her head, now dripped blood and plasma. Ciri cleared her throat, hawked and spat out sand mixed with thick, sticky saliva. She raised herself on her elbows and then sat up, looking around.

She was completely surrounded by a greyish-red, stony plain, scored by ravines and faults, with mounds of stones and huge, strangely shaped rocks. High above the plain hung an enormous, golden, burning sun, turning the entire sky yellow, distorting visibility with its blinding glare and making the air shimmer.

Where am I?

She gingerly touched her gashed, swollen forehead. It hurt. It hurt intensely. I must have taken quite a tumble, she thought. I must have slid a fair way along the ground. Her attention turned to her torn clothing and she discovered other sources of pain: in her back, in her shoulder and in her hips. When she hit the ground she had become covered in dust, sharp sand and grit. It was in her hair, ears, mouth and even her eyes, which were smarting and watering. Her hands and elbows, grazed to the raw flesh, were also stinging.

She slowly and cautiously straightened her legs and groaned once more, for her left knee reacted to movement with an intense, dull ache. She examined it through her undamaged trousers but did not find any swelling. When she breathed in, she felt a worrying stabbing in her side, and her attempts to bend her trunk almost made her scream, shooting her through with a sharp spasm which she felt in her lower back. I’m good and bruised, she thought. But I don’t think I’ve broken anything. If I’d broken a bone, it would hurt much more. I’m in one piece, just a bit knocked about. I’ll be able to get up. So I’ll get up.

Crouching forward awkwardly, making deliberate movements, she very slowly manoeuvred herself into a position which would protect her injured knee. Then she went onto all fours, groaning and hissing. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she stood up. Only to fall heavily onto the rock, as the dizziness which blurred her vision instantly took her legs from under her. Sensing a sudden wave of nausea, she lay down on one side. The searing rock stung like red-hot coals.

‘I’ll never get up . . .’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t . . . I’ll burn up in this sun . . .’

A growing, loathsome, intractable pain throbbed in her head. Each movement made the pain more intense, so Ciri stopped moving for a moment. She covered her head with an arm, but the heat soon became unbearable. She knew she would have to hide from it. Fighting the overpowering resistance of her aching body. Screwing her eyes up against the shooting pain in her temples, she crawled on all fours towards a large boulder, sculpted by the wind to resemble a strange mushroom, whose shapeless cap gave a little shade at its foot. She curled up in a ball, coughing and sniffing.

She lay there for a long time, until the sun assaulted her once again with its scorching heat as it wandered across the sky. She moved around to the other side of the boulder, only to find it made no difference. The sun was at its zenith and the stone mushroom gave practically no shade. She pressed her hands to her temples, which were exploding with pain.

She was woken by a shivering which gripped her entire body. The sun’s fiery ball had lost its blinding golden glow. Now, hanging lower in the sky above the serrated, jagged rocks, it was orange. The heat had eased off.

Ciri sat up with difficulty and looked around. Her headache was less intense and was no longer blinding her. She touched her head and discovered that the heat had dried the blood on her temple, turning it into a hard, smooth crust. Her entire body still hurt, though, and it seemed to her there was not a single place free of pain. She hawked, sand grating between her teeth, and tried to spit. Unsuccessfully. She leaned back against the mushroom-shaped boulder, which was still hot from the sun. At last the heat has broken, she thought. Now, with the sun sinking in the west, it’s bearable, and soon . . .

Soon, night will fall.

She shuddered. Where the hell am I? How do I get out of here? And which way? Which way should I go? Or perhaps I should stay in one place and wait until they find me. They must be looking for me. Geralt. Yennefer. They won’t just leave me here . . .

She tried to spit again, and again she could not. And then she understood.

Thirst.

She remembered. Back then, during her escape, she had been tortured by thirst. There had been a wooden canteen tied to the saddle of the black horse she had been riding when she was escaping towards the Tower of Gulls; she remembered it distinctly. But she had been unable to unfasten it or take it with her; she’d had no time. And now it was gone. Now everything was gone. There was nothing save sharp, scalding stones, save a scab on her temple that pulled her skin tight, save the pain in her body and her parched throat, which she couldn’t even give relief to by swallowing.

I can’t stay here. I have to go and find water. If I don’t find water I’ll die.

She tried to stand, cutting her fingers on the stone mushroom. She got up. She took a step. And with a howl she toppled over onto her hands and knees, her back arching as spasms of nausea gripped her. Cramps and dizziness seized her so intensively she had to lie down.

I’m helpless. And alone. Again. Everyone has betrayed me, abandoned me, left me all alone. Just like before . . .

Ciri felt invisible pincers squeezing her throat, felt the muscles in her jaw tensing to the point of pain, felt her cracked lips begin to quiver. There is no more dreadful sight than a weeping enchantress, rang Yennefer’s words in her head.

But wait . . . No one will see me here . . . No one at all . . .

Curled up in a ball beneath the stone mushroom, Ciri sobbed uncontrollably in a dry, dreadful lament. Without tears.

When she opened her swollen, gummed-up eyelids, she realised the heat had diminished even more, and the sky – which a short time before had still been yellow – had taken on its characteristic cobalt colour and was astonishingly clear, shot with thin, white strips of cloud. The sun’s disc had reddened and sunk lower but was still pouring its undulating, pulsating heat down on the desert. Or perhaps the heat was radiating upwards from the hot stones?

She sat up to find that the pain inside her skull and bruised body had stopped tormenting her. That right now it was nothing in comparison to the terrible suffering growing in her stomach and the cruel itch in her dry throat, which forced her to cough.

Don’t give up, she thought. I can’t give up. Just like in Kaer Morhen, I have to get up, defeat the enemy, fight, suppress the pain and weakness inside me. I have to get up and walk. At least I know the direction now. The sun is setting in the west. I have to walk, I have to find water and something to eat. I have to. Or I’ll die. This is a desert. I landed in a desert. The thing I entered in the Tower of Gulls was a magical portal, a magical device, which can transport people great distances . . .

The portal in Tor Lara was a strange one. When she ran up to the top floor there was nothing, not even any windows, only bare, mould-covered walls. And on one of the walls burnt an irregular oval filled with an iridescent gleam. She hesitated, but the portal drew her on, summoned her; literally invited her. And there was no other way out; only that shining oval. She’d closed her eyes and stepped inside.

Afterwards, there was a blinding light and a furious vortex, a blast which took her breath away and squeezed her ribs. She remembered the flight through silence, cold and emptiness, then a bright light and she was choking on air. Above her had been blue and down below a vague greyness . . .

The vortex spat her out in mid-flight, as a young eagle drops a fish which is too heavy for it. When she smashed against the rock, she lost consciousness. She didn’t know for how long.

I read about portals in the temple, she recalled, shaking the sand from her hair. Some books mentioned teleportation portals, which were either distorted or chaotic. They transported people towards random destinations and threw them out in random places. The portal in the Tower of Gulls must have been one of those. It threw me out somewhere at the end of the world. I have no idea where. No one is going to look for me here and no one will find me. If I stay here I’ll die.

She stood up. Summoning up all her strength and bracing herself against the boulder, she took the first step. Then a second. Then a third.

The first steps made her aware that the buckles of her right shoe had been torn off, and the flapping upper made walking impossible. She sat down, this time intentionally and deliberately, and carried out an inspection of her clothes and equipment. While she concentrated on this task, she forgot about her exhaustion and pain.

The first thing she discovered was the dagger. She had forgotten about it, and the sheath had slid around to her back. Next to the dagger, as usual, was a small pouch on a strap. It had been a present from Yennefer. It contained ‘things a lady always ought to have’. Ciri untied it. Unfortunately, a lady’s standard equipment had not foreseen the situation she was now in. The pouch contained a tortoiseshell comb, a knife and a combination knife and nail file, a packed, sterilised tampon made from linen fabric and a small jade casket containing hand ointment.

Ciri rubbed the ointment into her cracked face and lips at once, then greedily licked the ointment from her lips. Without much thought, she went on to lick out the entire box, revelling in its greasiness and the tiny amount of soothing moisture. The chamomile, ambergris and camphor used to perfume the ointment made it taste disgusting, but they acted as stimulants.

She strapped the shoe to her ankle with a strip she had ripped from her sleeve, stood up and stamped several times to test it. She unpacked and unfurled the tampon, making a wide headband from it to protect her injured temple and sunburnt forehead.

She stood, adjusted her belt, shifted the dagger nearer to her left hip and instinctively drew it from its sheath, checking the blade with her thumb. It was sharp. She knew it would be.

I’m armed, she thought. I’m a witcher. No, I won’t die here. Hunger? I can endure it. In the Temple of Melitele, it was occasionally necessary to fast for up to two days. But water . . . I have to find water. I’ll keep walking until I find some. This accursed desert must finish eventually. If it were a very large desert, I would know something about it. I would have noticed it on the maps I used to look at with Jarre. Jarre . . . I wonder what he’s doing now . . .

I’ll set off, she decided. I’ll walk towards the west. I can see where the sun sets. It’s the only certain direction. After all, I never lose my way. I always know which way to go. I’ll walk all night if I have to. I’m a witcher. When I get my strength back, I’ll run like I used to on the Trail at Kaer Morhen. That way I’ll get to the edge of the desert quicker. I’ll hold out. I have to hold out . . . Ha, I bet Geralt’s often been in deserts like this one, if not in even worse ones . . .

Off I go.

After the first hour of walking, nothing in the landscape had changed. There was still nothing at all around her apart from stones; greyish-red, sharp, shifting underfoot, forcing her to be cautious. There were scrawny bushes, dry and thorny, reaching out to her from clefts in the rocks with their contorted branches. Ciri stopped at the first bush she encountered, expecting to find leaves or young shoots which she would be able to suck and chew. But the bush only had sharp thorns which cut her fingers. It didn’t even have any branches suitable to break off and use as a stick. The second and third bushes were no different and she ignored all the rest, passing by them without stopping.

Dusk fell quickly. The sun sank over the jagged horizon, and the sky lit up red and purple. As darkness fell, it became cold. At first, she greeted it with gladness, for the coolness soothed her sunburnt skin. Soon after, however, it became even colder and Ciri’s teeth began to chatter. She walked quicker, hoping that a vigorous pace would warm her up, but the effort revived the pain in her side and knee. She began to limp. On top of that, the sun had completely sunk below the horizon and it was rapidly becoming dark. The moon was new, and the stars twinkling in the sky were no help. Ciri was soon unable to see the ground in front of her. She fell down several times, painfully grazing the skin on her wrists. Twice she caught her feet in clefts in the rocks, and only her well-drilled reactions as she was falling saved her from twisting or breaking an ankle. She realised it was no good. Walking in the dark was impossible.

She sat down on a flat basalt slab, feeling overwhelming despair She had no idea if she was heading in the right direction and had long since lost sight of the point where the sun had disappeared over the horizon. There was now no sign whatsoever of the glow which had guided her during the first hours after nightfall. Around her was nothing but velvety, impenetrable blackness. And bitter cold. Cold which paralysed, which bit at the joints, forcing her to stoop and tuck her head down into her painfully hunched shoulders. Ciri began to miss the sun, even though she knew its return would mean another onslaught of unbearable heat descending upon the rocks. Heat which would prevent her from continuing her journey. Once again, she felt the urge to cry rising in her throat and a wave of desperation and hopelessness overcoming her. But this time the desperation and hopelessness transformed into fury.

‘I will not cry!’ she screamed in the darkness. ‘I am a witcher! I am . . .’

An enchantress.

Ciri lifted her hands and pressed her palms against her temples. The Power is everywhere. It’s in the water, in the air, in the earth . . .

She quickly stood up, held her hands in front of her, and then slowly and hesitantly took a few steps, feverishly searching for an underground spring. She was fortunate. Almost immediately, she felt a familiar rushing sound, a throbbing in her ears and the energy emanating from a water vein hidden deep within the earth. She imbibed the Power with cautious inhalations, which she gradually released, knowing she was weak and that, in her state, a sudden shortage of oxygen to the brain might render her unconscious and thwart all her efforts. The energy slowly filled her up, giving her a familiar, momentary euphoria. Her lungs began to work more strongly and more quickly. Ciri brought her accelerated breathing under control; too much oxygen to the brain too rapidly could also have fatal consequences.

She’d done it.

First the aching, she thought. First the paralysing pain in my shoulders and thighs. Then the cold. I have to raise my body temperature . . .

She gradually recalled the gestures and spells. She performed and uttered some of them too hurriedly and was instantly seized by cramps and convulsions. A sudden spasm and dizziness made her weak at the knees. She sat down on a basalt slab, stilled her shaking hands and brought her fractured, irregular breathing back under control.

She repeated the formulas, forcing herself to be calm and exact, to concentrate and totally focus her will. And this time the result was immediate. She rubbed the warmth sweeping through her into her thighs and neck. She stood up, feeling the exhaustion vanish and her aching muscles relax.

‘I’m an enchantress!’ she cried in triumph, holding her arms up high. ‘Come, immortal light! I summon you! Aen’drean va, eveigh Aine!’

A small, warm sphere of light floated from her hands like a butterfly, casting shifting mosaics of shadow on the stones. Moving her hand slowly, she stabilised the sphere, guiding it so that it was hanging in front of her. It was not the best idea; the light blinded her. She tried to move the sphere behind her back but again with a disappointing result. It cast her own shadow in front of her, making visibility worse. Ciri slowly moved the shining sphere to the side and suspended it just above her right shoulder. Although the sphere was nowhere as good as the real, magical Aine, the girl was extremely proud of her achievement.

‘Ha!’ she said proudly. ‘It’s a pity Yennefer can’t see this!’

She began to march jauntily and vigorously, striding quickly and confidently, choosing where to step in the flickering and indistinct chiaroscuro cast by the sphere. As she walked, she tried to recall other spells, but none of them seemed suitable or useful in this situation. Furthermore, some of them were very draining, and she was a little afraid of them, not wanting to use them without an obvious need. Unfortunately, she did not know any which would have been able to create water or food. She knew spells like that existed, but didn’t know how to cast any of them.

The hitherto lifeless desert came to life in the light of her magical sphere. Ungainly, glossy beetles and hairy spiders scuttled away to avoid being stepped on. A small reddish-yellow scorpion, pulling its segmented tail behind it, scurried swiftly across her path, disappearing into a crack in the rocks. A long-tailed, green lizard, rustling over the stones, vanished into the gloom. Rodents resembling large mice ran nimbly away from her, leaping high on their hind legs. Several times she saw eyes reflected in the dark, and once she heard a bloodcurdling hiss issuing from a pile of rocks. If she’d had thoughts of catching something edible, the hissing completely discouraged her from groping around among the rocks. She began to watch her step more cautiously, and in her mind’s eye she saw the illustrations she had studied in Kaer Morhen. Giant scorpions. Scarletias. Frighteners. Wights. Lamias. Crab spiders. Desertd-welling monsters. She walked on, looking around more timidly and listening out intently, gripping the hilt of her dagger in her sweaty palm.

After several hours, the shining sphere grew faint and the circle of light it was casting shrank and became vague. Ciri, beginning to find it hard to concentrate, uttered the spell again. For a few seconds, the ball pulsated more brightly but soon after darkened and faded once more. The effort made her dizzy. Then she staggered and black and red spots danced in front of her eyes. She sat down hard, crunching the grit and loose stones beneath her.

The sphere finally went out completely. Ciri did not try any more spells; the exhaustion, emptiness and lack of energy she felt inside precluded any chance of success.

A vague glow arose on the horizon, far ahead of her. I’ve gone the wrong way, she realised in horror. I’ve muddled everything . . . I was heading towards the west at first, and now the sun’s going to rise directly in front of me, which means . . .

She felt overwhelming fatigue and sleepiness, which not even the bitter cold could frighten away. I won’t fall asleep, she decided. I can’t fall asleep . . . I just cannot . . .

She was woken by fierce cold and growing brightness, and brought back to her senses by the gut-wrenching pain in her belly and the dry, nagging, burning sensation in her throat. She tried to stand up. She couldn’t. Her stiff, painful limbs failed her. Groping around her with her hands, she felt moisture under her fingers.

‘Water . . .’ she croaked. ‘Water!’

Shaking all over, she got up onto her hands and knees and then lowered her mouth to the basalt slabs, frantically using her tongue to collect the drops which had gathered on the smooth rock and sucking up the moisture from hollows in the boulder’s uneven surface. There was almost half a handful of dew in one of them, which she lapped up with sand and grit, not daring to spit. She looked around.

Carefully, so as not to waste even the tiniest quantity, she used her tongue to gather the glistening drops hanging on the thorns of a stunted shrub, which had mysteriously managed to grow between the rocks. Her dagger was lying on the ground. She could not remember drawing it. The blade was lustreless from a thin layer of dew. She scrupulously and precisely licked the cold metal.

Overcoming the pain which made her whole body stiffen, she crawled on, searching out the moisture on other rocks. But the golden disc of the sun had already burst above the rocky horizon, flooding the desert with blinding, yellow light and instantly drying them. Ciri joyfully greeted the burgeoning warmth, although she was aware that soon she would be mercilessly scorched and longing for the cool of the night again.

She turned away from the glaring orb. The sun was shining in the east. But she had to head towards the west. She had to.

The rapidly intensifying heat soon became unbearable. By noon, it had exhausted her so much that, whether she liked it or not, she had to change her route in order to look for shade. She finally found some protection: a large boulder, shaped like a mushroom. She crawled under it.

And then she saw something lying among the rocks. It was the jade casket which had contained hand ointment but was now licked clean.

She couldn’t find the strength inside to cry.

*

Hunger and thirst overcame her exhaustion and resignation. Staggering, she set off once more. The sun still beat down.

Far away on the horizon, beyond the shimmering veil of heat, she saw something which might have been a mountain range. An extremely distant mountain range.

After night fell, she expended immense effort on generating the Power, but only managed to conjure up the magical sphere after several attempts, and those tired her out to such a degree she was unable to go on. She had consumed all her energy and failed to cast the warming and relaxing spells in spite of repeated attempts. Conjuring up the light gave her courage and raised her spirit, but the cold weakened her. The piercing, bitter cold kept her shivering until dawn, as she waited impatiently for the sunrise. She removed her dagger from its sheath and placed it carefully on a rock so that the dew would condense on the metal. She was absolutely exhausted, but the hunger and thirst drove sleep away. She held out until dawn. It was still dark when she began greedily to lick the dew from the blade. When it grew light, she immediately got on all fours in order to search for more moisture in hollows and crevices.

She heard a hiss.

A large colourful lizard sitting on a nearby rocky ledge opened its toothless jaws at her, ruffled its impressive crest, puffed itself up and lashed the rock with its tail. In front of the lizard she saw a tiny, water-filled crevice.

At first Ciri retreated in horror, but she was quickly seized by desperation and savage fury. Groping around with her trembling hands, she grabbed an angular piece of rock.

‘It’s my water!’ she howled. ‘It’s mine!’

She hurled the rock. And missed. The lizard jumped on its long-clawed feet and disappeared nimbly into a rocky labyrinth. Ciri flattened herself against the abandoned rock and sucked the rest of the water from the cleft. And then she saw it.

Beyond the rock, in a circular depression, lay seven eggs, all partly protruding from the reddish sand. The girl wasted no time. She fell onto the nest on her knees, seized one of the eggs and sank her teeth into it. The leathery shell burst and collapsed in her hand, the sticky gunk running into her sleeve. Ciri sucked the egg empty and licked her arm. She had difficulty swallowing and couldn’t taste anything at all.

She ate every egg and remained on her hands and knees, sticky, dirty, covered in sand, with yolk stuck in her teeth, feverishly digging around in the sand and emitting inhuman, sobbing noises. She froze.

Sit up straight, princess! Don’t rest your elbows on the table! Be careful how you serve yourself from the dish! You’re dirtying the lace on your sleeves! Wipe your mouth with a napkin and stop slurping! By the gods, has no one ever taught that girl any table manners? Cirilla!

Ciri burst into tears, her head resting on her knees.

She endured the march until noon, when the heat defeated her and forced her to rest. She dozed for a long time, hidden in the shade beneath a rocky shelf. It wasn’t cool in the shade, but it was better than the scorching sun. Eventually her thirst and hunger frightened sleep away again.

The distant range of mountains seemed to be on fire and sparkling in the sun’s rays. There might be snow lying on those mountain peaks, she thought. There might be ice. There might be streams. I have to get there. I have to get there fast.

She walked for almost the entire night. She decided to navigate using the night sky. The whole sky was bedecked in stars and Ciri regretted not paying attention during lessons; not wanting to study the atlases of the constellations in the temple library. Naturally enough, she knew the most important of them: the Seven Goats, the Jug, the Sickle, the Dragon and the Winter Maiden, but those were hanging high in the sky, and would have been difficult to navigate by. She finally managed to select one bright star from the twinkling throng, which she thought was indicating the right direction. She didn’t know what it was called, so she christened it herself. She named it the Eye.

*

She walked. The mountain range she was heading towards did not get the slightest bit closer; it was still as far away as it had been the previous day. But it pointed the way.

As she walked, she looked around intently. She found another lizard’s nest, containing four eggs. She spotted a green plant, no longer than her little finger, which had miraculously managed to grow between the rocks. She tracked down a large brown beetle. And a thin-legged spider.

She ate everything.

At noon, she vomited up everything she had eaten and then fainted. When she came to, she found a patch of shade and lay, curled up in a ball, her hands clutching her painful belly.

She began to march again at sunset. She moved painfully stiffly. She fell down again and again but got up each time and continued walking.

She kept walking. She had to keep walking.

Evening. Rest. Night. The Eye showed her the way. Marching until she reached the point of utter exhaustion, which came well before sunrise. Rest. Fitful sleep. Hunger. Cold. The absence of magical energy; a disaster when she tried to conjure up light and warmth. Her thirst only intensified by licking the dew from the dagger’s blade and the rocks in the early hours.

When the sun rose she fell asleep in the growing warmth. She was woken by the searing heat. She stood up and continued on her way.

She fainted after less than an hour’s march. When she came to the sun was at its zenith, and the heat was unbearable. She didn’t have the strength to look for shade. She didn’t have the strength to get to her feet. But she did.

She walked on. She didn’t give in. She walked for almost the entire following day, and part of the night.

Once again, she slept through the worst of the heat, curled up in a ball beneath a sloping boulder which was partly buried in the sand. Her sleep had been fitful and exhausting; she had dreamed of water. Water which could be drunk. Huge, white waterfalls framed in haze and rainbows. Gurgling streams. Small forest springs shaded by ferns with their roots in the water. Palace fountains smelling of wet marble. Mossy wells and full buckets spilling over . . . drops of water falling from melting icicles . . . Water. Cold, refreshing water, cold enough to make your teeth sting, but with such a wonderful, incomparable taste . . .

She awoke, leapt to her feet and began to walk back the way she had come. She turned around, staggering and falling. She had to go back! She had passed water on the way! She had passed a stream, gushing amongst the rocks! How could she be so foolish!

She came to her senses.

The heat subsided; evening was approaching. The setting sun indicated the way west. The mountains. The sun could not be – could not possibly be – at her back. Ciri chased away the visions and choked back her sobs. She turned around and began to march.

She walked the entire night, but very slowly. She did not get far. She was dropping off to sleep as she walked, dreaming of water. The rising sun found her sitting on a rock, staring at the dagger’s blade and her naked forearm.

Blood is a liquid, after all. It can be drunk.

She drove away the hallucinations and nightmares. She licked the dew-covered dagger and began to walk.

She fainted. She came around, seared by the sun and the baking stones.

Before her, beyond a shimmering heat haze, she saw the jagged, serrated mountain range.

Closer. Significantly closer.

But she had no more strength. She sat up.

The dagger in her hand reflected the sunlight and burnt hot. It was sharp. She knew that.

Why do you torture yourself? said the calm, pedantic voice of the enchantress, Tissaia de Vries. Why do you condemn yourself to suffering? It’s time you put an end to it!

No. I won’t give in.

You will not endure this. Do you know how you die from thirst? Any moment now you will lose your mind, and then it will be too late. Then you won’t be able to end it all.

No. I won’t give in. I will endure it.

She sheathed the dagger. She stood up, staggered and fell down. She stood up again, staggered and began to march.

Above her, high in the yellow sky, she saw a vulture.

When she came to again, she couldn’t remember having fallen. She couldn’t remember how long she had been lying there. She looked up at the sky. Two more vultures had joined the first one wheeling above her. She didn’t have enough strength to get up.

She realised this was the end. She accepted it calmly. Almost with relief.

Something touched her.

It nudged her gently and cautiously on the shoulder. After such a long period of solitude, after so long surrounded by lifeless, motionless rocks, the touch made her jerk up, in spite of her exhaustion. It made her attempt to jump to her feet. Whatever had touched her snorted and sprang back, stamping its feet noisily.

Ciri sat up with difficulty, rubbing the encrusted corners of her eyes with her knuckles.

I’ve gone mad, she thought.

Several paces in front of her stood a horse. She blinked. It wasn’t an illusion. It really was a horse. A young horse, not much more than a foal.

She was now fully awake. She licked her cracked lips and cleared her throat involuntarily. The horse jumped and ran some distance away, its hooves grating over the loose stones. It moved very strangely, and its coat was also unusual – neither dun nor grey. Perhaps the effect was just an illusion, created by the sunlight shining behind it.

The horse snorted and took a few steps towards her. Now she could see it better. Well enough to notice, in addition to its uncharacteristic coat colour, the strange peculiarities in its build: the small head, the extremely slender neck, the very thin pasterns and the long, thick tail. The horse stood and looked at her, holding its muzzle in profile. Ciri let out a quiet sigh.

A horn, at least two spans long, protruded from the horse’s domed forehead.

An impossible impossibility, thought Ciri, coming to her senses and gathering her thoughts. There are no unicorns in the world; they’ve died out. There wasn’t even a unicorn in the witcher’s tome in Kaer Morhen! I’ve only read about them in The Book of Myths in the temple . . . Oh, and there was an illustration of a unicorn in that Physiologus I looked through in Mr Giancardi’s bank . . . But the unicorn in that illustration was more like a goat than a horse. It had shaggy fetlocks and a goat’s beard, and its horn must have been two ells long . . .

She was astonished that she could remember everything so well; incidents that seemed to have happened hundreds of years before. Suddenly her head spun and pain twisted her insides. She groaned and curled up in a ball. The unicorn snorted and took a step towards her, then stopped and raised its head high. Ciri suddenly recalled what the books had said about unicorns.

‘Please come closer . . .’ she croaked, trying to sit up. ‘You may, because I am . . .’

The unicorn snorted, leapt backwards and galloped away, waving its tail vigorously. But after a moment it stopped, tossed its head, pawed the ground with a hoof and whinnied loudly.

‘That’s not true!’ she whined in despair. ‘Jarre only kissed me once and that doesn’t count! Come back!’

The effort of speaking blurred her vision and she slumped down onto the rock. When she finally managed to raise her head, the unicorn was once more close by. Looking at her inquisitively, it lowered its head and snorted softly.

‘Don’t be afraid of me . . .’ she whispered. ‘You don’t have to . . . You can see I’m dying . . .’

The unicorn neighed, shaking its head. Ciri fainted.

When she awoke again she was alone. Aching, stiff, thirsty, hungry, and all alone. The unicorn had been a mirage, an illusion, a dream. And had vanished like a dream. She understood that, accepted it, but still felt regret and despair as though the creature really had existed, had been with her and had abandoned her. Just like everyone had abandoned her.

She tried to stand but could not. She rested her face on the rocks. Very slowly, she reached to one side and felt the hilt of her dagger.

Blood is a liquid. I have to drink.

She heard the clatter of hooves and a snorting.

‘You’ve come back . . .’ she whispered, raising her head. ‘Have you really come back?’

The unicorn snorted loudly. She saw its hooves, close by. Right beside her. They were wet. They were literally dripping with water.

Hope gave her strength, filled her with euphoria. The unicorn led and Ciri followed him, still not certain if she was in a dream. When exhaustion overcame her she fell to all fours. And then crawled.

The unicorn led her among some rocks to a shallow ravine with a sandy bottom. Ciri used the last of her strength to crawl, but she kept going. Because the sand was wet.

The unicorn stopped above a hollow which was visible in the sand, whinnied and pawed powerfully with his hoof; once, twice, three times. She understood. She crawled closer, helping him. She burrowed, breaking her fingernails, digging, pushing the sand aside. She may have sobbed as she did so, but she wasn’t certain. When a muddy liquid appeared at the bottom of the hollow, she pressed her mouth to it at once, lapping up the water muddy with sand, so voraciously that the liquid disappeared. It took immense effort for Ciri to control herself. She used the dagger to dig deeper, then sat up and waited. She felt the sand crunching between her teeth and trembled with impatience, but waited until the hollow filled with water again. And then she drank. She drank long.

The third time, she let the water settle somewhat and then drank about four sand-free, sludgy mouthfuls. And then she remembered the unicorn.

‘You must be thirsty too, little horse,’ she said. ‘But you can’t drink mud. No horse ever drank mud.’

The unicorn neighed.

Ciri deepened the hollow, reinforcing the sides with stones.

‘Wait, little horse. Let it settle a little . . .’

‘Little Horse’ snorted, stamped his hooves and turned his head away.

‘Don’t be cross. Drink.’

The unicorn cautiously brought its muzzle towards the water.

‘Drink, Little Horse. It isn’t a dream. It’s real water.’

At first Ciri tarried, not wanting to move away from the spring. She had just invented a new way of drinking by pressing a handkerchief she had soaked in the deepened hollow to her mouth, which allowed her to filter out most of the sand and mud. But the unicorn kept insisting; neighing, stamping, running away and returning again. He was calling her to start walking and was indicating the way. After long consideration, Ciri did as he suggested. The animal was right. It was time to go, to go towards the mountains, to get out of the desert. She set off after the unicorn, looking around and making a precise mental note of the spring’s location. She didn’t want to lose her way, should she ever have to return there.

They travelled together throughout the day. The unicorn, who now answered to Little Horse, led the way. He was a strange little horse. He bit and chewed dry stalks which no normal horse or even a starving goat would have touched. And when he caught a column of large ants wandering among the rocks, he began to eat them too. At first Ciri looked on in astonishment, but then joined in the feast herself. She was hungry.

The ants were dreadfully sour, but possibly because of that they didn’t make her nauseous. Aside from that, the ants were in plentiful supply and she was able to get her stiff jaws moving again. The unicorn ate the ants whole while she contented herself with their abdomens, spitting out hard pieces of their chitinous carapaces.

They went on. The unicorn discovered several clumps of yellowed thistles and ate them with relish. This time Ciri did not join him. But when Little Horse found some lizard’s eggs in the sand, she ate and he watched her. They continued on their way. Ciri noticed a clump of thistles and pointed them out to Little Horse. After a while, Little Horse drew her attention to a huge, black scorpion with a long tail, which must have measured a span and a half. Ciri trampled the hideous creature. Seeing that she was not interested in eating the scorpion, the unicorn ate it himself, and soon after pointed out another lizard’s nest.

It was, it turned out, quite an effective collaboration.

They walked on.

The mountain range was getting closer and closer.

When it was very dark, the unicorn stopped. He slept standing up. Ciri, who was familiar with horses, initially tried to persuade him to lie down; she would have been able to sleep lying on him and benefit from his warmth. But it came to nothing. Little Horse grew cross and walked away, remaining aloof. He refused to behave in the classical way, as described in the learned books; he clearly did not have the slightest intention of resting his head in her lap. Ciri was full of doubts. She even wondered if the books were lying about unicorns and virgins, but there was also another possibility. The unicorn was clearly a foal and, as a young animal, may not have known anything about virgins. She rejected the possibility of Little Horse being able to sense, or take seriously, those few strange dreams she had once had. Who would ever take dreams seriously?

He was somewhat of a disappointment to her. They had been wandering for two days and nights, but he had not found any more water, even though he had been searching for it. Several times he stopped, twisted his head, moved his horn around, and then trotted off, rummaging in rocky clefts or rooting about in the sand with his hooves. He found ants and he found ants’ eggs and larvae. He found a lizard’s nest. He found a colourful snake, which he deftly trampled to death. But he did not find any water.

Ciri noticed that the unicorn roamed around; he didn’t keep to a straight course. She came to the reasonable conclusion that the creature did not live in the desert at all. He had strayed there. Just as she had.

*

The ants, which they were beginning to find in abundance, contained some sour juice, but Ciri began to think more and more seriously about returning to the spring. Should they go even further and not find any water, her strength might not hold out. The heat was still terrible and the march exhausting.

She was just about to explain as much to Little Horse when he suddenly gave a long-drawn-out neigh, waved his tail and galloped off between some jagged rocks. Ciri followed him, eating ants’ bodies as she walked.

The considerable expanse between the rocks was occupied by a wide sandy hollow. There was a distinct dip in the centre.

‘Ha!’ said Ciri, pleased. ‘You’re a clever pony, Little Horse. You’ve found another spring. There’s got to be water in there!’

The unicorn gave a long snort, circling the hollow at a gentle trot. Ciri came closer. The hollow was large; at least twenty feet wide. It described a precise, regular circle resembling a funnel, as regular as if someone had pressed a gigantic egg into the sand. Ciri suddenly realised that such a regular shape could not have come about by accident. But by then it was too late.

Something moved at the bottom of the crater and Ciri was hit in the face by a sudden shower of sand and small stones. She leapt back, lost her balance and realised she was sliding downwards. The fountains of stones that were shooting out weren’t only hitting her – they were also striking the edges of the pit, and the edges were crumbling in waves and sliding towards the bottom. She screamed and floundered like a drowning swimmer, vainly trying to find a foothold. She realised immediately that sudden movements only worsened her situation, making the sand subside more quickly. She turned over on her back, dug in with her heels, and spread her arms out wide. The sand at the bottom shifted and undulated, and she saw some brown, hooked pincers, at least a yard long, emerging from it. She screamed again, this time much louder.

The hail of stones suddenly stopped raining down on her, flying instead towards the opposite edge of the pit. The unicorn reared, neighing frenziedly, and the edge collapsed beneath him. He tried to struggle free from the shifting sand, but in vain; he was getting more and more bogged down and slipping more and more quickly towards the bottom. The dreadful pincers snapped violently. The unicorn neighed in despair, and thrashed around, helplessly striking the slipping sand with his forehooves. His back legs were completely stuck. When he had slid to the very bottom of the pit, he was caught by the horrible pincers of the creature which was concealed in the centre.

Hearing a frenzied wail of agony, Ciri screamed and charged downwards, wresting her dagger from its sheath. When she reached the bottom, she realised her mistake. The monster was hidden deep, and the dagger thrusts didn’t even touch it through the layers of sand. On top of that the unicorn, held fast in the monstrous pincers and being dragged into the sandy trap, was frantic with pain and squealing, blindly pounding away with its forehooves and risking fracturing its limbs.

Witcher dances and tricks were useless here. But there was one quite simple spell. Ciri summoned the Power and struck using telekinesis.

A cloud of sand flew up into the air, uncovering the hidden monster, which had latched itself onto the squealing unicorn’s thigh. Ciri yelled in horror. She had never seen anything so revolting in her entire life; not in illustrations, nor in any witcher books. She would have been incapable of imagining anything so hideous.

The monster was a dirty grey colour, plump and potbellied like a blood-gorged louse, and the narrow segments of its barrel-shaped torso were covered with sparse bristles. It appeared not to have any legs, but its pincers were almost the same length as its entire body.

Deprived of its sandy refuge the creature immediately released the unicorn and began to bury itself with a rapid, urgent wriggling of its bloated body. It performed this manoeuvre extremely ably, and the unicorn, struggling to escape from the trap, helped it by pushing mounds of sand downwards. Ciri was seized by fury and the lust for revenge. She threw herself at the monstrosity, now barely visible beneath the sand, and thrust her dagger into its domed back.

She attacked it from behind, prudently keeping away from the snapping pincers, which, it transpired, the monster was able to extend quite far backwards. She stabbed again, and the creature continued to bury itself at astonishing speed. But it was not burying itself in the sand to escape. It was doing so to attack. It only had to wriggle twice more in order to cover itself completely. Once hidden, it violently propelled out waves of stones, burying Ciri up to mid-thigh. She struggled to free herself and lunged backwards, but there was nowhere to escape; she was still in a crater of loose sand, where each movement pulled her downwards. The sand at the bottom bulged in a wave, which glided towards her, and from the wave emerged the clashing, cruelly hooked pincers.

She was rescued by Little Horse. Slipping down to the bottom of the crater, he used his hooves to strike the bulge of sand which betrayed the presence of the monster hidden just beneath the surface. The savage kicks uncovered the grey back and the unicorn lowered its head and stabbed the monster with its horn, striking at the precise point where the head, with its flailing pincers, was attached to the potbellied thorax. Seeing that the pincers of the monster, now pinned against the ground, were helplessly raking the sand, Ciri leapt forward and thrust the dagger deep into its wriggling body. She jerked the blade out and struck again. And again. The unicorn shook its horn free and drove its forehooves down powerfully onto the barrel-shaped body.

The trampled monster was no longer trying to bury itself. It had stopped moving entirely. A greenish liquid darkened the sand around it.

They climbed out of the crater with great difficulty. Ciri ran a few paces away and collapsed on the sand, breathing heavily and shaking under the waves of adrenaline which were assaulting her larynx and temples. The unicorn walked in circles around her. He was moving awkwardly. Blood dripped from the wound on his thigh, and ran down his leg onto his fetlock, leaving a red trail as he walked. Ciri got up onto her hands and knees and was violently sick. After a moment she stood up, swayed, and then staggered over to the unicorn, but Little Horse wouldn’t let her touch him. He ran away, lay down and rolled on the ground. Then he cleaned his horn, stabbing it into the sand several times.

Ciri also cleaned and wiped the blade of her dagger, still glancing anxiously at the nearby crater. The unicorn stood up, whinnied and then walked over to her.

‘I’d like to look at your wound, Little Horse.’

Little Horse neighed and shook his horned head.

‘It’s up to you. If you can walk, we’ll set off. We’d better not stay here.’

Soon after, another vast sandbar appeared in their way, dotted all over with pits, which were hollowed out in the sand almost to the edge of the surrounding rocks. Ciri looked at them in horror; some of the craters were at least twice as big as the one in which they had fought for their lives.

They weren’t brave enough to cross the sandbar by weaving their way between the craters. Ciri was convinced they were traps for careless creatures, and the monsters with the pincers lurking in them were only dangerous to the victims that fell in. By being cautious and staying away from the hollows, one could conceivably cut across the sandy ground without fear that one of the monsters would emerge and pursue them. She was sure there was no risk, but she preferred not to find out. The unicorn was clearly of the same opinion; he snorted and ran off, drawing her away from the sandbar. They made their journey longer by giving the dangerous terrain a wide berth, sticking close to the rocks and the hard, stony ground, through which none of the beasts would have been capable of digging.

As she walked, Ciri never took her eyes off the pits. Several times, she saw fountains of sand shooting up from the deadly traps; the monsters were deepening and repairing their lairs. Some of the craters were so close to each other that the stones flung out by one monster ended up in other craters, disturbing the creatures hidden at the bottom, and then a terrible cannonade would begin, with sand whizzing and blasting around like hail.

Ciri wondered what the sand monsters ate in this arid, desolate wilderness. She didn’t have to wait long to find out; a dark object flew out of one of the nearby pits in a wide arc, falling close to them with a thump. After a moment’s hesitation, she ran down onto the sand from the rocks. The object that had flown out of the crater was a rodent, resembling a rabbit. At least it looked like rabbit fur. For the body was shrunken; as hard and dry as a bone and as light and hollow as a pea pod. There wasn’t a drop of blood in it. Ciri shuddered; now she knew what the monsters preyed on.

The unicorn neighed a warning. Ciri looked up. There was no crater in the near vicinity, and the sand was flat and smooth. And then, before her eyes, the smooth, flat sand suddenly bulged and the bulge began to glide quickly towards her. She threw the shrivelled carcass down and hurried back to the rocks.

The decision to steer clear of the sandbar turned out to have been very sensible.

They went on, skirting around even the smallest patches of sand, treading only on rocky ground.

The unicorn walked slowly, limping. The cuts on his thigh continued to bleed. But he still refused to allow her to approach him and examine the wound.

The sandbar narrowed considerably and began to meander. The fine, loose sand was replaced by coarse grit and then larger stones. They had not seen any pits for a long time now, so they decided to follow the path marked out by the remains of the sandbar. Ciri, although once again wearied by thirst and hunger, began to walk faster. There was hope. The rocky shoal was not what it seemed. It was actually the bed of a river with its source in the mountains. There was no water in the river, but it led to some springs which, although they were too small and produced too little water to fill the watercourse, were large enough to drink from.

She walked more quickly but then had to slow down because the unicorn could not keep pace with her. He was walking with visible difficulty, limping, dragging his leg, and planting his hoof awkwardly. When evening came, he lay down. He didn’t get up when she approached him. This time he let her examine the wound.

There were two cuts, one on each side of his extremely swollen, angrily red thigh. Both cuts were inflamed, both were still bleeding and a sticky, foul-smelling pus was dripping along with the blood.

The monster had been venomous.

The next day it was even worse. The unicorn could barely walk. In the evening, he lay down on the rocks and refused to get up. When she knelt down beside him, he swung his head and horn towards the wounded thigh and neighed. There was suffering in the neighing.

The pus oozed more and more intensively and the smell was repulsive. Ciri took out her dagger. The unicorn whinnied shrilly, tried to stand and then collapsed rump first on the stone.

‘I don’t know what to do . . .’ she sobbed, looking at the blade. ‘I really don’t know . . . I’m sure I should cut open the wound and squeeze out the pus and the venom . . . But I don’t know how. I might harm you even more.’

The unicorn tried to lift its head. It neighed. Ciri sat down on the rocks, clutching her head in her hands.

‘They didn’t teach me how to tend wounds,’ she said bitterly. ‘They taught me how to kill, telling me that’s how I could save people. It was one big lie, Little Horse. They deceived me.’

Night was falling and it was quickly becoming dark. The unicorn was lying down, and Ciri was thinking frantically. She had collected some thistles and dry stalks, which grew in abundance on the banks of the dried-up riverbed, but Little Horse didn’t want to eat them. He laid his head lifelessly on the rocks, no longer trying to lift it. All he could do was blink. Froth appeared on his muzzle.

‘I can’t help you, Little Horse,’ she said in a stifled voice. ‘I don’t have anything . . .’

Except magic.

I’m an enchantress.

She stood up and held out a hand. Nothing happened. She needed a great deal of magical energy, but there wasn’t a trace of any here. She hadn’t expected that. It astonished her.

But wait, there are water veins everywhere!

She took a few paces, first in one direction and then in the other. She began to walk around in a circle. She stepped backwards.

Nothing.

‘You damned desert!’ she shouted, shaking her fists. ‘There’s nothing in you! No water and no magic! And magic was supposed to be everywhere! That was a lie too! Everybody deceived me, everybody!’

The unicorn neighed.

Magic is everywhere. It’s in water, in the earth, in the air . . .

And in fire.

Ciri slammed her fist angrily against her forehead. It hadn’t occurred to her earlier perhaps because, among the bare rocks, there hadn’t even been anything to burn. But now she had a supply of dry thistles and stalks, and in order to create a tiny spark she ought only to need the tiny amount of energy she could still feel inside . . .

She gathered more sticks, arranged them in a heap and piled dry thistles around them. She cautiously put her hand in.

‘Aenye!’

The pile of sticks glowed brightly, a flame flickered, then flared up, set the leaves on fire, consumed them and shot upwards. Ciri threw on more dry stalks.

What now? she thought, looking at the flame coming back to life. Now to gather the energy. But how? Yennefer has forbidden me from touching fire energy . . . But I don’t have a choice! Or any time! I have to act now; the sticks and leaves are burning fast . . . the fire will go out . . . Fire . . . how beautiful it is, how warm . . .

She didn’t know when or how it happened. As she stared at the flames she suddenly felt a pounding in her temples. She clutched her breast, feeling as though her ribcage would burst. A pain throbbed in her belly, her crotch and her nipples, which instantly transformed into horrifying pleasure. She stood up. No, she didn’t stand up. She floated up.

The Power filled her like molten lead. The stars in the sky danced like stars reflected on the surface of a pond. The Eye, burning in the west, exploded with light. She took that light and with it the Force.

‘Hael, Aenye!’

The unicorn neighed in a frenzy and tried to spring up, pushing with its forehooves. Ciri’s arm rose automatically, her hand formed a gesture involuntarily, and her mouth shouted out the spell of its own accord. Bright, undulating light streamed from her fingers. The fire roared with great flames.

The waves of light streaming from her hand touched the unicorn’s injured thigh, converging and penetrating.

‘I wish you to be healed! That is my wish! Vess’hael, Aenye!’

The Power exploded inside her and she was filled with a wild euphoria. The fire shot upwards, and everything became bright around her. The unicorn raised his head, neighed and then suddenly leapt up from the ground, taking a few awkward paces. He bent his neck, swung his head towards his thigh, quivered his nostrils and snorted as if in disbelief. He neighed loud and long, kicked his hooves, swished his tail and galloped around the fire.

‘I’ve healed you!’ cried Ciri proudly. ‘I’ve healed you! I’m a sorceress! I managed to draw the power from the fire! And I have that power! I can do anything I want!’

She turned away. The blazing fire roared, shooting sparks.

‘We don’t have to look for any more springs! We don’t have to drink scooped-up mud any longer! I have the power now! I feel the power that’s in this fire! I’ll make rain fall on this accursed desert! I’ll make it gush from the rocks! I’ll make flowers grow here! Grass! Cabbages! I can do anything now! Anything!’

She lifted both arms, screaming out spells and chanting invocations. She didn’t understand them, didn’t remember when she had learnt them – or even if she’d ever learnt them. That was unimportant. She felt power, felt strength, was burning with fire. She was the fire. She trembled with the power that had pervaded her.

The night sky was suddenly riven by a slash of lightning. A wind whipped up among the rocks and thistles. The unicorn gave a long neigh and reared up. The fire roared upwards, exploding. The sticks and stems had charred long before; now the rock itself was afire. But Ciri paid no attention to it. She felt power. She saw only the fire. She heard only the fire.

You can do anything, whispered the flames. You are in possession of our power. You can do anything. The world is at your feet. You are great. You are mighty.

There was a figure among the flames. A tall, young woman with long, straight, coal-black hair. The woman smiled, wildly, cruelly, and the fire writhed and danced around her.

You are mighty! Those that harmed you did not know who they had challenged! Avenge yourself! Make them pay! Make them all pay! Let them tremble with fear at your feet, teeth chattering, not daring to look you in the face! Let them beg for mercy but do not grant it to them! Make them pay! Make them pay for everything! Revenge!

Behind the black-haired woman there was fire and smoke and, in the smoke, rows of gallows, rows of sharpened stakes, scaffolds, mountains of corpses. They were the corpses of Nilfgaardians, of those who had captured and plundered Cintra and killed King Eist and her grandmother Calanthe, of those who had murdered people in the streets of the city. A knight in black armour swung on a gibbet. The noose creaked and crows fought each other to peck at his eyes through his winged helmet’s visor. Other gibbets stretched away towards the horizon, and on them hung Scoia’tael, those who killed Paulie Dahlberg in Kaedwen, and those who’d pursued Ciri on the Isle of Thanedd. The sorcerer Vilgefortz danced on a towering stake, his beautiful, fraudulently noble face contorted and blue-black with suffering. The sharpened, bloodstained point of the stake protruded from his collarbone . . . Other sorcerers from Thanedd were kneeling on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs and sharpened stakes awaiting them . . .

Stakes piled high with bundles of firewood rose up all the way to the burning horizon, marked by ribbons of smoke. Chained to the nearest stake was . . . Triss Merigold. Beyond her was Margarita Laux-Antille . . . Mother Nenneke . . . Jarre . . . Fabio Sachs . . .

No. No. No.

Yes, screamed the black-haired woman. Death to them all! Take your revenge on all of them. Despise them! They all harmed you or wanted to harm you! Or perhaps they will want to harm you in the future! Hold them in contempt, for at last the time of contempt is here! Contempt, revenge and death! Death to the entire world! Death, destruction and blood!

There is blood on your hand, blood on your dress . . .

They betrayed you! Tricked you! Harmed you! Now you have the power, so take revenge!

Yennefer’s mouth was cut and torn, pouring blood; her hands and feet were shackled, fastened to the wet, dirty walls of a dungeon by heavy chains. The mob around the scaffold shrieked, the poet Dandelion laid his head on the block, the blade of the executioner’s axe flashed above him. The street urchins crowded beneath the scaffold unfolded a kerchief to be spattered with blood . . . The screaming of the mob drowned out the noise of the blow, so powerful it made the scaffold shudder . . .

They betrayed you! They deceived and tricked you! To them you were a pawn, just a puppet on a stick! They used you! They condemned you to hunger, to the burning sun, to thirst, to misery and to loneliness! The time of contempt and revenge is come! You have the power! You are mighty! Let the whole world cower before thee! Let the whole world cower before the Elder Blood!

Now the witchers were being led onto the scaffold: Yesemir, Eskel, Coen, Lambert. And Geralt . . . Geralt was staggering, covered in blood . . .

‘No!’

Fire surrounded her, and beyond the wall of flames was a furious neighing. Unicorns were rearing, shaking their heads and dashing their hooves against the ground. Their manes were like tattered battle flags, their horns were as long and sharp as swords. The unicorns were huge, as huge as warhorses, much bigger than her Little Horse. Where had they come from? Where had so many of them come from? The flame shot upwards with a roar. The black-haired woman raised her hands, and they were covered in blood. The heat billowed her hair.

Let it burn, Falka, let it all burn!

‘Go away! Be gone! I don’t want you! I don’t want your power!

Let it burn, Falka, let it burn!

‘I don’t want to!’

You do! You desire this! Desire and lust seethe in you like a flame! The pleasure is enslaving you! It is might! It is force! It is power! The most delicious of the world’s pleasures!

Lightning. Thunder. Wind. The thudding of hooves and the neighing of unicorns galloping with abandon around the fire.

‘I don’t want that power! I don’t want it! I relinquish it!’

She didn’t know if the fire had gone out or if her eyes had clouded over as she slumped to the ground, feeling the first drops of rain on her face.

The being should be divested of its beingness. It cannot be allowed to exist. The being is dangerous. Confirmation?

Negative. The being did not summon the Power for itself. It did it to save Ihuarraquax. The being feels sympathy. Thanks to the being, Ihuarraquax is once more among us.

But the being has the Power. Should it wish to make use of it . . .

It will not be able to use it. Never. It relinquished it. It relinquished the Power. Utterly. The Power disappeared. It is most curious . . .

We will never understand these beings.

We do not need to understand them! We will remove existence from the being. Before it is too late. Confirmation?

Negative. Let us leave this place. Let us leave the being. Let us leave it to its fate.

She did not know how long she lay on the rocks, trembling, staring at the changing colours of the sky. It was by turns dark and light, cold and hot, and she lay powerless, dried out like that dead rodent’s carcass sucked dry and thrown from the crater.

She did not think about anything. She was alone. She was empty. Now she had nothing and she felt nothing inside. There was no thirst, hunger, fatigue or fear. Everything had vanished, even the will to survive. She was one great, cold, dreadful void. She felt that void with all her being, with every cell of her body.

She felt blood on her inner thighs. She did not care. She was empty. She had lost everything.

The colour of the sky was changing. She did not move. Was there any point in moving in such a void?

She did not move when hooves thudded around her, when horseshoes clanged. She did not react to the loud cries and calls, to the excited voices, to the horses’ snorts. She did not move when hard, powerful hands seized her. When she was lifted, she drooped limply. She did not react to the jerking or the shaking, to the harsh, aggressive questions. She did not understand them and did not want to understand.

She was empty and indifferent. She reacted indifferently to water being splashed on her face. When a canteen was put to her mouth, she did not choke. She drank. Indifferently.

Neither did she care later. She was hauled up onto a saddle. Her crotch was tender and painful. She was shivering so she was wrapped in a blanket. She was numb and limp, on the verge of fainting, so she was fastened by a belt to the rider sitting behind her. The rider stank of sweat and urine. She did not care.

There were riders all around. Many riders. Ciri looked at them indifferently. She was empty. She had lost everything. Nothing mattered any longer.

Nothing.

Not even the fact that the knight in command of the riders wore a helmet decorated with the wings of a raptor.

CHAPTER SEVEN

When the fire was lit at the foot of the criminal’s pyre and the flames began to engulf her, she began to hurl abuse at the knights, barons, sorcerers and lord councillors gathered in the square; using such words that terror seized them all. Although at first only damp logs were placed on the pyre, in order that the she-devil would not perish quickly and would know the full agony of fire, now came the order to throw on more dry sticks and put an end to the torture as quickly as possible. However, a veritable demon had entered the accursed one; for although she was already sizzling well, she uttered no cries of anguish, but instead began to hurl even more awful abuse. ‘An avenger will be born of my blood,’ she cried. ‘From my tainted Elder Blood will be born the avenger of the nations and of the world! He will avenge my torment! Death, death and vengeance to all of you and your kin!’ Only this much was she able to cry out before the flame consumed her. Thus perished Falka; such was her punishment for spilling innocent blood.

Roderick de Novembre, The History of the World,

Volume II

‘Look at her. Sunburnt and covered in cuts. She’s an outcast. She’s drinking like a fish and is as ravenous as a wolf. She came out of the east, I tell you. She crossed Korath. She crossed the Frying Pan.’

‘Rubbish! No one survives the Frying Pan. She’s come out of the west, down from the mountains, along the course of the Suchak. She barely touched the edge of Korath and that was enough for her. We found her lying in a heap on the ground, almost lifeless.’

‘The desert also drags on for miles to the west. So where did she walk from?’

‘She didn’t walk, she’d been riding. Who knows how far? There were hoof prints by her. Her horse must have thrown her in the Suchak valley, and that’s why she’s battered and bruised.’

‘Why is she so important to Nilfgaard, I wonder? When the prefect sent us off on that search party, I thought some important noblewoman had gone missing. But her? An ordinary slummock, a shabby drudge, and dazed and mute to boot. I really don’t know, Skomlik, if we’ve found the one we’re after . . .’

‘That’s ’er. But ordinary she is not. Had she been ordinary, we’d have found her dead.’

‘It was a close thing. There’s no doubt the rain saved her. The oldest grandfathers can’t recall rain in the Frying Pan, dammit. Clouds always pass by Korath . . . Even when it rains in the valleys, not a single drop falls there!’

‘Look at her wolfing down that food. It’s as if she’d had nothing in her gob for a week . . . Hey, you, slut! Like that pork fat? And that dry bread?’

‘Ask her in Elven. Or in Nilfgaardian. She doesn’t understand Common Speech. She’s some kind of elven spawn . . .’

‘She’s a simpleton, not right in the head. When I lifted her onto the horse this morning, it was like holding a wooden doll.’

‘Don’t you have eyes?’ asked the powerful, balding one they called Skomlik, baring his teeth. ‘What kind of Trappers are you, if you haven’t rumbled her yet? She’s neither stupid, nor simple. She’s pretending. She’s a strange and cunning little bird.’

‘So why’s she so important to Nilfgaard? They’ve promised a reward. There are patrols rushing around all over the place . . . Why?’

‘That I don’t know. Though it might be an idea to ask her . . . A whip across the back might encourage her . . . Ha! Did you mark how she looked at me? She understands everything, she’s listening carefully. Hey, wench! I’m Skomlik, a hunter. Also called a Trapper. And this, look here, is a whip. Also called a knout! Want to keep the skin on your back? Then let’s hear it—’

‘Enough! Silence!’

A loud, stern order, tolerating no opposition, came from another campfire, where a knight and his squire were sitting.

‘Getting bored, Trappers?’ asked the knight menacingly. ‘Then get down to some work. The horses need grooming. My armour and weapons need cleaning. Go to the forest for wood. And do not touch the girl! Do you understand, you churls?’

‘Indeed, noble Sir Sweers,’ muttered Skomlik. His comrades looked sheepish.

‘To work! Carry out my orders!’

The Trappers made themselves busy.

‘Fate has really punished us with that arsehole,’ muttered one of them. ‘Oh, that the prefect put us under the command of that fucking knight—’

‘Full of himself,’ muttered another quietly, glancing around stealthily. ‘And, after all, it was us Trappers what found the girl . . . We had the hunch to ride into the Suchak valley.’

‘Right enough. We deserve the credit, but His Lordship will take the bounty. We’ll barely see a groat . . . They’ll toss us a florin. “There you go, be grateful for your lord’s generosity, Trapper”.’

‘Shut your traps,’ hissed Skomlik. ‘He might hear you . . .’

Ciri found herself alone by the fire. The knight and squire looked at her inquisitively, but said nothing.

The knight was a middle-aged but still robust man with a scarred face. When riding, he wore a helmet with birds’ wings, but they were not the wings Ciri had first seen in her nightmares and later on the Isle of Thanedd. He was not the Black Knight of Cintra. But he was a Nilfgaardian knight. When he issued orders, he spoke the Common Speech fluently, but with a marked accent, similar to that of the Elves. However, he spoke with his squire (a boy not much older than Ciri) in a language resembling the Elder Speech, but harder and less melodious. It had to be Nilfgaardian. Ciri, who spoke the Elder Speech well, understood most of the words. But she didn’t let on that she understood. The Nilfgaardian knight and his squire had peppered her with questions during the first stop, at the edge of the desert known as the Frying Pan or Korath. She hadn’t answered then, because she had been indifferent and stupefied. Befuddled. A few days into the ride, when they had left the rocky ravines and rode down into green valleys, Ciri had already fully recovered her faculties. At last she began to notice the world around her and react to it, albeit apathetically. But she continued to ignore questions, so the knight stopped speaking to her at all. He appeared not to pay her any attention. Only the ruffians – the ones calling themselves Trappers – took an interest in her. And they also tried to question her. Aggressively.

But the Nilfgaardian in the winged helmet swiftly took them to task. It was clear who was the master and who was the servant.

Ciri pretended to be a simple mute, but she listened intently. She slowly began to understand her situation. She had fallen into Nilfgaard’s hands. Nilfgaard had hunted her and found her, no doubt having located the route the chaotic portal in Tor Lara had transported her along. The winged knight and the Trappers had achieved what neither Yennefer nor Geralt had been able to do.

What had happened to Yennefer and Geralt on Thanedd? Where was she? She feared the worst. The Trappers and their leader, Skomlik, spoke a simple, slovenly version of the Common Speech, but without a Nilfgaardian accent. The Trappers were ordinary men, but were serving the knight from Nilfgaard. They were looking forward to the thought of the bounty the prefect would pay them for finding Ciri. In florins.

The only countries which used florins and where the people served Nilfgaardians were the Provinces in the far south, administered by imperial prefects.

The following day, during a stop by the bank of a stream, Ciri began to consider her chances of escaping. Magic might help her. She cautiously tried the most simple spell, a mild telekinesis. But her fears were confirmed. She didn’t have even a trace of magical energy. Having foolishly played with fire, her magical abilities had deserted her utterly.

She became indifferent once more. To everything. She became withdrawn and sank into apathy, where she remained for a long while.

Until the day the Blue Knight blocked their path across the moorland.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ muttered Skomlik, looking at the horsemen barring their way. ‘This means trouble. They’re Varnhagens from the stronghold in Sarda . . .’

The horsemen came closer. At their head, on a powerful grey, rode a giant of a man in a glittering blue, enamelled suit of armour. Close behind him rode a second armoured horseman, while two more in simple, dun costumes – clearly servants – brought up the rear.

The Nilfgaardian in the winged helmet rode out to meet them, reining in his bay in a dancing trot. His squire fingered the hilt of his sword and turned around in the saddle.

‘Stay back and guard the girl,’ he barked to Skomlik and his Trappers. ‘And don’t interfere!’

‘I ain’t that stupid,’ said Skomlik softly, as soon as the squire had ridden away. ‘I ain’t so stupid as to interfere in a feud between the lords of Nilfgaard . . .’

‘Will there be a fight, Skomlik?’

‘Bound to be. There’s an ancestral vendetta and blood feud between the Sweers and the Varnhagens. Dismount. Guard the wench, because she’s our best asset and our profit. If we’re lucky, we’ll get the entire bounty that’s on her head.’

‘The Varnhagens are sure to be hunting the girl too. If they overcome us, they’ll take her from us . . . And there’s only four of us . . .’

‘Five,’ said Skomlik, flashing his teeth. ‘One of the camp followers from Sarda is a mucker of mine, if I’m not mistaken. You’ll see; the benefits from this ruckus will come to us, not to Their Lordships . . .’

The knight in the blue armour reined in his grey. The winged knight came to a halt facing him. The Blue Knight’s companion trotted up and stopped behind him. His strange helmet was decorated with two straps of leather hanging from the visor, resembling two long whiskers or walrus tusks. Across his saddle, Two Tusks held a menacing-looking weapon somewhat resembling the spontoons carried by the guardsmen from Cintra, but with a considerably shorter shaft and a longer blade.

The Blue Knight and the Winged Knight exchanged a few words. Ciri could not make out what they were saying, but their tone left her in no doubt. They were not words of friendship. The Blue Knight suddenly sat up straight in the saddle, pointed fiercely at Ciri, and said something loudly and angrily. In answer, the Winged Knight cried out just as angrily and shook his fist in his armoured glove, clearly sending the Blue Knight on his way.

And then it began.

The Blue Knight dug his spurs into his grey and charged forward, yanking his battleaxe from a holder by his saddle. The Winged Knight spurred on his bay, pulling his sword from its scabbard. Before the armoured knights came together in battle, however, Two Tusks attacked, urging his horse into a gallop with the shaft of his spontoon. The Winged Knight’s squire leapt on him, drawing his sword, but Two Tusks rose up in the saddle and thrust the spontoon straight into the squire’s chest. The long blade penetrated his gorget and hauberk with a crack, the squire groaned loudly and thudded to the ground, grasping the spontoon, which was thrust in as far as the crossguard.

The Blue Knight and the Winged Knight collided with a crash and a thud. The battleaxe was more lethal but the sword was quicker. The Blue Knight was hit in the shoulder and a piece of his enamelled spaulder flew off to one side, spinning, its strap flapping behind it. The knight shuddered in the saddle and streaks of crimson glistened on the blue armour. The impact pushed the warriors apart. The Winged Nilfgaardian turned his bay back, but then Two Tusks fell upon him, raising his sword to strike two-handed. The Winged Knight tugged at his reins and Two Tusks, steering his horse with his legs, galloped past. The Winged Knight managed to strike him in passing, however. Ciri saw the metal plate of the rerebrace deform and blood spurt out from beneath the metal.

The Blue Knight was already coming back, swinging his battleaxe and screaming. The two knights exchanged thundering blows at full tilt and then drew apart. Two Tusks fell on the Winged Knight once more; their horses collided and their swords clanged. Two Tusks slashed the Winged Knight, destroying his rerebrace and rondel. The Winged Knight straightened up and struck a powerful blow from the right into the side of Two Tusk’s breastplate. Two Tusks swayed in the saddle. The Winged Knight stood in his stirrups and struck another mighty blow, between the dented and cloven pauldron and the helmet. The blade of the broad sword cut into the metal with a clang and became caught. Two Tusks tensed up and shuddered. The horses came together, stamping their hooves and gnashing their teeth on their bits. The Winged Knight braced himself against his pommel and pulled his sword out of Two Tusks’s body. Two Tusks toppled from his saddle and crashed under the horses’ hooves. The sound of horseshoes striking and twisting armour rang out as he was trampled by his own mount.

The Blue Knight turned his grey and attacked, lifting his battleaxe. The wound to his hand impeded his efforts to control his horse. The Winged Knight noticed this and stole up deftly from the right, standing in his stirrups to deliver a terrible blow. The Blue Knight caught the blow on his battleaxe and knocked the sword out of the Winged Knight’s hand. The horses crashed together once more. The Blue Knight was immensely strong; the heavy axe in his hand rose and fell like a twig. A blow thudded on the Winged Knight’s armour, making the bay sit down on its haunches. The Winged Knight swayed, but remained in the saddle. Before the battleaxe had time to fall again, he released the reins and twisted his left hand, seizing a heavy angular mace hanging from a leather sword knot, and hit the Blue Knight savagely on the helmet. The helmet rang like a bell and now it was the turn of the Blue Knight to sway in his saddle. The horses squealed, trying to bite each other and not wanting to separate.

The Blue Knight, although clearly dazed by the blow from the mace, managed to strike again with his battleaxe, hitting his opponent in the breastplate with a thud. It seemed an absolute miracle that they were both able to stay in the saddle, but it was simply owing to their high pommels and cantles. Blood dripped down the sides of both horses; particularly conspicuous on the grey’s light coat. Ciri looked on in horror. She had been taught to fight in Kaer Morhen, but she could not imagine how she could have faced either of those two strongmen. Or parry even one of their powerful blows.

The Blue Knight seized the helve of the battleaxe, which was plunged deeply into the Winged Knight’s breastplate, in both hands. He bent forward and heaved, trying to push his opponent out of the saddle. The Winged Knight struck him hard with the mace; once, twice, three times. Blood spurted from the peak of the helmet, splashing onto the blue armour and the grey’s neck. The Winged Knight spurred his bay away, the impetus of the horse wrenching the axe’s blade from his breastplate. The Blue Knight, swaying in the saddle, released the helve. The Winged Knight transferred the mace to his right hand, rode up, and struck with a vicious blow, shoving the Blue Knight’s head against his horse’s neck. Taking the reins of the grey in his free hand, the Nilfgaardian struck again with his mace. The blue suit of armour rang like a cast-iron pot and blood gushed from the misshapen helmet. One more blow and the Blue Knight fell head first under the grey’s hooves. The grey trotted away, but the Winged Knight’s bay, evidently specially trained, trampled the fallen knight with a clatter. The Blue Knight was still alive, evidenced by his desperate cries of pain. The bay continued to trample him with such force that the wounded Winged Knight could not stay in the saddle and fell alongside him with a thud.

‘They’ve finished each other off, dammit,’ grunted the Trapper who was holding Ciri.

‘Noble knights. The plague and the pox on them all,’ spat another.

The Blue Knight’s servants were watching from a distance. One of them wheeled his horse around.

‘Stop right there, Remiz!’ yelled Skomlik. ‘Where are you going? To Sarda? In a hurry to get to the gallows?’

The servants came to a halt. One of them looked over, shielding his eyes with his hand.

‘Is that you, Skomlik?’

‘Yes, it is! Get over here, Remiz, don’t worry! Knightly spats aren’t our business!’

Ciri had suddenly had enough of inaction. She nimbly tore herself free from the Trapper holding her, set off at a run, caught hold of the Blue Knight’s grey, and with one leap was in the saddle with the high pommel.

She might have managed her escape had not the servants from Sarda been mounted and on fresh horses. They caught up with her without difficulty and snatched the reins from her. She jumped off and sprinted towards the forest, but the horsemen caught her once again. One of them seized her by the hair in full flight, then pulled and dragged her behind him. Ciri screamed, hanging from his arm. The horseman threw her down at Skomlik’s feet. The knout swished, and Ciri howled and curled up in a ball, protecting her head with her hands. The whip swished again, cutting into the backs of her hands. She rolled away, but Skomlik jumped after her, kicked her, and then pinned her down with his boot.

‘Trying to escape, you viper?’

The knout swished. Ciri howled. Skomlik kicked her again and lashed her with the knout.

‘Stop hitting me!’ she screamed, cowering.

‘So you can talk, bitch! Cat let go of your tongue? I’ll teach you—’

‘Control yourself, Skomlik!’ shouted one of the Trappers. ‘Do you want to beat the life out of her or what? She’s worth too much to waste!’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Remiz, dismounting. ‘Is she the one Nilfgaard’s spent a week searching for?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Ha! All the garrisons are hunting for her. She’s some kind of important personage to Nilfgaard. They say a mighty sorceror divined that she must be somewhere in the area. That’s what they were saying in Sarda, at least. Where did you find her?’

‘In the Frying Pan.’

‘That’s not possible!’

‘It is, it is,’ said Skomlik angrily, frowning. ‘We’ve got her and the reward’s ours. Why are you standing around like statues? Bind the little bird and get her up in the saddle! Let’s scram, boys! Look lively!’

‘I think the Honourable Sweers,’ said one of the Trappers, ‘is still breathing . . .’

‘But not for long. Curse him! We’re riding straight to Amarillo, boys. To the prefect. We’ll deliver the wench to him and pick up the bounty.’

‘To Amarillo?’ Remiz scratched the back of his head, and looked at the scene of the recent fight. ‘And right into the hangman’s hands? What will you tell the prefect? That the knights battered each other to death and you’re all in one piece? When the whole story comes out the prefect will have you hanged, and send us back to Sarda under guard . . . And then the Varnhagens will take the bounty. You might want to head for Amarillo, but I’d rather disappear into the forest . . .’

‘You’re my brother-in-law, Remiz,’ said Skomlik. ‘And even though you’re a son of a bitch for beating my sister you’re still a mate. So I’ll save your skin. We’re going to Amarillo, I said. The prefect knows there’s a feud between the Sweers and the Varnhagens. They met and did each other in. That’s normal for them. What could we have done? And we – heed my words – found the wench afterwards. We did, the Trappers. You’re a Trapper now, too, Remiz. The prefect hasn’t got a bloody clue how many of us set off with Sweers. He won’t count us up . . .’

‘Haven’t you forgotten something, Skomlik?’ asked Remiz in a slow drawl, looking at the other servant from Sarda.

Skomlik turned around slowly, then as quick as a flash pulled out a knife and thrust it hard into the servant’s throat. The servant rasped and then collapsed on the ground.

‘I don’t forget about anything,’ said the Trapper coldly. ‘We’re all in it together. There are no witnesses, and not too many heads to divide the bounty amongst either. To horse, boys, and on to Amarillo! There’s a fair distance between us and the bounty, so let’s not hang around!’

After leaving a dark, wet, beech forest, they saw a village at the foot of the mountain: a dozen or so thatched cottages inside the ring of a low stockade enclosing a bend in a small river.

The wind carried the scent of smoke. Ciri wiggled her numb fingers, which were fastened by a leather strap to the pommel. She was numb all over; her buttocks ached unbearably and she was being tormented by a full bladder. She’d been in the saddle since daybreak. She had not rested during the night, since she had been forced to sleep with her hands fastened to the wrists of two Trappers lying on either side of her. Each time she moved, the Trappers reacted with curses and threats to beat her.

‘It’s a village,’ said one of them.

‘I can see that,’ responded Skomlik.

They rode down the slope, their horses’ hooves crunching through the tall, dry grass. They soon found themselves on a bumpy track leading straight to the village, towards a wooden bridge and a gate in the stockade.

Skomlik reined back his horse and stood up in his stirrups.

‘What village is this? I’ve never stopped here. Remiz, do you know these parts?’

‘Years ago,’ said Remiz, ‘this village was called White River. But when the unrest began, some locals joined the rebels. Then the Varnhagens of Sarda put it to the torch, murdered the villagers or took them prisoner. Now only Nilfgaardian settlers live here, all newcomers. And the village has been renamed Glyswen. These settlers are fierce, nasty people. I’m telling you, let’s not dally. We should ride on.’

‘We have to let the horses rest,’ protested one of the Trappers, ‘and feed them. And my belly’s rumbling like I’ve swallowed a brass band. Why worry about the settlers? They’re just rabble. Scum. We’ll wave the prefect’s order in front of their noses. I mean, the prefect’s a Nilfgaardian like them. You watch, they’ll bow down before us.’

‘I can just see that,’ growled Skomlik. ‘Has anyone seen a Nilfgaardian bow? Remiz, is there an inn in this ’ere Glyswen?’

‘Yes. The Varnhagens didn’t burn it down.’

Skomlik turned around in the saddle and looked at Ciri.

‘We’ll have to untie her,’ he said. ‘We can’t risk anyone recognising her . . . Give her a mantle. And a hood for her head . . . Hey there! Where you going, you slummock?’

‘I have to go into the bushes—’

‘I’ll give you bushes, you slut! Squat by the track! And mark: don’t breathe a word in the village. Don’t start getting clever! One squeak and I’ll slit your throat. If I don’t get any florins for you, no one’s getting any.’

They approached at a walk, the horses’ hooves thudding on the bridge. Right away, some settlers armed with lances emerged from behind the stockade.

‘They’re guarding the gate,’ muttered Remiz. ‘I wonder why.’

‘Me too,’ Skomlik muttered back, raising himself in his stirrups. ‘They’re guarding the gate, and the stockade’s down by the mill. You could drive a wagon through there . . .’

They rode closer and reined in their horses.

‘Greetings, gentlemen!’ called out Skomlik jovially, but somewhat unnaturally. ‘Good day to you.’

‘Who are you?’ asked the tallest of the settlers brusquely.

‘We, mate, are the army,’ lied Skomlik, leaning back in the saddle. ‘In the service of His Lordlyship, the prefect of Amarillo.’

The settler slid his hand down the shaft of his lance and scowled at Skomlik. He clearly couldn’t recall when he and the Trapper had become mates.

‘His Lordship the prefect sent us here,’ Skomlik continued to lie, ‘to learn how his countrymen, the good people of Glyswen, are faring. His Lordlyship sends his greetings and enquires if the people of Glyswen need any kind of help.’

‘We’re getting by,’ said the settler. Ciri noticed he spoke the Common Speech in a similar way to the Winged Knight, with the same accent, as though he was trying to imitate Skomlik’s lazy speech pattern. ‘We’ve got used to looking after ourselves.’

‘The prefect will be pleased to hear it. Is the inn open? We’re parched . . .’

‘It’s open,’ said the settler grimly. ‘For the moment.’

‘For the moment?’

‘For the moment. For we’ll soon be pulling it down. The rafters and planks will serve us for a granary. The inn’s no use to anyone. We toil in the fields and don’t visit the inn. The inn only serves travellers, mostly of a sort that aren’t to our liking. Some of that kind are drinking there now.’

‘Who’s that?’ asked Remiz, blanching somewhat. ‘Not from the stronghold in Sarda, by any chance? Not the Honourable Varnhagens?’

The settler grimaced and moved his lips around, as though intending to spit.

‘Unfortunately not. They’re the Lords Barons’ militiamen. The Nissirs.’

‘The Nissirs?’ frowned Skomlik. ‘Where did they come from? Under whose command?’

‘Their commander is tall and black-haired, with whiskers like a catfish.’

‘Eh!’ Skomlik turned to his companions. ‘We’re in luck. We only know one like that, don’t we? It’s sure to be our old comrade “Trust Me” Vercta. Remember him? And what are the Nissirs doing here, mate?’

‘The Lords Nissir,’ explained the settler grimly, ‘are bound for Tyffi. They honoured us with a visit. They’re moving a prisoner. They’ve caught one of those of Rats.’

‘Of course they have,’ snorted Remiz. ‘And why not the Nilfgaardian emperor?’

The settler frowned and tightened his grip on the shaft of his lance. His companions murmured softly.

‘Go to the inn, sirs,’ said the settler, the muscles in his jaw working, ‘and talk to the Lords Nissir, your comrades. You claim to be in the prefect’s service, so ask the Lords Nissirs why they’re taking the criminal to Tyffi, rather than impaling him on a stake right here, right now, as the prefect ordered. And remind the Lords Nissirs, your comrades, that the prefect is in command here, not the Baron of Tyffi. We already have the oxen yoked up and the stake sharpened. If the Lords Nissirs don’t want to, we’ll do the necessary. Tell them that.’

‘I’ll tell them. Rely on me,’ said Skomlik, winking meaningfully at his comrades. ‘Farewell, gentlemen.’

They set off at a walk between the cottages. The village appeared deserted; there was not a soul around. An emaciated pig was rooting around by one of the fences and some dirty ducks were splashing around in the mud. A large black tomcat crossed the riders’ path.

‘Ugh, ugh, bloody cat,’ said Remiz, leaning over, spitting and making a sign with his fingers to protect himself from black magic. ‘He ran across our path, the son of a bitch!’

‘I hope he chokes on a mouse!’

‘What was it?’ said Skomlik, turning back.

‘A cat. As black as pitch. He crossed our path, ugh, ugh.’

‘To hell with him,’ said Skomlik, looking all around. ‘Just look how empty it is. But I saw the people in their cottages, watching. And I saw a lance blade glint in that doorway.’

‘They’re guarding their womenfolk,’ laughed the man who had wished ill on the cat. ‘The Nissirs are in the village! Did you hear what that yokel was saying? It’s obvious they don’t like them.’

‘And no wonder. Trust Me and his company never pass up a chance. They’ll get what’s coming to them one day, those Lords Nissirs. The barons call them “keepers of the peace”, and that’s what they’re paid to do. To keep order and guard the roads. But try whispering “Nissir” near a peasant’s ear, and you’ll see. He’ll shit his pants in fear. But they’ll get their comeuppance. They’ll slaughter one too many calf, rape one too many wench, and the peasants will tear them apart with their pitchforks. You’ll see. Did you notice their fierce expressions by those gates? They’re Nilfgaardian settlers. You don’t want to mess with them . . . Ah, and here’s the inn . . .’

They urged the horses on.

The inn had a slightly sunken, very mossy thatched roof. It stood some distance from the cottages and farm buildings, although it marked the central point of the entire area encircled by the dilapidated stockade; the place where the two roads passing through the village crossed. In the shadow cast by the only large tree in the vicinity were two enclosures; one for cattle and the other for horses. In the latter stood five or six unsaddled horses. On the steps leading up to the door sat two individuals in leather jerkins and pointed fur hats. They were both nursing earthenware mugs, and between them stood a bowl full of bones picked clean of meat.

‘Who are you?’ yelled one of them at the sight of Skomlik and his company dismounting. ‘What do you want? Be off with you! This inn is occupied by the forces of law and order!’

‘Don’t holler, Nissir, don’t holler,’ said Skomlik, pulling Ciri down from the saddle. ‘And get that door open, because we want to go inside. Your commander, Vercta, is a friend of ours.’

‘I don’t know you!’

‘Because you’re naught but a stripling. Me and Trust Me served together years ago, before Nilfgaard came into power here.’

‘Well, if you say so . . .’ The fellow hesitated, letting go of his sword hilt. ‘You’d better come inside. It’s all the same to me . . .’

Skomlik shoved Ciri and another Trapper grabbed her by the collar. They went inside.

It was gloomy and stuffy, and smelled of smoke and baking. The inn was almost empty – only one of the tables was occupied, standing in a stream of light coming through a small window with some kind of animal skin stretched across it. A small group of men were sitting at the table. The innkeeper was bustling around in the background by the fireplace, clinking beer mugs.

‘Good cheer to you, Nissirs!’ boomed Skomlik.

‘We don’t shake hands with any old brigands,’ growled a member of the company sitting by the window, who then spat on the floor. Another stopped him with a gesture.

‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘They’re mates, don’t you recognise them? That’s Skomlik and his Trappers. Welcome, welcome!’

Skomlik brightened up and walked towards the table, but stopped on seeing his companions staring at the wooden post holding up the roof timbers. At its base, on a stool, sat a slim, fair-haired youth, strangely erect and stiff. Ciri saw that his unnatural position derived from the fact that his hands were twisted behind him and tied together, and his neck was attached to the post by a leather strap.

‘May the pox seize me,’ loudly sighed one of the Trappers, the one holding Ciri by the collar, ‘Just look, Skomlik. It’s Kayleigh!’

‘Kayleigh?’ Skomlik tilted his head. ‘Kayleigh the Rat? Can’t be!’

One of the Nissirs sitting at the table, a fat man with hair shorn in an exotic topknot, gave a throaty laugh.

‘Might just be,’ he said, licking a spoon. ‘It is Kayleigh, in all his foulness. It was worth getting up at daybreak. We’re certain to get half a mark of florins of good imperial coin for him.’

‘You’ve nabbed Kayleigh. Well, well,’ frowned Skomlik. ‘So that Nilfgaardian peasant was telling the truth—’

‘Thirty florins, dammit,’ sighed Remiz. ‘Not a bad sum . . . Is Baron Lutz of Tyffi paying?’

‘That’s right,’ confirmed the other Nissir, black-haired and black-moustached. ‘The Honourable Baron Lutz of Tyffi, our lord and benefactor. The Rats robbed his steward on the highway; he was so enraged he offered a bounty. And we, Skomlik, will get it; trust me. Ha, just look, boys, how his nose is out of joint! He doesn’t like it that we nabbed the Rat and not him, even though the prefect ordered the gang to be tracked down!’

‘Skomlik the Trapper,’ said the fat man with the topknot, pointing his spoon at Ciri, ‘has also caught something. Do you see, Vercta? Some girl or other.’

‘I see,’ said the black-moustached man, flashing his teeth. ‘What’s this, Skomlik? Are you feeling the pinch so much you kidnap children for the ransom? What scruff is this?’

‘Mind your own business!’

‘Who’s touchy?’ laughed the one with the topknot. ‘We only want to check she’s not your daughter.’

‘His daughter?’ laughed Vercta, the one with the black moustache. ‘Chance would be a fine thing. You need balls to sire a daughter.’

The Nissirs roared with laughter.

‘Fuck off, you dolts!’ yelled Skomlik, puffed up. ‘All I’ll tell you is this, Vercta. Before Sunday’s past you might be surprised to hear who people will be talking about. You and your Rat, or me and my prize. And we’ll see who’s the more generous: your baron or the imperial prefect of Amarillo!’

‘You can kiss my arse,’ declared Vercta contemptuously, and went back to slurping his soup. ‘You, your prefect, your emperor and the whole of Nilfgaard, trust me. And don’t get crabby. I’m well aware Nilfgaard’s been hunting some girl for a week, so hard you can’t see the road for dust. I know there’s a bounty on her. But I don’t give a monkey’s. I have no intention of serving the Nilfgaardians and I curse them. I serve Baron Lutz now. I answer to him; no one else.’

‘Unlike you,’ rasped Skomlik, ‘your baron kisses the Nilfgaardian hand and licks Nilfgaardian boots. Which means you don’t have to. So it’s easy for you to talk.’

‘Easy, now,’ said the Nissir in a placatory manner. ‘That wasn’t against you; trust me. It’s fine that you found the wench Nilfgaard’s searching for, and I’m glad you’ll get the reward and not those bloody Nilfgaardians. And you serve the prefect? No one chooses his own master; it’s them that chooses, ain’t it? Come on, sit down with us, we’ll have a drink since we’re all here together.’

‘Aye, why not,’ agreed Skomlik. ‘But first give us a bit of twine. I’ll tie the wench to the post next to your Rat, all right?’

The Nissirs roared with laughter.

‘Look at ’im, the terror of the borderland!’ cackled the fat one with the topknot. ‘The armed forces of Nilfgaard! Bind ’er up, Skomlik, bind ’er up good and tight. But use an iron chain, because your important captive is likely to break her bonds and smash your face in before she escapes. She looks so dangerous, I’m trembling!’

Even Skomlik’s companions snorted with suppressed laughter. The Trapper flushed, twisted his belt, and walked over to the table.

‘Just to be sure she won’t make a run for it—’

‘Do as you bloody want,’ interrupted Vercta, breaking bread. ‘If you want to talk, sit down and get a round in. And hang the wench up by her feet from the ceiling, if you wish. I couldn’t give a shit. It’s just bloody funny, Skomlik. Perhaps she is an important prisoner to you and your prefect, but to me she’s a skinny, frightened kid. Want to tie her up? She can barely stand, never mind escape; trust me. What are you afraid of?’

‘I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of,’ said Skomlik, pursing his lips. ‘This is a Nilfgaardian settlement. The settlers didn’t exactly greet us with bread and salt, and they said they’ve already got a stake sharpened for your Rat. And the law’s with them, because the prefect issued an edict that any brigands that are caught should be punished on the spot. If you don’t give them their prisoner, they’re ready to sharpen a stake for you too.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said the fat man with the topknot. ‘They’re only fit to scare birds, the rascals. They’d better not interfere with us, because blood will be spilt.’

‘We won’t give them the Rat,’ added Vercta. ‘He’s ours and he’s going to Tyffi. And Baron Lutz will put the whole case to rights with the prefect. Let’s not waste our breath. Sit you down.’

The Trappers, sliding their sword belts around, were happy to join the Nissirs’ table, yelling at the innkeeper and pointing in unison at Skomlik as their sponsor. Skomlik kicked a stool towards the post, yanked Ciri by the arm and pushed her so hard she fell over, banging her shoulder against the knee of the boy who was tied to the post.

‘Sit there,’ he snarled. ‘And don’t you dare move, or I’ll thrash you like a dog.’

‘You louse,’ growled the stripling, looking at him through half-closed eyes. ‘You fucking . . .’

Ciri didn’t know most of the words which erupted from the boy’s angry, scowling mouth, but from the change coming over Skomlik’s face she realised they must have been extremely filthy and offensive. The Trapper blanched with rage, took a swing, hit the boy in the face, then seized him by his long, fair hair and shoved him, banging the back of his head against the post.

‘Hey!’ called out Vercta, getting up from the table. ‘What’s going on over there?’

‘I’ll knock the mangy Rat’s teeth out!’ roared Skomlik. ‘I’ll tear his legs from his arse!’

‘Come here and stop your screeching,’ said the Nissir, sitting down, draining his mug of beer in a single draught and wiping his moustache. ‘You can knock your prisoner around all you like, but hands off ours. And you, Kayleigh, don’t play the hero. Sit still and ponder over the scaffold that Baron Lutz is having built. The list of punishments the hangman’s going to perform on you is already written, trust me, and measures three ells. Half the town’s already placing bets about how far down the list you’ll make it. So save your strength, Rat. I’m going to put a small sum on that you won’t let me down and you’ll hold out at least to castration.’

Kayleigh spat and turned his head away, as much as the strap around his neck would allow. Skomlik hauled up his belt, threw Ciri a baleful glance, sitting perched on the stool, then joined the company at the table, cursing, since all that remained in the jug of beer the innkeeper had brought them were streaks of froth.

‘How did you catch Kayleigh?’ he asked, indicating to the innkeeper that he wanted to extend the order. ‘And alive? Because I can’t believe you knocked off the other Rats.’

‘To tell the truth,’ answered Vercta, critically examining what he had just picked from his nose, ‘we were lucky. He was all alone. He’d left the gang and nipped over to New Forge for a night with his girlfriend. The village headman knew we weren’t far away and sent word. We got there before sun-up and collared him in the hay; he didn’t even squeal.’

‘And we all had some sport with his wench,’ cackled the fat one with the topknot. ‘If Kayleigh hadn’t satisfied her that night, there was no harm done. We satisfied her so thoroughly in the morning she couldn’t move her arms or legs!’

‘Well, I tell you, you’re incompetent fools,’ declared Skomlik loudly and derisively. ‘You fucked away a pretty penny, you thickheads. Instead of wasting time on the wench, you ought to have heated up a branding iron and made the Rat tell you where his gang were spending the night. You could’ve had the lot of ’em. Giselher, Reef and the rest. The Varnhagens of Sarda offered twenty florins for Giselher a year ago. And for that whore, what’s her name . . . Mistle, wasn’t it? The prefect would give even more after what she did to his nephew at Druigh, when the Rats fleeced that convoy.’

‘You, Skomlik,’ grimaced Vercta, ‘were either born stupid, or a hard life has driven all the good sense out of your head. There are six of us. Do you expect me to take on the whole gang with six men, or what? And we won’t miss out on the bounty, either. Baron Lutz will warm Kayleigh’s heels in the dungeons. He’ll take his time, trust me. Kayleigh will sing, he’ll betray their hideouts and base, then we’ll go there in force and number, we’ll surround the gang, and pick them out like crayfish from a sack.’

‘Yeah, right. They’ll be waiting for you. They’ll find out you’ve got Kayleigh and lie low in their other hideouts and in the rushes. No, Vercta, you have to stare the truth in the face: you fucked up. You traded the reward for a woman. That’s you all over . . . nothing but fucking on your mind.’

‘You’re the fucker!’ Vercta jumped up from the table. ‘If you’re in such a hurry, go after the Rats with your heroes yourself! But beware, because taking on the Rats, Your Honourable Nilfgaardian Lackeyship, isn’t the same as catching young wenches!’

The Nissirs and Trappers began to trade insults with each other. The innkeeper quickly brought them more beer, snatching the empty jug from the hand of the fat one with the topknot, who was aiming it at Skomlik. The beer quickly took the heat out of the quarrel, cooled their throats and calmed their tempers.

‘Bring us victuals!’ yelled the fat one to the innkeeper. ‘Scrambled egg and sausage. Beans, bread and cheese!’

‘And beer!’

‘What are you goggling at, Skomlik? We’re in the money today! We fleeced Kayleigh of his horse, his pouch, his trinkets, his sword, his saddle and sheepskin, and we sold everything to the dwarves!’

‘We sold his wench’s red shoes as well. And her beads!’

‘Ho, ho, enough to buy a few rounds, indeed! Glad to hear it!’

‘Why are you so glad? We’ve got beer money, not you. All you can do is wipe the snot from your prisoner’s nose or pluck lice from her! The size of the purse reflects the class of prisoner, ha, ha!’

‘You sons of bitches!’

‘Ha, ha, sit down. I was jesting, shut your trap!’

‘Let’s drink to settle our differences! The drinks are on us!’

‘Where’s that scrambled egg, innkeeper, a plague on you! Quickly!’

‘And bring us that beer!’

Huddled on the stool, Ciri raised her head, meeting Kayleigh’s furious green eyes staring at her from under his tousled fringe of fair hair. A shudder passed through her. Kayleigh’s face, though not unattractive, was evil, very evil. Ciri could see that this boy, although not much older than her, was capable of anything.

‘The gods must have sent you to me,’ whispered the Rat, piercing her with his green stare. ‘Just think. I don’t believe in them, but they sent you. Don’t look around, you little fool. You have to help me . . . Listen carefully, scumbag . . .’

Ciri huddled down even more and lowered her head.

‘Listen,’ hissed Kayleigh, indeed flashing his teeth like a rat. ‘In a moment, when the innkeeper passes, you’ll call him . . . Listen to me, by the devil . . .’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘They’ll beat me . . .’

Kayleigh’s mouth twisted, and Ciri realised that being beaten by Skomlik was by no means the worst thing she might encounter. Although Skomlik was huge, and Kayleigh thin and bound, she sensed instinctively which of them she ought to fear more.

‘If you help me,’ whispered the Rat, ‘I’ll help you. I’m not alone. I’ve got comrades who don’t abandon a friend in need . . . Get it? And when my comrades arrive, when it all kicks off, I can’t stay tied up to this post. Those scoundrels will carve me up . . . Listen carefully, dammit. I’ll tell you what you’re to do . . .’

Ciri lowered her head even further. Her lips quivered.

The Trappers and the Nissirs were devouring the scrambled eggs, and smacking their lips like wild boars. The innkeeper stirred something in a cauldron and brought another jug of beer and a loaf of rye bread to the table.

‘I’m hungry,’ squeaked Ciri obediently, blanching slightly. The innkeeper stopped, looked at her in a friendly way, and then looked around at the revellers.

‘Can I give her some food, sir?’

‘Bugger off!’ yelled Skomlik indistinctly, flushing and spitting scrambled eggs. ‘Get away from her, you bloody spit-turner, before I wrench your legs off! None of that! And you sit still, you gadabout, or I’ll—’

‘Hey, Skomlik, are you sodding crazy, or what?’ interrupted Vercta, struggling to swallow a slice of bread piled high with onions. ‘Look at him, boys, the skinflint. He stuffs himself on other people’s money, but stints on a young girl. Give her a bowl, innkeeper. I’m paying, and I decide who gets it and who doesn’t. And if anyone doesn’t like it, he may get a smack in his bristly chops.’

Skomlik flushed even more, but said nothing.

‘That’s reminded me,’ added Vercta. ‘We must feed the Rat, so he won’t collapse on the road, or the baron would flay us alive, trust me. The wench can feed him. Hey, innkeeper! Knock up some grub for them! And you, Skomlik, what are you grumbling about? What’s not to your liking?’

‘She needs to be watched,’ said the Trapper, nodding at Ciri, ‘because she’s a strange kind of bird. Were she a normal wench, then Nilfgaard wouldn’t be chasing after her, nor the prefect offering a reward . . .’

‘We can soon find out if she’s ordinary or not,’ chuckled the fat one with the topknot. ‘We just need to look between her legs! How about it, boys? Shall we take her to the barn for a while?’

‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ snapped Skomlik. ‘I won’t allow it!’

‘Oh, really? Like we’re going to ask you!’

‘I’m putting the bounty and my head on the line, to deliver her there in one piece! The prefect of Amarillo—’

‘Fuck your prefect. We’re paying for your drinks and you’re denying us some fun? Hey, Skomlik, don’t be a cheapskate! And you won’t get into trouble, never fear, nor will you miss out on the reward! You’ll deliver her in one piece. A wench isn’t a fish bladder, it doesn’t pop from being squeezed!’

The Nissirs burst into loud chuckles. Skomlik’s companions chimed in. Ciri shuddered, went pale and raised her head. Kayleigh smiled mockingly.

‘Understand now?’ he hissed from his faintly smiling mouth. ‘When they get drunk, they’ll start on you. They’ll rape you. We’re in the same boat. Do what I told you. If I escape, you will too . . .’

‘Grub up!’ called the innkeeper. He didn’t have a Nilfgaardian accent. ‘Come and get it, miss!’

‘A knife,’ whispered Ciri, taking the bowl from him.

‘What?’

‘A knife. And fast.’

‘If it’s not enough, take more!’ said the innkeeper unnaturally, sneaking a glance at the diners and putting more groats into the bowl. ‘Be off with you.’

‘A knife.’

‘Be off or I’ll call them . . . I can’t . . . They’ll burn down the inn.’

‘A knife.’

‘No. I feel sorry for you, missy, but I can’t. I can’t, you have to understand. Go away . . .’

‘No one,’ she said, repeating Kayleigh’s words in a trembling voice, ‘will get out of here alive. A knife. And fast. And when it all starts, get out of here.’

‘Hold the bowl, you clod!’ yelled the innkeeper, turning to shield Ciri with his body. He was pale and his jaws were chattering slightly. ‘Nearer the frying pan.’

She felt the cold touch of a kitchen knife, which he was sliding into her belt, covering the handle with her jacket.

‘Very good,’ hissed Kayleigh. ‘Sit so that you’re covering me. Put the bowl on my lap. Take the spoon in your left hand and the knife in your right. And cut through the twine. Not there, idiot. Under my elbow, near the post. Be careful, they’re watching.’

Ciri’s throat went dry. She lowered her head almost to the bowl.

‘Feed me and eat yourself.’ The green eyes staring from half-closed lids hypnotised her. ‘And keep cutting. As if you meant it, little one. If I escape, you will too . . .’

True, thought Ciri, cutting through the twine. The knife smelled of iron and onion, and the blade was worn down from frequent sharpening. He’s right. Do I know where those scoundrels will take me? Do I know what that Nilfgaardian prefect wants from me? Maybe a torturer’s waiting for me in Amarillo, or perhaps the wheel, gimlets and pincers. Red-hot irons . . . I won’t let them lead me like a lamb to the slaughter. Better to take a chance . . .

A tree stump came crashing in through the window, taking the frame and broken glass with it. It landed on the table, wreaking havoc among the bowls and mugs. The tree stump was followed by a young woman with close-cropped fair hair in a red doublet and high, shiny boots reaching above the knee. Crouching on the table, she whirled a sword around her head. One of the Nissirs, the slowest, who hadn’t managed to get up or jump out of the way, toppled over backwards with the bench, blood spurting from his mutilated throat. The girl rolled nimbly off the table, making room for a boy in a short, embroidered sheepskin jacket to jump in through the window.

‘It’s the Raaats!!’ yelled Vercta, struggling with his sword, which was entangled in his belt.

The fat one with the topknot drew his weapon, jumped towards the girl who was kneeling on the floor, and swung. But the girl, even though she was on her knees, deftly parried the blow, spun away, and the boy in the sheepskin jacket who had jumped in after her slashed the Nissir hard across the temple. The fat man fell to the floor, suddenly as limp as a palliasse.

The inn door was kicked open and two more Rats burst inside. The first was tall and dark, dressed in a studded kaftan and a scarlet headband. He sent two Trappers to opposite corners with swift blows of his sword and then squared off with Vercta. The second, broad-shouldered and fair-haired, ripped open Remiz, Skomlik’s brother-in-law, with a sweeping blow. The others rushed to escape, heading for the kitchen door. But the Rats were already entering that way too; a dark-haired girl in fabulously coloured clothes suddenly erupted from the kitchen. She stabbed one of the Trappers with a rapid thrust, forced back another with a moulinet, and then hacked the innkeeper down before he had time to identify himself.

The inn was full of uproar and the clanging of swords. Ciri hid behind the post.

‘Mistle!’ shouted Kayleigh, tearing apart the partially cut twine and struggling with the strap still binding his neck to the post. ‘Giselher! Reef! Over here!’

The Rats were busy fighting, though, and only Skomlik heard Kayleigh’s cry. The Trapper turned around and prepared to thrust, intending to pin the Rat to the post. Ciri reacted instinctively, like lightning, as she had during the fight with the wyvern in Gors Velen and on Thanedd. All the moves she had learnt in Kaer Morhen happened automatically, almost without her conscious control. She jumped out from behind the post, whirled into a pirouette, fell on Skomlik and struck him powerfully with her hip. She was too small and lightly built to shove the hefty Trapper back, but she was able to disrupt the rhythm of his movement. And draw his attention towards her.

‘You bitch!’

Skomlik took a swing, his sword wailing through the air. Once again, Ciri’s body instinctively made a graceful evasive manoeuvre and the Trapper almost lost his balance, lunging after his thrusting blade. Swearing foully, he struck again, putting all his strength behind the blow. Ciri dodged nimbly, landing surely on her left foot, and whirled into a pirouette in the other direction. Skomlik slashed again, but again was unable to make contact.

Vercta suddenly fell between them, spattering them both with blood. The Trapper stepped back and looked around. He was surrounded by dead bodies. And by the Rats, who were approaching from all sides with drawn swords.

‘Don’t move,’ said the dark one in the red headband, finally releasing Kayleigh. ‘It looks like he really wants to hack that girl to death. I don’t know why. Nor why he hasn’t managed to yet. But let’s give him a chance, seeing as he wants it so much.’

‘Let’s give her a chance too, Giselher,’ said the broad-shouldered one. ‘Let it be a fair fight. Give her some hardware, Iskra.’

Ciri felt the hilt of a sword in her hand. It was a little too heavy for her.

Skomlik panted furiously, and lunged at her, brandishing his blade in a flashing moulinet. He was slow. Ciri dodged the blows which began raining down on her using quick feints and half turns, without even attempting to parry them. Her sword merely served her as a counterweight for her evasive manoeuvres.

‘Incredible,’ laughed the girl with the close-cropped hair. ‘She’s an acrobat!’

‘She’s fast,’ said the colourful girl who had given Ciri the sword. ‘Fast as a she-elf. Hey, you, fatty! Perhaps you’d prefer one of us? You’re getting no change out of her!’

Skomlik withdrew, looked around, then suddenly leapt forward, trying to stab Ciri with a thrust like a heron seizing its prey. Ciri avoided the thrust with a short feint and spun away. For a second she saw a swollen, pulsating vein on Skomlik’s neck. She knew that in that position he wouldn’t be able to avoid the blow or parry it. She knew where and how to strike.

But she did not strike.

‘That’s enough.’

She felt a hand on her shoulder. The girl in the colourful costume shoved her aside, and at the same time two other Rats – the one in the short sheepskin coat and the close-cropped one – pushed Skomlik into the corner of the inn, blocking him in with their swords.

‘Enough of this lark,’ repeated the flamboyantly dressed girl, turning Ciri towards herself. ‘It’s going on too long. And you’re to blame, miss. You could’ve killed him, but you didn’t. I don’t think you’ll live long.’

Ciri shuddered, looking into the huge, dark, almond-shaped eyes, seeing the teeth exposed in a smile. Teeth so small they made the smile seem ghoulish. Neither the eyes nor the teeth were human. The colourful girl was an elf.

‘Time to run,’ said Giselher, the one in the scarlet headband, sharply. He was clearly the leader. ‘It’s indeed taking too long! Mistle, finish off the bastard.’

The close-cropped girl approached, raising her sword.

‘Mercy!’ screamed Skomlik, falling on his knees. ‘Spare my life! I have young children . . . Very young . . .’

The girl struck savagely, twisting at the hips. Blood splashed the whitewashed wall in a wide, irregular arc of crimson flecks.

‘I can’t stand little children,’ said the close-cropped girl, wiping blood off the fuller with a quick movement of her fingers.

‘Don’t just stand there, Mistle,’ urged the one in the scarlet headband. ‘To horse! We must fly! It’s a Nilfgaardian settlement; we don’t have any friends here!’

The Rats sped out of the inn. Ciri didn’t know what to do, but she didn’t have time to think. Mistle, the close-cropped one, pushed her towards the door.

Outside the inn, among pieces of broken beer mugs and chewed bones, lay the bodies of the Nissirs who had been guarding the entrance. Settlers armed with lances were running up from the village, but at the sight of the Rats bursting out of the inn they disappeared among the cottages.

‘Can you ride?’ yelled Mistle at Ciri.

‘Yes . . .’

‘So let’s go. Grab a horse and ride! There’s a bounty on our heads and this is a Nilfgaardian village! They’re all grabbing bows and spears! Jump on and follow Giselher! Keep to the middle of the track and stay away from the cottages!’

Ciri hurdled a low fence, seized the reins of one of the Trappers’ horses, jumped into the saddle, and slapped the horse on the rump with the flat of the sword, which had never left her hand. She set off at a swift gallop, overtaking Kayleigh and the flamboyant elf they called Iskra. She raced with the Rats towards the mill. She saw a man with a crossbow emerging from behind one of the cottages, aiming at Giselher’s back.

‘Cut him down!’ she heard from behind her. ‘Have him, girl!’

Ciri leaned back in the saddle, forcing the galloping horse to change direction with a tug of the reins and pressure from her heels, and swung her sword. The man with the crossbow turned around at the last moment and she saw his face contorted in terror. Ciri’s arm, which was raised to strike, hesitated for a moment, which was enough for the galloping horse to carry her past him. She heard the clang of the bowstring being released. Her horse squealed, its croup twitched and it reared up. Ciri jumped, wrenching her feet from the stirrups and landed nimbly, dropping into a crouch. Iskra, galloping up, leaned out of the saddle to swing powerfully, and slashed the crossbowman across the back of his head. He fell to his knees, toppled forward and fell headlong into a puddle, splashing mud. The wounded horse neighed and thrashed around beside him, finally rushing off between the cottages, kicking vigorously.

‘You idiot!’ yelled the she-elf, passing Ciri at full pelt. ‘You bloody idiot!’

‘Jump on!’ screamed Kayleigh, riding over to her. Ciri ran up and seized the outstretched hand. The impetus jerked her, her shoulder joint creaking, but she managed to jump onto the horse and cling to the fair-haired Rat. They galloped off, overtaking Iskra. The elf turned back, pursuing one more crossbowman, who had thrown down his weapon and fled towards some barn doors. Iskra caught him with ease. Ciri turned her head away. She heard the mutilated crossbowman howl briefly and savagely, like an animal.

Mistle caught them up, pulling a saddled riderless horse behind her. She shouted something which Ciri didn’t hear properly, but understood at once. She let go of Kayleigh, jumped onto the ground at full speed, and ran over to the horse, which was dangerously close to some buildings. Mistle threw her the reins, looked around and shouted a warning. Ciri turned around just in time to avoid the treacherous thrust of a spear, dealt by a stocky settler who had appeared from behind a pigsty, with a nimble half turn.

What happened later haunted her dreams for a long time after. She remembered everything, every movement. The half turn which saved her from the spear blade placed her in an ideal position. The spearman was leaning well forward, unable either to jump away or to protect himself with the spear shaft he was holding in both hands. Ciri thrust flat, spinning the opposite way in a half turn. For a moment, she saw a mouth open to scream in a face with the bristle of several days of beard growth. She saw the forehead lengthened by a bald patch, fair-skinned above the line where a cap or hat had protected it from the sun. And then everything she saw was blotted out by a fountain of blood.

She was still holding the horse by the reins, but the horse shied, howling, and thrashed around, knocking her to her knees. Ciri did not release the reins. The wounded man moaned and wheezed, thrashing about convulsively among the straw and muck, and blood spurted from him as though from a stuck pig. She felt her gorge rising.

Right alongside, Iskra reined back her horse. Seizing the reins of the still stamping, riderless horse, she tugged, pulling Ciri – still clutching the reins – up onto her feet.

‘Into the saddle!’ she yelled. ‘Get out of here!’

Ciri fought back nausea and jumped into the saddle. There was blood on the sword, which she was still holding. She struggled to overcome the desire to throw the weapon as far away as she could.

Mistle rushed out from between some cottages, chasing two men. One of them managed to get away, leaping over a fence, but the second, hit by a short thrust, fell to his knees, clutching his head in both hands.

Mistle and Iskra leapt into a gallop, but a moment later pulled up their horses, bracing themselves in their stirrups, because Giselher and the other Rats were returning from near the mill. Behind them rushed a pack of armed settlers, yelling loudly to summon up their courage.

‘After us!’ yelled Giselher, riding past at full speed. ‘After us, Mistle! To the river!’

Mistle, leaning over to one side, tugged on her reins, turned her horse back and galloped after him, clearing some low wattle fences. Ciri pressed her face against her horse’s mane and set off after her. Iskra galloped along beside her. The speed blew her beautiful, dark hair around, revealing a small, pointed ear decorated with a filigree earring.

The man wounded by Mistle was still kneeling in the middle of the road, rocking back and forth and holding his bloody head in both hands. Iskra wheeled her horse around, galloped up to him and struck downwards with her sword, powerfully, with all her strength. The wounded man wailed. Ciri saw his severed fingers fly up like woodchips from a chopping block and fall onto the ground like fat, white grubs.

She barely overcame the urge to vomit.

Mistle and Kayleigh waited for them by a gap in the stockade; the rest of the Rats were already far away. The foursome set off in a hard, fast gallop, and hurtled across the river, splashing water which spurted up above the horses’ heads. Leaning forward, pressing their cheeks against the horses’ manes, they climbed up a sandy slope and then flew across a meadow, purple with lupines. Iskra, riding the fastest horse, took the lead.

They raced into a forest, into damp shade, between the trunks of beeches. They had caught up with Giselher and the others, but they only slowed for a moment. After crossing the forest and reaching moorland, they once again set off at a gallop. Soon Ciri and Kayleigh had been left behind, the Trappers’ horses unable to keep pace with the beautiful, pedigree mounts the Rats were riding. Ciri had an additional difficulty; she could barely reach the big horse’s stirrups, and at a gallop was unable to adjust the stirrup leathers. She could ride without stirrups as well as she could with, but knew that in that position she would not be able to endure a gallop for long.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, Giselher slowed the pace and stopped the leading group, letting Ciri and Kayleigh catch up with them. Ciri slowed to a trot. She still couldn’t shorten the stirrup leathers, since there were no holes in the straps. Without slowing, she swung her right leg over the pommel and switched to side-saddle.

Mistle, seeing the girl’s riding position, burst out laughing.

‘Do you see, Giselher? She isn’t only an acrobat, she’s a circus rider, too! Eh, Kayleigh, where did you happen upon this she-devil?’

Iskra, reining back her beautiful chestnut, skin still dry and raring to gallop on, rode over, pushing against Ciri’s dapple grey. The horse neighed and stepped back, tossing its head. Ciri tightened the reins, leaning back in the saddle.

‘Do you know the reason you’re still alive, you cretin?’ snarled the elf, pulling her hair away from her forehead. ‘The peasant you so mercifully spared released the trigger too soon, so he hit the horse and not you. Otherwise you’d have a quarrel sticking into your back up to its fletchings! Why do you carry that sword?’

‘Leave her alone, Iskra,’ said Mistle, stroking the sweaty neck of her mount. ‘Giselher, we have to slow down or we’ll ride the horses into the ground! I mean, no one’s chasing us right now.’

‘I want to cross the Velda as quickly as possible,’ said Giselher. ‘We’ll rest on the far bank. Kayleigh, how’s your horse?’

‘He’ll hold out. He’s no racehorse, but he’s a powerful beast.’

‘All right, let’s go.’

‘Hold on,’ said Iskra. ‘What about this chit?’

Giselher looked back, straightened his scarlet headband, and rested his gaze on Ciri. His face and its expression somewhat resembled Kayleigh’s; the same malevolent grimace, the same narrowed eyes, the thin, protruding lower jaw. He was older than the fair-haired Rat, though, and the bluish shadow on his cheeks was evidence that he was already shaving.

‘Yeah, true,’ he said brusquely. ‘What about you, wench?’

Ciri lowered her head.

‘She helped me,’ chimed in Kayleigh. ‘If it hadn’t been for her, that lousy Trapper would have nailed me to the post . . .’

‘The villagers saw her escaping with us,’ added Mistle. ‘She cut one of them down and I doubt he survived. They’re settlers from Nilfgaard. If the girl falls into their hands, they’ll club her to death. We can’t leave her.’

Iskra snorted angrily but Giselher gestured to her to be quiet.

‘She can ride with us,’ he decided, ‘as far as Velda. Then we’ll see. Ride your horse normally, maid. If you don’t manage to keep up, we won’t look back. Understood?’

Ciri nodded eagerly.

‘Talk, girl. Who are you? Where are you from? What’s your name? Why were you travelling under escort?’

Ciri lowered her head. During the ride she’d had time to try to invent a story. And she had thought up several. But the leader of the Rats didn’t look like someone who would believe any of them.

‘Right,’ pressed Giselher. ‘You’ve been riding with us for a few hours. You’re taking breaks with us, but I haven’t even heard the sound of your voice. Are you dumb?’

Fire shot upwards in flames amid a shower of sparks, flooding the ruins of the shepherd’s cottage in a wave of golden light. As if obedient to Giselher’s order, the fire lit up Ciri’s face, in order more easily to uncover the lies and insincerity in it. But I can’t tell them the truth, Ciri thought in desperation. They’re robbers. Brigands. If they find out about the Nilfgaardians, that the Trappers caught me for the bounty, they may want to claim it for themselves. And anyway, the truth is too far-fetched for them to believe.

‘We got you out of the settlement,’ continued the gang leader slowly. ‘We brought you here, to one of our hideouts. We gave you food. You’re sitting at our campfire. So tell us who you are.’

‘Leave her be,’ said Mistle suddenly. ‘When I look at you, Giselher, I see a Nissir, a Trapper or one of those Nilfgaardian sons of bitches. And I feel as if I’m being interrogated, chained to a torturer’s bench in a dungeon!’

‘Mistle’s right,’ said the fair-haired boy in the short sheepskin jacket. Ciri shuddered to hear his accent. ‘The girl clearly doesn’t want to say who she is, and it’s her right. I didn’t say much when I joined you, either. I didn’t want you to know I’d been one of those Nilfgaardian bastards—’

‘Don’t talk rubbish, Reef.’ Giselher waved a hand. ‘It was different with you. And you, Mistle, you’re wrong. It’s not an interrogation. I want her to say who she is and where she’s from. When I find out, I’ll point out the way home, and that’s all. How can I do that if I don’t know . . . ?’

‘You don’t know anything,’ said Mistle, turning to look at him. ‘Not even if she has a home. And I’m guessing she doesn’t. The Trappers picked her up on the road because she was alone. That’s typical of those cowards. If you send her on her way she won’t survive in the mountains. She’ll be torn apart by wolves or die of hunger.’

‘What shall we do with her, then?’ asked the broad-shouldered one in an adolescent bass, jabbing a stick at the burning logs. ‘Dump her outside some village or other?’

‘Excellent idea, Asse,’ sneered Mistle. ‘Don’t you know what peasants are like? They’re short of labourers. They’ll put her to work grazing cattle, after first injuring one of her legs so she won’t be able to run away. At night, she’ll be treated as nobody’s property; in other words she’ll be anybody’s. You know how she’ll have to pay for her board and lodgings. Then in spring she’ll get childbed fever giving birth to somebody’s brat in a dirty pigsty.’

‘If we leave her a horse and a sword,’ drawled Giselher, without taking his eyes off Ciri, ‘I wouldn’t like to be the peasant who tried to injure her leg. Or tried knocking her up. Did you see the jig she danced in the inn with that Trapper, the one Mistle finished off? He was stabbing at thin air. And she was dancing like it was nothing . . . Ha, it’s true, I’m more interested in where she learnt tricks like that than in her name or family. I’d love to know—’

‘Tricks won’t save her,’ suddenly chipped in Iskra, who up until then had been busy sharpening her sword. ‘She only knows how to dance. To survive, you have to know how to kill, and she doesn’t.’

‘I think she does,’ grinned Kayleigh. ‘When she slashed that guy across the neck, the blood shot up six foot in the air . . .’

‘And she almost fainted at the sight of it,’ the elf snorted.

‘Because she’s still a child,’ interjected Mistle. ‘I think I can guess who she is and where she learnt those tricks. I’ve seen girls like her before. She’s a dancer or an acrobat from some wandering troupe.’

‘Since when have we been interested in dancers and acrobats? Dammit, it’s almost midnight and I’m getting sleepy. Enough of this idle chatter. We need a good night’s sleep, to be in New Forge by twilight. The village headman there – I don’t think you need reminding – shopped Kayleigh to the Nissirs. So the entire village ought to see the night sky glow red. And the girl? She’s got a horse, she’s got a sword. She earned both of them fairly and squarely. Let’s give her a bit of grub and a few pennies. For saving Kayleigh. And then let her go where she wants to. Let her take care of herself . . .’

‘Fine,’ said Ciri, pursing her lips and standing up. A silence fell, only interrupted by the crackling of the fire. The Rats looked at her curiously, in anticipation.

‘Fine,’ she repeated, astonished at the strange sound of her own voice. ‘I don’t need you, I didn’t ask for anything . . . And I don’t want to stay with you! I’ll leave—’

‘So you aren’t dumb,’ said Giselher sombrely. ‘Not only can you speak, you’re cocky, with it.’

‘Look at her eyes,’ snorted Iskra. ‘Look how she holds her head. She’s a raptor! A young falcon!’

‘You want to go,’ said Kayleigh. ‘Where to, if I may ask?’

‘What do you care?’ screamed Ciri, and her eyes blazed with a green light. ‘Do I ask you where you’re going? I couldn’t care less! And I don’t care about you! You’re no use to me! I can cope . . . I’ll manage! By myself!’

‘By yourself?’ repeated Mistle, smiling strangely. Ciri fell silent and lowered her head. The Rats also fell silent.

‘It’s night,’ said Giselher finally. ‘No one rides at night. And no one rides alone, girl. Anyone who’s alone is sure to die. There are blankets and furs over there, by the horses. Take what you need. Nights in the mountains are cold. Why are you goggling your green eyes at me? Prepare yourself a bed and go to sleep. You need to rest.’

After a moment of thought, she did as he said. When she returned, carrying a blanket and a fur wrap, the Rats were no longer sitting around the campfire. They were standing in a semicircle, and the red gleam of the flames was reflected in their eyes.

‘We are the Rats of the Marches,’ said Giselher proudly. ‘We can sniff out booty a mile away. We aren’t afraid of traps. And there’s nothing we can’t bite through. We’re the Rats. Come over here, girl.’

She did as she was told.

‘You don’t have anything,’ added Giselher, handing her a belt set with silver. ‘Take this at least.’

‘You don’t have anyone or anything,’ said Mistle, smiling, throwing a green, satin tunic over her shoulders and pressing an embroidered blouse into her hands.

‘You don’t have anything,’ said Kayleigh, and the gift from him was a small stiletto in a sheath sparkling with precious stones. ‘You are all alone.’

‘You don’t have anyone,’ Asse repeated after him. Ciri was given an ornamental pendant.

‘You don’t have any family,’ said Reef in his Nilfgaardian accent, handing her a pair of soft, leather gloves. ‘You don’t have any family or . . .’

‘You will always be a stranger,’ completed Iskra seemingly carelessly, placing a beret with pheasant’s feathers on Ciri’s head with a swift and unceremonious movement. ‘Always a stranger and always different. What shall we call you, young falcon?’

Ciri looked her in the eyes.

‘Gvalch’ca.’

The elf laughed.

‘When you finally start speaking, you speak in many languages, Young Falcon! Let it be then. You shall bear a name of the Elder Folk, a name you have chosen for yourself. You will be Falka.’

Falka.

She couldn’t sleep. The horses stamped and snorted in the darkness, and the wind soughed in the crowns of the fir trees. The sky sparkled with stars. The Eye, for so many days her faithful guide in the rocky desert, shone brightly. The Eye pointed west, but Ciri was no longer certain if that was the right way. She wasn’t certain of anything any longer.

She couldn’t fall asleep, although for the first time in many days she felt safe. She was no longer alone. She had made a makeshift bed of branches out of the way, some distance from the Rats, who were sleeping on the fire-warmed clay floor of the ruined shepherd’s hut. She was far from them, but felt their closeness and presence. She was not alone.

She heard some quiet steps.

‘Don’t be afraid.’

It was Kayleigh.

‘I won’t tell them Nilfgaard’s looking for you,’ whispered the fair-haired Rat, kneeling down and leaning over her. ‘I won’t tell them about the bounty the prefect of Amarillo has promised for you. You saved my life in the inn. I’ll repay you for it. With something nice. Right now.’

He lay down beside her, slowly and cautiously. Ciri tried to get up, but Kayleigh pressed her down onto her bed with a strong and firm, though not rough, movement. He placed his fingers gently on her mouth. Although he needn’t have. Ciri was paralysed with fear, and she couldn’t have uttered a cry from her tight, painfully dry throat even if she had wanted to. But she didn’t want to. The silence and darkness were better. Safer. More familiar. She was covered in terror and shame. She groaned.

‘Be quite, little one,’ whispered Kayleigh, slowly unlacing her shirt. Slowly, with gentle movements, he slid the material from her shoulders, and pulled the edge of the shirt above her hips. ‘And don’t be afraid. You’ll see how nice it is.’

Ciri shuddered beneath the touch of the dry, hard, rough hand. She lay motionless, stiff and tense, full of an overpowering fear which took her will away, and an overwhelming sense of revulsion, which assailed her temples and cheeks with waves of heat. Kayleigh slipped his left arm beneath her head, pulled her closer to him, trying to dislodge the hand which was tightly gripping the lap of her shirt and vainly trying to pull it downwards. Ciri began to shake.

She sensed a sudden commotion in the surrounding darkness, felt a shaking, and heard the sound of a kick.

‘Mistle, are you insane?’ snarled Kayleigh, lifting himself up a little.

‘Leave her alone, you swine.’

‘Get lost. Go to bed.’

‘Leave her alone, I said.’

‘Am I bothering her, or something? Is she screaming or struggling? I just want to cuddle her to sleep. Don’t interfere.’

‘Get out of here or I’ll cut you.’

Ciri heard the grinding of a knife in a metal sheath.

‘I’m serious,’ repeated Mistle, looming indistinctly in the dark above them. ‘Get lost and join the boys. Right now.’

Kayleigh sat up and swore under his breath. He stood up without a word and walked quickly away.

Ciri felt the tears running down her cheeks, quickly, quicker and quicker, creeping like wriggling worms among the hair by her ears. Mistle lay down beside her, and covered her tenderly with the fur. But she didn’t pull the dishevelled shirt down. She left it as it had been. Ciri began to shake again.

‘Be still, Falka. It’s all right now.’

Mistle was warm, and smelled of resin and smoke. Her hand was smaller than Kayleigh’s; more delicate, softer. More pleasant. But its touch stiffened Ciri once more, once more gripped her entire body with fear and revulsion, clenched her jaw and constricted her throat. Mistle lay close to her, cradling her protectively and whispering soothingly, but at the same time, her small hand relentlessly crept like a warm, little snail, calmly, confidently, decisively. Certain of its way and its destination. Ciri felt the iron pincers of revulsion and fear relaxing, releasing their hold; she felt herself slipping from their grip and sinking downwards, downwards, deep, deeper and deeper, into a warm and wet well of resignation and helpless submissiveness. A disgusting and humiliatingly pleasant submissiveness.

She moaned softly, desperately. Mistle’s breath scorched her neck. Her moist, velvet lips tickled her shoulder, her collarbone, very slowly sliding lower. Ciri moaned again.

‘Quiet, Falcon,’ whispered Mistle, gently sliding her arm under her head. ‘You won’t be alone now. Not any more.’

The next morning, Ciri arose with the dawn. She carefully slipped out from under the fur, without waking Mistle, who was sleeping with parted lips and her forearm covering her eyes. She had goose flesh on her arm. Ciri tenderly covered the girl. After a moment’s hesitation, she leaned over and kissed Mistle gently on her close-cropped hair, which stuck up like a brush. She murmured in her sleep. Ciri wiped a tear from her cheek.

She was no longer alone.

The rest of the Rats were also asleep; one of them was snoring, another farted just as loudly. Iskra lay with her arm across Giselher’s chest, her luxuriant hair in disarray. The horses snorted and stamped, and a woodpecker drummed the trunk of a pine with a short series of blows.

Ciri ran down to a stream. She spent a long time washing, trembling from the cold. She washed with violent movements of her shaking hands, trying to wash off what was no longer possible to wash off. Tears ran down her cheeks.

Falka.

The water foamed and soughed on the rocks, and flowed away into the distance; into the fog.

Everything was flowing away into the distance. Into the fog.

Everything.

They were outcasts. They were a strange, mixed bag created by war, misfortune and contempt. War, misfortune and contempt had brought them together and thrown them onto the bank, the way a river in flood throws and deposits drifting, black pieces of wood smoothed by stones onto its banks.

Kayleigh had woken up in smoke, fire and blood, in a plundered stronghold, lying among the corpses of his adoptive parents and siblings. Dragging himself across the corpse-strewn courtyard, he came across Reef. Reef was a soldier from a punitive expedition, which Emperor Emhyr var Emreis had sent to crush the rebellion in Ebbing. He was one of the soldiers who had captured and plundered the stronghold after a two-day siege. Having captured it, Reef’s comrades abandoned him, although Reef was still alive. Caring for the wounded was not a custom among the killers of the Nilfgaardian special squads.

At first, Kayleigh planned to finish Reef off. But Kayleigh didn’t want to be alone. And Reef, like Kayleigh, was only sixteen years old.

They licked their wounds together. Together they killed and robbed a tax collector, together they gorged themselves on beer in a tavern, and later, as they rode through the village on stolen horses, they scattered the rest of the stolen money all around them, laughing their heads off.

Together, they ran from the Nissirs and Nilfgaardian patrols.

Giselher had deserted from the army. It was probably the army of the lord of Gheso who had allied himself with the insurgents from Ebbing. Probably. Giselher didn’t actually know where the press gang had dragged him to. He had been dead drunk at the time. When he sobered up and received his first thrashing from the drill sergeant, he ran away. At first, he wandered around by himself, but after the Nilfgaardians crushed the insurrectionary confederation the forests were awash with other deserters and fugitives. The fugitives quickly formed up into gangs. Giselher joined one of them.

The gang ransacked and burnt down villages, attacking convoys and transports, and then dwindled away in desperate escapes from the Nilfgaardian cavalry troops. During one of those flights, the gang happened upon some forest elves in a dense forest and met with destruction; met with invisible death, hissing down on them in the form of grey arrows flying from all sides. One of the arrows penetrated Giselher’s shoulder and pinned him to a tree. The next morning, the one who pulled the arrow and dressed his wound was Aenyeweddien.

Giselher never found out why the elves had condemned Aenyeweddien to banishment, for what misdeed they had condemned her to death; since it was a death sentence for a free elf to be alone in the narrow strip of no-man’s-land dividing the free Elder Folk from the humans. The solitary elf was sure to perish should she fail to find a companion.

Aenyeweddien found a companion. Her name, meaning ‘Child of the Fire’ in loose translation, was too difficult and too poetic for Giselher. He called her Iskra.

Mistle came from a wealthy, noble family from the city of Thurn in North Maecht. Her father, a vassal of Duke Rudiger, joined the insurrectionary army, was defeated and vanished without trace. When the people of Thurn were escaping from the city at the news of an approaching punitive expedition by the notorious Pacifiers of Gemmera, Mistle’s family also fled, but Mistle got lost in the panic-stricken crowd. The elegantly dressed and delicate maiden, who had been carried in a sedan chair from early childhood, was unable to keep pace with the fugitives. After three days of solitary wandering, she fell into the hands of the manhunters who were following the Nilfgaardians. Girls younger than seventeen were in demand. As long as they were untouched. The manhunters didn’t touch Mistle, not once they’d checked she really was untouched. Mistle spent the entire night following the examination sobbing.

In the valley of the River Velda, the caravan of manhunters was routed and massacred by a gang of Nilfgaardian marauders. All the manhunters and male captives were killed. Only the girls were spared. The girls didn’t know why they had been spared. Their ignorance did not last long.

Mistle was the only one to survive. She was pulled out of the ditch where she had been thrown naked, covered in bruises, filth, mud and congealed blood, by Asse, the son of the village blacksmith, who had been hunting the Nilfgaardians for three days, insane with the desire for revenge for what the marauders had done to his father, mother and sisters, which he’d had to watch, hidden in a hemp field.

They all met one day during the celebrations of Lammas, the Festival of the Harvest, in one of the villages in Gheso. At the time, war and misery had not especially afflicted the lands on the upper Velda – the villages were celebrating the beginning of the Month of the Sickle traditionally, with a noisy party and dance.

They didn’t take long to find each other in the merry crowd. Too much distinguished them. They had too much in common. They were united by their love of gaudy, colourful, fanciful outfits, of stolen trinkets, beautiful horses, and of swords – which they didn’t even unfasten when they danced. They stood out because of their arrogance and conceit, overconfidence, mocking truculence and impetuousness.

And their contempt.

They were children of the time of contempt. And they had nothing but contempt for others. For them, only force mattered. Skill at wielding weapons, which they quickly acquired on the high roads. Resoluteness. Swift horses and sharp swords.

And companions. Comrades. Mates. Because the one who is alone will perish; from hunger, from the sword, from the arrow, from makeshift peasant clubs, from the noose, or in flames. The one who is alone will perish; stabbed, beaten or kicked to death, defiled, like a toy passed from hand to hand.

They met at the Festival of the Harvest. Grim, black-haired, lanky Giselher. Thin, long-haired Kayleigh, with his malevolent eyes and mouth set in a hateful grimace. Reef, who still spoke with a Nilfgaardian accent. Tall, long-legged Mistle, with cropped, straw-coloured hair sticking up like a brush. Big-eyed and colourful Iskra, lithe and ethereal in the dance, quick and lethal in a fight, with her narrow lips and small, elven teeth. Broad-shouldered Asse with fair, curly down on his chin.

Giselher became the leader. And they christened themselves the Rats. Someone had called them that and they took a liking to it.

They plundered and murdered, and their cruelty became legendary.

At first the Nilfgaardian prefects ignored them. They were certain that – following the example of other gangs – they would quickly fall victim to the massed ranks of furious peasantry, or that they would destroy or massacre each other themselves when the quantity of loot they collected would make cupidity triumph over criminal solidarity. The prefects were right with respect to other gangs, but were mistaken when it came to the Rats. Because the Rats, the children of contempt, scorned spoils. They attacked, robbed and killed for entertainment, and they handed out the horses, cattle, grain, forage, salt, wood tar and cloth stolen from military transports in the villages. They paid tailors and craftsmen handfuls of gold and silver for the things they loved most of all: weapons, costumes and ornaments. The recipients fed and watered them, put them up and hid them. Even when whipped raw by the Nilfgaardians and Nissirs, they did not betray the Rats’ hideouts or favoured routes.

The prefects offered a generous reward; and at the beginning, there were people who were tempted by Nilfgaardian gold. But at night, the informers’ cottages were set on fire, and the people escaping from the inferno died on the glittering blades of the spectral riders circling in the smoke. The Rats attacked like rats. Quietly, treacherously, cruelly. The Rats adored killing.

The prefects used methods which had been tried and tested against other gangs; several times they tried to install a traitor among the Rats. Unsuccessfully. The Rats didn’t accept anyone. The close-knit and loyal group of six created by the time of contempt didn’t want strangers. They despised them.

Until the day a pale-haired, taciturn girl, as agile as an acrobat, appeared. A girl about whom the Rats knew nothing.

Aside from the fact that she was as they had once been; like each one of them. Lonely and full of bitterness, bitterness for what the time of contempt had taken from her.

And in times of contempt anyone who is alone must perish.

Giselher, Kayleigh, Reef, Iskra, Mistle, Asse and Falka. The prefect of Amarillo was inordinately astonished when he learnt that the Rats were now operating as a gang of seven.

‘Seven?’ said the prefect of Amarillo in astonishment, looking at the soldier in disbelief. ‘There were seven of them, not six? Are you certain?’

‘May I live and breathe,’ muttered the only soldier to escape the massacre in one piece.

His wish was quite apt; his head and half of his face were swathed in dirty, bloodstained bandages. The prefect, who was no stranger to combat, knew that the sword had struck the soldier from above and from the left – with the very tip of the blade. An accurate blow, precise, demanding expertise and speed, aimed at the right ear and cheek; a place unprotected by either helmet or gorget.

‘Speak.’

‘We were marching along the bank of the Velda towards Thurn,’ the soldier began. ‘We had orders to escort one of Chamberlain Evertsen’s transports heading south. They attacked us by a ruined bridge, as we were crossing the river. One wagon got bogged down, so we unharnessed the horses from another to haul it out. The rest of the convoy went on and I stayed behind with five men and the bailiff. That’s when they jumped us. The bailiff, before they killed him, managed to shout that it was the Rats, and then they were on top of us . . . And put paid to every last man. When I saw what was happening . . .’

‘When you saw what was happening,’ scowled the prefect, ‘you spurred on your horse. But too late to save your skin.’

‘That seventh one caught up with me,’ said the soldier, lowering his head. ‘That seventh one, who I hadn’t seen at the beginning. A young girl. Not much more than a kid. I thought the Rats had left her at the back because she was young and inexperienced . . .’

The prefect’s guest slipped out of the shadow from where he had been sitting.

‘It was a girl?’ he asked. ‘What did she look like?’

‘Just like all the others. Painted and done up like a she-elf, colourful as a parrot, dressed up in baubles, in velvet and brocade, in a hat with feathers—’

‘Fair-haired?’

‘I think so, sir. When I saw her, I rode hard, thinking I’d at least bring one down to avenge my companions; that I’d repay blood with blood . . . I stole up on her from the right, to make striking easier . . . How she did it, I don’t know. But I missed her. As if I was striking an apparition or a wraith . . . I don’t know how that she-devil did it. I had my guard up but she struck through it. Right in the kisser . . . Sire, I was at Sodden, I was at Aldersberg. And now I’ve got a souvenir for the rest of my life from a tarted-up wench . . .’

‘Be thankful you’re alive,’ grunted the prefect, looking at his guest. ‘And be thankful you weren’t found carved up by the river crossing. Now you can play the hero. Had you’d legged it without putting up a fight, had you reported the loss of the cargo without that souvenir, you’d soon be hanging from a noose and clicking your heels together! Very well. Dismissed. To the field hospital.’

The soldier left. The prefect turned towards his guest.

‘You see for yourself, Honourable Sir Coroner, that military service isn’t easy here. There’s no rest; our hands are full. You there, in the capital, think all we do in the province is fool around, swill beer, grope wenches and take bribes. No one thinks about sending a few more men or a few more pennies, they just send orders: give us this, do that, find that, get everyone on their feet, dash around from dawn to dusk . . . While my head’s splitting from my own troubles. Five or six gangs like the Rats operate around here. True, the Rats are the worst, but not a day goes by—’

‘Enough, enough,’ said Stefan Skellen, pursing his lips. ‘I know what your bellyaching is meant to achieve, Prefect. But you’re wasting your time. No one will release you from your orders. Don’t count on it. Rats or no Rats, gangs or no gangs, you are to continue with the search. Using all available means, until further notice. That is an imperial order.’

‘We’ve been looking for three weeks,’ the prefect said with a grimace. ‘Without really knowing who or what we’re looking for: an apparition, a ghost or a needle in a haystack. And what’s the result? Only that a few men have disappeared without trace, no doubt killed by rebels or brigands. I tell you once more, coroner, if we’ve not found your girl yet, we’ll never find her. Even if someone like her were around here, which I doubt. Unless—’

The prefect broke off and pondered, scowling at the coroner.

‘That wench . . . That seventh one riding with the Rats . . .’

Tawny Owl waved a hand dismissively, trying to make his gesture and facial expression appear convincing.

‘No, Prefect. Don’t expect easy solutions. A decked out half-elf or some other female bandit in brocade is certainly not the girl we’re looking for. It definitely isn’t her. Continue the search. That’s an order.’

The prefect became sullen and looked through the window.

‘And about that gang,’ added Stefan Skellen, the Coroner of Imperator Emhyr, sometimes known as Tawny Owl, in a seemingly indifferent voice, ‘about those Rats, or whatever they’re called . . . Take them to task, Prefect. Order must prevail in the Province. Get to work. Catch them and hang them, without ceremony or fuss. All of them.’

‘That’s easy to say,’ muttered the prefect. ‘But I shall do everything in my power to, please assure the imperator of that. I think, nonetheless, that it would be worth taking that seventh girl with the Rats alive just to be sure—’

‘No,’ interrupted Tawny Owl, making sure not to let his voice betray him. ‘Without exception, hang them all. All seven of them. We don’t want to hear any more about them. Not another word.’

Endnotes

1. The Scoia'tael – commonly known as the Squirrels – are nonhuman guerrillas. Predominantly elves, their ranks also include halflings and dwarves, and they are so named due to their habit of attaching squirrel tails to their caps or clothing. Allied with Nilfgaard, motivated by the racism of men, they fight all humans in the Northern Kingdoms.

2. The lower part of Lydia van Bredevoort’s face, as seen in society and her portraits, was actually an illusion. Experiments on a mysterious artefact had left her with burns, and throat and larynx mutations.

Baptism of Fire

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

Then the soothsayer spake thus to the witcher: ‘This counsel I shall give you: don hobnailed boots and take an iron staff. Walk in your hobnailed boots to the end of the world, tap the road in front of you with the staff, and let your tears fall. Go through fire and water, do not stop, do not look back. And when your boots are worn out, when your iron staff is worn down, when the wind and the sun have dried your eyes such that not a single tear will fall from them, then you will find what you are searching for, what you love, at the end of the world. Perhaps.’

And the witcher walked through fire and water, never looking back. But he took neither hobnailed boots nor a staff. He took only his witcher’s sword. He obeyed not the words of the soothsayer. And rightly so, for she was wicked.

Flourens Delannoy, Tales and Legends

CHAPTER ONE

Birds were chirping loudly in the undergrowth.

The slopes of the ravine were overgrown with a dense, tangled mass of brambles and barberry; a perfect place for nesting and feeding. Not surprisingly, it was teeming with birds. Greenfinches trilled loudly, redpolls and whitethroats twittered, and chaffinches gave out ringing ‘vink-vink’s every now and then. The chaffinch’s call signals rain, thought Milva, glancing up at the sky. There were no clouds. But chaffinches always warn of the rain. We could do with a little rain.

Such a spot, opposite the mouth of a ravine, was a good place for a hunter, giving a decent chance of a kill – particularly here in Brokilon Forest, which was abundant with game. The dryads, who controlled extensive tracts of the forest, rarely hunted and humans dared to venture into it even less often. Here, a hunter greedy for meat or pelts became the quarry himself. The Brokilon dryads showed no mercy to intruders. Milva had once discovered that for herself.

No, Brokilon was not short of game. Nonetheless, Milva had been waiting in the undergrowth for more than two hours and nothing had crossed her line of sight. She couldn’t hunt on the move; the drought which had lasted for more than a month had lined the forest floor with dry brush and leaves, which rustled and crackled at every step. In conditions like these, only standing still and unseen would lead to success, and a prize.

An admiral butterfly alighted on the nock of her bow. Milva didn’t shoo it away, but watched it closing and opening its wings. She also looked at her bow, a recent acquisition which she still wasn’t tired of admiring. She was a born archer and loved a good weapon. And she was holding the best of the best.

Milva had owned many bows in her life. She had learned to shoot using ordinary ash and yew bows, but soon gave them up for composite reflex bows, of the type elves and dryads used. Elven bows were shorter, lighter and more manageable and, owing to the laminated composition of wood and animal sinew, much ‘quicker’ than yew bows. An arrow shot with them reached the target much more swiftly and along a flatter arc, which considerably reduced the possibility of its being blown off course. The best examples of such weapons, bent fourfold, bore the elven name of zefhar, since the bow’s shape formed that rune. Milva had used zefhars for several years and couldn’t imagine a bow capable of outclassing them.

But she had finally come across one. It was, of course, at the Seaside Bazaar in Cidaris, which was renowned for its diverse selection of strange and rare goods brought by sailors from the most distant corners of the world; from anywhere a frigate or galleon could reach. Whenever she could, Milva would visit the bazaar and look at the foreign bows. It was there she bought the bow she’d thought would serve her for many years. She had thought the zefhar from Zerrikania, reinforced with polished antelope horn, was perfect. For just a year. Twelve months later, at the same market stall, owned by the same trader, she had found another rare beauty.

The bow came from the Far North. It measured just over five feet, was made of mahogany, had a perfectly balanced riser and flat, laminated limbs, glued together from alternating layers of fine wood, boiled sinew and whalebone. It differed from the other composite bows in its construction and also in its price; which is what had initially caught Milva’s attention. When, however, she picked up the bow and flexed it, she paid the price the trader was asking without hesitation or haggling. Four hundred Novigrad crowns. Naturally, she didn’t have such a titanic sum on her; instead she had given up her Zerrikanian zefhar, a bunch of sable pelts, a small, exquisite elven-made medallion, and a coral cameo pendant on a string of river pearls.

But she didn’t regret it. Not ever. The bow was incredibly light and, quite simply, perfectly accurate. Although it wasn’t long it had an impressive kick to its laminated wood and sinew limbs. Equipped with a silk and hemp bowstring stretched between its precisely curved limbs, it generated fifty-five pounds of force from a twenty-four-inch draw. True enough, there were bows that could generate eighty, but Milva considered that excessive. An arrow shot from her whalebone fifty-fiver covered a distance of two hundred feet in two heartbeats, and at a hundred paces still had enough force to impale a stag, while it would pass right through an unarmoured human. Milva rarely hunted animals larger than red deer or heavily armoured men.

The butterfly flew away. The chaffinches continued to make a racket in the undergrowth. And still nothing crossed her line of sight. Milva leant against the trunk of a pine and began to think back. Simply to kill time.

Her first encounter with the Witcher had taken place in July, two weeks after the events on the Isle of Thanedd and the outbreak of war in Dol Angra. Milva had returned to Brokilon after a fortnight’s absence; she was leading the remains of a Scoia’tael commando defeated in Temeria during an attempt to make their way into war-torn Aedirn. The Squirrels had wanted to join the uprising incited by the elves in Dol Blathanna. They had failed, and would have perished had it not been for Milva. But they’d found her, and refuge in Brokilon.

Immediately on her arrival, she had been informed that Aglaïs needed her urgently in Col Serrai. Milva had been a little taken aback. Aglaïs was the leader of the Brokilon healers, and the deep valley of Col Serrai, with its hot springs and caves, was where healings usually took place.

She responded to the call, convinced it concerned some elf who had been healed and needed her help to re-establish contact with his commando. But when she saw the wounded witcher and learned what it was about, she was absolutely furious. She ran from the cave with her hair streaming behind her and offloaded all her anger on Aglaïs.

‘He saw me! He saw my face! Do you understand what danger that puts me in?’

‘No, no I don’t understand,’ replied the healer coldly. ‘That is Gwynbleidd, the Witcher, a friend of Brokilon. He has been here for a fortnight, since the new moon. And more time will pass before he will be able to get up and walk normally. He craves tidings from the world; news about those close to him. Only you can supply him with that.’

‘Tidings from the world? Have you lost your mind, dryad? Do you know what is happening in the world now, beyond the borders of your tranquil forest? A war is raging in Aedirn! Brugge, Temeria and Redania are reduced to havoc, hell, and much slaughter! Those who instigated the rebellion on Thanedd are being hunted high and low! There are spies and an’givare – informers – everywhere; it’s sometimes sufficient to let slip a single word, make a face at the wrong moment, and you’ll meet the hangman’s red-hot iron in the dungeon! And you want me to creep around spying, asking questions, gathering information? Risking my neck? And for whom? For some half-dead witcher? And who is he to me? My own flesh and blood? You’ve truly taken leave of your senses, Aglaïs.’

‘If you’re going to shout,’ interrupted the dryad calmly, ‘let’s go deeper into the forest. He needs peace and quiet.’

Despite herself, Milva looked over at the cave where she had seen the wounded witcher a moment earlier. A strapping lad, she had thought, thin, yet sinewy . . . His hair’s white, but his belly’s as flat as a young man’s; hard times have been his companion, not lard and beer . . .

‘He was on Thanedd,’ she stated; she didn’t ask. ‘He’s a rebel.’

‘I know not,’ said Aglaïs, shrugging. ‘He’s wounded. He needs help. I’m not interested in the rest.’

Milva was annoyed. The healer was known for her taciturnity. But Milva had already heard excited accounts from dryads in the eastern marches of Brokilon; she already knew the details of the events that had occurred a fortnight earlier. About the chestnut-haired sorceress who had appeared in Brokilon in a burst of magic; about the cripple with a broken arm and leg she had been dragging with her. A cripple who had turned out to be the Witcher, known to the dryads as Gwynbleidd: the White Wolf.

At first, according to the dryads, no one had known what steps to take. The mutilated witcher screamed and fainted by turns, Aglaïs had applied makeshift dressings, the sorceress cursed and wept. Milva did not believe that at all: who has ever seen a sorceress weep? And later the order came from Duén Canell, from the silver-eyed Eithné, the Lady of Brokilon. Send the sorceress away, said the ruler of the Forest of the Dryads. And tend to the Witcher.

And so they did. Milva had seen as much. He was lying in a cave, in a hollow full of water from the magical Brokilon springs. His limbs, which had been held in place using splints and put in traction, were swathed in a thick layer of the healing climbing plant – conynhaela – and turfs of knitbone. His hair was as white as milk. Unusually, he was conscious: anyone being treated with conynhaela normally lay lifeless and raving as the magic spoke through them . . .

‘Well?’ the healer’s emotionless voice tore her from her reverie. ‘What is it going to be? What am I to tell him?’

‘To go to hell,’ snapped Milva, lifting her belt, from which hung a heavy purse and a hunting knife. ‘And you can go to hell, too, Aglaïs.’

‘As you wish. I shall not compel you.’

‘You are right. You will not.’

She went into the forest, among the sparse pines, and didn’t look back. She was angry.

Milva knew about the events which had taken place during the first July new moon on the Isle of Thanedd; the Scoia’tael talked about it endlessly. There had been a rebellion during the Mages’ Conclave on the island. Blood had been spilt and heads had rolled. And, as if on a signal, the armies of Nilfgaard had attacked Aedirn and Lyria and the war had begun. And in Temeria, Redania and Kaedwen it was all blamed on the Squirrels. For one thing, because a commando of Scoia’tael had supposedly come to the aid of the rebellious mages on Thanedd. For another, because an elf or possibly half-elf had supposedly stabbed and killed Vizimir, King of Redania. So the furious humans had gone after the Squirrels with a vengeance. The fighting was raging everywhere and elven blood was flowing in rivers . . .

Ha, thought Milva, perhaps what the priests are saying is true after all and the end of the world and the day of judgement are close at hand? The world is in flames, humans are preying not only on elves but on other humans too. Brothers are raising knives against brothers . . . And the Witcher is meddling in politics . . . and joining the rebellion. The Witcher, who is meant to roam the world and kill monsters eager to harm humans! No witcher, for as long as anyone can remember, has ever allowed himself to be drawn into politics or war. Why, there’s even the tale about a foolish king who carried water in a sieve, took a hare as a messenger, and appointed a witcher as a palatine. And yet here we have the Witcher, carved up in a rebellion against the kings and forced to escape punishment in Brokilon. Perhaps it truly is the end of the world!

‘Greetings, Maria.’

She started. The short dryad leaning against a pine had eyes and hair the colour of silver. The setting sun gave her head a halo against the background of the motley wall of trees. Milva dropped to one knee and bowed low.

‘My greetings to you, Lady Eithné.’

The ruler of Brokilon stuck a small, crescent-shaped, golden knife into a bast girdle.

‘Arise,’ she said. ‘Let us take a walk. I wish to talk with you.’

They walked for a long time through the shadowy forest; the delicate, silver-haired dryad and the tall, flaxen-haired girl. Neither of them broke the silence for some time.

‘It is long since you were at Duén Canell, Maria.’

‘There was no time, Lady Eithné. It is a long road to Duén Canell from the River Ribbon, and I . . . But of course you know.’

‘That I do. Are you weary?’

‘The elves need my help. I’m helping them on your orders, after all.’

‘At my request.’

‘Indeed. At your request.’

‘And I have one more.’

‘As I thought. The Witcher?’

‘Help him.’

Milva stopped and turned back, breaking an overhanging twig of honeysuckle with a sharp movement, turning it over in her fingers before flinging it to the ground.

‘For half a year,’ she said softly, looking into the dryad’s silvery eyes, ‘I have risked my life guiding elves from their decimated commandos to Brokilon . . . When they are rested and their wounds healed, I lead them out again . . . Is that so little? Haven’t I done enough? Every new moon, I set out on the trail in the dark of the night. I’ve begun to fear the sun as much as a bat or an owl does . . .’

‘No one knows the forest trails better than you.’

‘I will not learn anything in the greenwood. I hear that the Witcher wants me to gather news, by moving among humans. He’s a rebel, the ears of the an’givare prick up at the sound of his name. I must be careful not to show myself in the cities. And what if someone recognises me? The memories still endure, the blood is not yet dry . . . for there was a lot of blood, Lady Eithné.’

‘A great deal.’ The silver eyes of the old dryad were alien, cold; inscrutable. ‘A great deal, indeed.’

‘Were they to recognise me, they would impale me.’

‘You are prudent. You are cautious and vigilant.’

‘In order to gather the tidings the Witcher requests, it is necessary to shed vigilance. It is necessary to ask. And now it is dangerous to demonstrate curiosity. Were they to capture me—’

‘You have contacts.’

‘They would torture me. Until I died. Or grind me down in Drakenborg—’

‘But you are indebted to me.’

Milva turned her head away and bit her lip.

‘It’s true, I am,’ she said bitterly. ‘I have not forgotten.’

She narrowed her eyes, her face suddenly contorted, and she clenched her teeth tightly. The memory shone faintly beneath her eyelids; the ghastly moonlight of that night. The pain in her ankle suddenly returned, held tight by the leather snare, and the pain in her joints, after they had been cruelly wrenched. She heard again the soughing of leaves as the tree shot suddenly upright . . . Her screaming, moaning; the desperate, frantic, horrified struggle and the invasive sense of fear which flowed over her when she realised she couldn’t free herself . . . The cry and fear, the creak of the rope, the rippling shadows; the swinging, unnatural, upturned earth, upturned sky, trees with upturned tops, pain, blood pounding in her temples . . .

And at dawn the dryads, all around her, in a ring . . . The distant silvery laughter . . . A puppet on a string! Swing, swing, marionette, little head hanging down . . . And her own, unnatural, wheezing cry. And then darkness.

‘Indeed, I have a debt,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Indeed, for I was a hanged man cut from the noose. As long as I live, I see, I shall never pay off that debt.’

‘Everyone has some kind of debt,’ replied Eithné. ‘Such is life, Maria Barring. Debts and liabilities, obligations, gratitude, payments . . . Doing something for someone. Or perhaps for ourselves? For in fact we are always paying ourselves back and not someone else. Each time we are indebted we pay off the debt to ourselves. In each of us lies a creditor and a debtor at once and the art is for the reckoning to tally inside us. We enter the world as a minute part of the life we are given, and from then on we are ever paying off debts. To ourselves. For ourselves. In order for the final reckoning to tally.’

‘Is this human dear to your, Lady Eithné? That . . . that witcher?’

‘He is. Although he knows not of it. Return to Col Serrai, Maria Barring. Go to him. And do what he asks of you.’

In the valley, the brushwood crunched and a twig snapped. A magpie gave a noisy, angry ‘chacker-chacker’, and some chaffinches took flight, flashing their white wing bars and tail feathers. Milva held her breath. At last.

Chacker-chacker, called the magpie. Chacker-chacker-chacker. Another twig cracked.

Milva adjusted the worn, polished leather guard on her left forearm, and placed her hand through the loop attached to her gear. She took an arrow from the flat quiver on her thigh. Out of habit, she checked the arrowhead and the fletchings. She bought shafts at the market – choosing on average one out of every dozen offered to her – but she always fletched them herself. Most ready-made arrows in circulation had too-short fletchings arranged straight along the shaft, while Milva only used spirally fletched arrows, with the fletchings never shorter than five inches.

She nocked the arrow and stared at the mouth of the ravine, at a green spot of barberry among the trees, heavy with bunches of red berries.

The chaffinches had not flown far and began their trilling again. Come on, little one, thought Milva, raising the bow and drawing the bowstring. Come on. I’m ready.

But the roe deer headed along the ravine, towards the marsh and springs which fed the small streams flowing into the Ribbon. A young buck came out of the ravine. A fine specimen, weighing in – she estimated – at almost four stone. He lifted his head, pricked up his ears, and then turned back towards the bushes, nibbling leaves.

With his back toward her, he was an easy victim. Had it not been for a tree trunk obscuring part of the target, Milva would have fired without a second thought. Even if she were to hit him in the belly, the arrow would penetrate and pierce the heart, liver or lungs. Were she to hit him in the haunch, she would destroy an artery, and the animal would be sure to fall in a short time. She waited, without releasing the bowstring.

The buck raised his head again, stepped out from behind the trunk and abruptly turned round a little. Milva, holding the bow at full draw, cursed under her breath. A shot face-on was uncertain; instead of hitting the lung, the arrowhead might enter the stomach. She waited, holding her breath, aware of the salty taste of the bowstring against the corner of her mouth. That was one of the most important, quite invaluable, advantages of her bow; were she to use a heavier or inferior weapon, she would never be able to hold it fully drawn for so long without tiring or losing precision with the shot.

Fortunately, the buck lowered his head, nibbled on some grass protruding from the moss and turned to stand sideways. Milva exhaled calmly, took aim at his chest and gently released her fingers from the bowstring.

She didn’t hear the expected crunch of ribs being broken by the arrow, however. For the buck leapt upwards, kicked and fled, accompanied by the crackling of dry branches and the rustle of leaves being shoved aside.

Milva stood motionless for several heartbeats, petrified like a marble statue of a forest goddess. Only when all the noises had subsided did she lift her hand from her cheek and lower the bow. Having made a mental note of the route the animal had taken as it fled, she sat down calmly, resting her back against a tree trunk. She was an experienced hunter, she had poached in the lord’s forests from a child. She had brought down her first roe deer at the age of eleven, and her first fourteen-point buck on the day of her fourteenth birthday – an exceptionally favourable augury. And experience had taught that one should never rush after a shot animal. If she had aimed well, the buck would fall no further than two hundred paces from the mouth of the ravine. Should she have been off target – a possibility she actually didn’t contemplate – hurrying might only make things worse. A badly injured animal, which wasn’t agitated, would slow to a walk after its initial panicked flight. A frightened animal being pursued would race away at breakneck speed and would only slow down once it was over the hills and far away.

So she had at least half an hour. She plucked a blade of grass, stuck it between her teeth and drifted off in thought once again. The memories came back.

When she returned to Brokilon twelve days later, the Witcher was already up and about. He was limping somewhat and slightly dragging one hip, but he was walking. Milva was not surprised – she knew of the miraculous healing properties of the forest water and the herb conynhaela. She also knew Aglaïs’s abilities and on several occasions had witnessed the astonishingly quick return to health of wounded dryads. And the rumours about the exceptional resistance and endurance of witchers were also clearly no mere myths either.

She did not go to Col Serrai immediately on her arrival, although the dryads hinted that Gwynbleidd had been impatiently awaiting her return. She delayed intentionally, still unhappy with her mission and wanting to make her feelings clear. She escorted the Squirrels back to their camp. She gave a lengthy account of the incidents on the road and warned the dryads about the plans to seal the border on the Ribbon by humans. Only when she was rebuked for the third time did Milva bathe, change and go to the Witcher.

He was waiting for her at the edge of a glade by some cedars. He was walking up and down, squatting from time to time and then straightening up with a spring. Aglaïs had clearly ordered him to exercise.

‘What news?’ he asked immediately after greeting her. The coldness in his voice didn’t deceive her.

‘The war seems to be coming to an end,’ she answered, shrugging. ‘Nilfgaard, they say, has crushed Lyria and Aedirn. Verden has surrendered and the King of Temeria has struck a deal with the Nilfgaardian emperor. The elves in the Valley of Flowers have established their own kingdom but the Scoia’tael from Temeria and Redania have not joined them. They are still fighting . . .’

‘That isn’t what I meant.’

‘No?’ she said, feigning surprise. ‘Oh, I see. Well, I stopped in Dorian, as you asked, though it meant going considerably out of my way. And the highways are so dangerous now . . .’

She broke off, stretching. This time he didn’t hurry her.

‘Was Codringher,’ she finally asked, ‘whom you asked me to visit, a close friend of yours?’

The Witcher’s face did not twitch, but Milva knew he understood at once.

‘No. He wasn’t.’

‘That’s good,’ she continued easily. ‘Because he’s no longer with us. He went up in flames along with his chambers; probably only the chimney and half of the façade survived. The whole of Dorian is abuzz with rumours. Some say Codringher was dabbling in black magic and concocting poisons; that he had a pact with the devil, so the devil’s fire consumed him. Others say he’d stuck his nose and his fingers into a crack he shouldn’t have, as was his custom. And it wasn’t to somebody’s liking, so they bumped him off and set everything alight, to cover their tracks. What do you think?’

She didn’t receive a reply, or detect any emotion on his ashen face. So she continued, in the same venomous, arrogant tone of voice.

‘It’s interesting that the fire and Codringher’s death occurred during the first July new moon, exactly when the unrest on the Isle of Thanedd was taking place. As if someone had guessed that Codringher knew something about the disturbances and would be asked for details. As if someone wanted to stop his trap up good and proper in advance, strike him dumb. What do you say to that? Ah, I see you won’t say anything. You’re keeping quiet, so I’ll tell you this: your activities are dangerous, and so is your spying and questioning. Perhaps someone will want to shut other traps and ears than Codringher’s. That’s what I think.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said a moment later. ‘You’re right. I put you at risk. It was too dangerous a task for a—’

‘For a woman, you mean?’ she said, jerking her head back, flicking her still wet hair from her shoulder with a sudden movement. ‘Is that what you were going to say? Are you playing the gentleman all of a sudden? I may have to squat to piss, but my coat is lined with wolf skin, not coney fur! Don’t call me a coward, because you don’t know me!’

‘I do,’ he said in a calm, quiet voice, not reacting to her anger or raised voice. ‘You are Milva. You lead Squirrels to safety in Brokilon, avoiding capture. Your courage is known to me. But I recklessly and selfishly put you at risk—’

‘You’re a fool!’ she interrupted sharply. ‘Worry about yourself, not about me. Worry about that young girl!’

She smiled disdainfully. Because this time his face did change. She fell silent deliberately, waiting for further questions.

‘What do you know?’ he finally asked. ‘And from whom?’

‘You had your Codringher,’ she snorted, lifting her head proudly. ‘And I have my own contacts. The kind with sharp eyes and ears.’

‘Tell me, Milva. Please.’

‘After the fighting on Thanedd,’ she began, after waiting a moment, ‘unrest erupted everywhere. The hunt for traitors began, particularly for any sorcerers who supported Nilfgaard and for the other turncoats. Some were captured, others vanished without trace. You don’t need much nous to guess where they fled to and under whose wings they’re hiding. But it wasn’t just sorcerers and traitors who were hunted. A Squirrel commando led by the famous Faoiltiarna also helped the mutinous sorcerers in the rebellion on Thanedd. So now he’s wanted. An order has been issued that every elf captured should be tortured and interrogated about Faoiltiarna’s commando.’

‘Who’s Faoiltiarna?’

‘An elf, one of the Scoia’tael. Few have got under the humans’ skin the way he has. There’s a hefty bounty on his head. But they’re seeking another too. A Nilfgaardian knight who was on Thanedd. And also for a . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘The an’givare are asking about a witcher who goes by the name of Geralt of Rivia. And about a girl named Cirilla. Those two are to be captured alive. It was ordered on pain of death: if either of you is caught, not a hair on your heads is to be harmed, not a button may be torn from her dress. Oh! You must be dear to their hearts for them to care so much about your health . . .’

She broke off, seeing the expression on his face, from which his unnatural composure had abruptly disappeared. She realised that however hard she tried, she was unable to make him afraid. At least not for his own skin. She unexpectedly felt ashamed.

‘Well, that pursuit of theirs is futile,’ she said gently, with just a faintly mocking smile on her lips. ‘You are safe in Brokilon. And they won’t catch the girl alive either. When they searched through the rubble on Thanedd, all the debris from that magical tower which collapsed— Hey, what’s wrong with you?’

The Witcher staggered, leant against a cedar, and sat down heavily near the trunk. Milva leapt back, horrified by the pallor which his already whitened face had suddenly taken on.

‘Aglaïs! Sirssa! Fauve! Come quickly! Damn, I think he’s about to keel over! Hey, you!’

‘Don’t call them . . . There’s nothing wrong with me. Speak. I want to know . . .’

Milva suddenly understood.

‘They found nothing in the debris!’ she cried, feeling herself go pale too. ‘Nothing! Although they examined every stone and cast spells, they didn’t find . . .’

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and held back with a gesture the dryads running towards them. She seized the Witcher by his shoulders and leant over him so that her long hair tumbled over his pale face.

‘You misunderstood me,’ she said quickly, incoherently; it was difficult to find the right words among the mass which were trying to tumble out. ‘I only meant— You understood me wrongly. Because I . . . How was I to know she is so . . . No . . . I didn’t mean to. I only wanted to say that the girl . . . That they won’t find her, because she disappeared without a trace, like those mages. Forgive me.’

He didn’t answer. He looked away. Milva bit her lip and clenched her fists.

‘I’m leaving Brokilon again in three days,’ she said gently after a long, very long, silence. ‘The moon must wane a little and the nights become a little darker. I shall return within ten days, perhaps sooner. Shortly after Lammas, in the first days of August. Worry not. I shall move earth and water, but I shall find out everything. If anyone knows anything about that maiden, you’ll know it too.’

‘Thank you, Milva.’

‘I’ll see you in ten days . . . Gwynbleidd.’

‘Call me Geralt,’ he said, holding out a hand. She took it without a second thought. And squeezed it very hard.

‘And I’m Maria Barring.’

A nod of the head and the flicker of a smile thanked her for her sincerity. She knew he appreciated it.

‘Be careful, please. When you ask questions, be careful who you ask.’

‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘Your informers . . . Do you trust them?’

‘I don’t trust anyone.’

‘The Witcher is in Brokilon. Among the dryads.’

‘As I thought,’ Dijkstra said, folding his arms on his chest. ‘But I’m glad it’s been confirmed.’

He remained silent for a moment. Lennep licked his lips. And waited.

‘I’m glad it’s been confirmed,’ repeated the head of the secret service of the Kingdom of Redania, pensively, as though he were talking to himself. ‘It’s always better to be certain. If only Yennefer were with him . . . There isn’t a witch with him, is there, Lennep?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ the spy started. ‘No, Your Lordship. There isn’t. What are your orders? If you want him alive, I’ll lure him out of Brokilon. But if you’d prefer him dead . . .’

‘Lennep,’ said Dijkstra, raising his cold, pale blue eyes towards the agent. ‘Don’t be overzealous. In our trade, officiousness never pays and should always be viewed with suspicion.’

‘Sire,’ said Lennep, blanching somewhat. ‘I only—’

‘I know. You only asked about my orders. Well, here they are: leave the Witcher alone.’

‘Yes, sire. And what about Milva?’

‘Leave her alone, too. For now.’

‘Yes, sire. May I go?’

‘You may.’

The agent left, cautiously and silently closing the oak door behind him. Dijkstra remained silent for a long time, staring at the towering pile of maps, letters, denunciations, interrogation reports and death sentences in front of him.

‘Ori.’

The secretary raised his head and cleared his throat. He said nothing.

‘The Witcher is in Brokilon.’

Ori Reuven cleared his throat again, involuntarily glancing under the table, towards his boss’s leg. Dijkstra noticed the look.

‘That’s right. I won’t let him get away with that,’ he barked. ‘I couldn’t walk for two weeks because of him. I lost face with Philippa, forced to whimper like a dog and beg her for a bloody spell, otherwise I’d still be hobbling. I can’t blame anyone but myself; I underestimated him. But the worst thing is that I can’t get my own back and tan his witcher’s hide! I don’t have the time, and anyway, I can’t use my own men to settle private scores! That’s right isn’t it, Ori?’

‘Ahem . . .’

‘Don’t grunt at me. I know. But, hell, power tempts! How it beguiles, invites to be made use of! How easy it is to forget, when one has it! But if you forget once, there’s no end to it . . . Is Philippa Eilhart still in Montecalvo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take a quill and an inkwell. I’ll dictate a letter to her. I shall begin . . . Damn it, I can’t concentrate. What’s that bloody racket, Ori? What’s happening in the square?’

‘Some students are throwing stones at the Nilfgaardian envoy’s residence. We paid them to do so, hem, hem, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Oh. Very well. Close the window. And have the lads throw stones at the dwarf Giancardi’s bank, tomorrow. He refused to reveal the details of some accounts.’

‘Giancardi, hem, hem, donated a considerable sum of money to the military fund.’

‘Ha. Then have them throw stones at the banks that didn’t donate.’

‘They all did.’

‘Oh, you’re boring me, Ori. Write, I said. Darling Phil, the sun of my . . . Blast, I keep forgetting. Take a new sheet of paper. Ready?’

‘Of course, hem, hem.’

‘Dear Philippa. Mistress Triss Merigold is sure to be worried about the witcher she teleported from Thanedd to Brokilon, which she kept so secret that even I didn’t know anything. It hurt me terribly. Please reassure her: the Witcher is doing well now. He has even begun to send female emissaries from Brokilon to search for traces of Princess Cirilla, the young girl you’re so interested in. Our good friend Geralt clearly doesn’t know Cirilla is in Nilfgaard, where she’s preparing for her wedding to Imperator Emhyr. It’s important to me that the Witcher lies low in Brokilon, which is why I’ll do my best to ensure the news reaches him. Have you got that?’

‘Hem, hem . . . the news reaches him.’

‘New paragraph! It puzzles me . . . Ori, wipe the bloody quill! We’re writing to Philippa, not to the royal council. The letter must look neat! New paragraph. It puzzles me why the Witcher hasn’t tried to make contact with Yennefer. I refuse to believe that his passion, which was verging on obsession, has petered out so suddenly, irrespective of learning his darling’s political objectives. On the other hand, if Yennefer is the one who handed Cirilla over to Emhyr, and if there’s proof of it, I would gladly make sure the Witcher was furnished with it. The problem would solve itself, I’m certain, and the faithless, black-haired beauty would be on very shaky ground. The Witcher doesn’t like it when anyone touches his little girl, as Artaud Terranova discovered on Thanedd in no uncertain terms. I would like to think, Phil, that you don’t have any evidence of Yennefer’s betrayal and you don’t know where she is hiding. It would hurt me greatly to discover this is the latest secret being concealed from me. I have no secrets from you . . . What are you sniggering about, Ori?’

‘Oh, nothing, hem, hem.’

‘Write! I have no secrets from you, Phil, and I count on reciprocity. With my deepest respect, et cetera, et cetera. Give it here, I’ll sign it.’

Ori Reuven sprinkled the letter with sand. Dijkstra made himself more comfortable, interlacing his fingers over his stomach and twiddling his thumbs.

‘That Milva, the Witcher’s spy,’ he asked. ‘What can you tell me about her?’

‘She is engaged at present, hem, hem’ – his secretary coughed – ‘in escorting the remnants of Scoia’tael units defeated by the Temerian Army to Brokilon. She rescues elves from hunts and traps, enabling them to rest and regroup into combat commandos . . .’

‘Refrain from supplying me with common knowledge,’ interrupted Dijkstra. ‘I’m familiar with Milva’s activities, and will eventually make use of them. Otherwise I would have sold her out to the Temerians long since. What can you tell me about Milva herself? As a person?’

‘She comes, if I’m not mistaken, from some godforsaken village in Upper Sodden. Her true name is Maria Barring. Milva is a nickname the dryads gave her. In the Elder Speech it means—’

‘Red Kite,’ interrupted Dijkstra. ‘I know.’

‘Her family have been hunters for generations. They are forest dwellers, and feel most comfortable in the greenwood. When old Barring’s son was trampled to death by an elk, the old man taught his daughter the forest crafts. After he passed away, her mother married again. Hem, hem . . . Maria didn’t get on with her stepfather and ran away from home. She was sixteen at the time, if I’m not mistaken. She headed north, living from hunting, but the lords’ gamekeepers didn’t make her life easy, hunting and harrying her as though she were fair game. So she began to poach in Brokilon and it was there, hem, hem, that the dryads got hold of her.’

‘And instead of finishing her off, they took her in,’ Dijkstra muttered. ‘Adopted her, if you will . . . And she repaid their kindness. She struck a pact with the Hag of Brokilon, old silver-eyed Eithné. Maria Barring is dead; long live Milva . . . How many human expeditions had come unstuck by the time the forces in Verden and Kerack cottoned on? Three?’

‘Hem, hem . . . Four, if I’m not mistaken . . .’ Ori Reuven was always hoping he wasn’t mistaken, although in fact his memory was infallible. ‘All together, it was about five score humans, those who’d gone after dryad scalps most savagely. And it took them a long time to catch on, because Milva occasionally carried someone out of the slaughter on her own back, and whoever she’d rescued would praise her courage to the skies. It was only after the fourth time, in Verden, if I’m not mistaken, that someone caught on. “Why is it?” the shout suddenly went up, hem, hem, “that the guide who bands humans together to fight the dryads always gets out in one piece?” And the cat was out of the bag. The guide was leading them. But into a trap, right into the shooting range of the dryads waiting in ambush . . .’

Dijkstra slid an interrogation report to the edge of his desk, because the parchment still seemed to reek of the torture chamber.

‘And then,’ he concluded, ‘Milva vanished into Brokilon like the morning mist. And it’s still difficult to find volunteers for expeditions against the dryads in Verden. Old Eithné and young Red Kite were carrying out pretty effective purges. And they dare say that we, humans, invented all the dirty tricks. On the other hand . . .’

‘Hem, hem?’ coughed Ori Reuven, surprised by his boss’s sudden – and then continuing – silence.

‘On the other hand, they may have finally begun to learn from us,’ said the spy coldly, looking down at the denunciations, interrogation reports and death sentences.

Milva grew anxious when she couldn’t see blood anywhere near where the buck had disappeared. She suddenly recalled that he had jumped just as she had fired her arrow. Had jumped or was about to; it amounted to the same thing. He had moved and the arrow might have hit him in the belly. Milva cursed. A shot to the belly was a disgrace for any hunter! Urgh, the very thought of it!

She quickly ran over to the slope of the ravine, looking carefully among the brambles, moss and ferns. She was hunting for her arrow. It was equipped with four blades so sharp they could shave the hairs on your forearm. Fired from a distance of fifty paces the arrow must have passed right through the animal.

She searched, she found it and sighed in relief, then spat three times, happy with her luck. She needn’t have worried; it was better than she had imagined. The arrow was not covered in sticky, foul-smelling stomach contents. Neither did it bear traces of bright, pink, frothy blood from the lungs. What covered the shaft was dark red and viscous. The arrow had gone through the heart. Milva didn’t have to creep or stalk; she had been spared a long walk following the deer’s tracks. The buck had to be lying in the undergrowth, no more than a hundred paces from the clearing, in a spot that would be surely indicated by the blood. And after being shot through the heart, he would have started bleeding after a few paces, so she knew she would easily find the trail.

She picked it up after ten paces and followed it, once again losing herself in her reverie.

She kept the promise she had given the Witcher. She returned to Brokilon five days after the Harvest Festival – five days after the new moon – which marked the beginning of the month of August for people, and for elves, Lammas, the seventh and penultimate savaed of the year.

She crossed the Ribbon at daybreak with five elves. The commando she was leading had initially numbered nine riders, but the soldiers from Brugge were following them the whole time. Three furlongs before the river they were hot on their trail, pressing hard, and only abandoned their efforts when they reached the Ribbon, with Brokilon looming up in the dawn mists on the far bank. The soldiers were afraid of Brokilon and that alone saved the commando. They made it across. Exhausted and wounded. But not all of them.

She had news for the Witcher, but thought that Gwynbleidd was still in Col Serrai. She had intended to see him around noon, after a good long sleep so she was astonished when he suddenly emerged from the fog like a ghost. He sat down beside her without a word, watching as she made herself a makeshift bed by spreading a blanket over a heap of branches.

‘You’re in a hurry, Witcher,’ she scoffed. ‘I’m ready to drop. I’ve been in the saddle all day and all night, my backside’s numb, and my trousers are soaked up to my belt, for we crept our way through the wetlands at dawn like a pack of wolves . . .’

‘Please. Did you learn anything?’

‘Yes I did,’ she snorted, unlacing and pulling off her drenched, clinging boots. ‘Without much difficulty, because everybody’s talking about it. You never told me your young girl was such a personage! I’d thought she was your stepdaughter, some sort of waif and stray, a star-crossed orphan. And who does she turn out to be? A Cintran princess! Well! And perhaps you’re a prince in disguise?’

‘Tell me, please.’

‘The kings won’t get their hands on her now, for your Cirilla, it turns out, fled straight from Thanedd to Nilfgaard; probably with those treacherous mages. And Imperator Emhyr received her there with all ceremony. And do you know what? He’s said to be thinking of marrying her. Now let me rest. We can talk after I’ve slept, if you want.’

The Witcher said nothing. Milva hung her wet footwraps on a forked branch, positioned so that the rising sun’s rays would fall on them, and tugged at her belt buckle.

‘I want to get undressed,’ she growled. ‘Why are you still hanging about? You can’t have expected happier news, can you? You’re in no danger; no one’s asking after you, the spies have stopped being interested in you. And your wench has escaped from the clutches of the kings and will be declared Imperatoress . . .’

‘Is that information reliable?’

‘Nothing is certain these days,’ she yawned, sitting down on her bed, ‘apart from the fact that the sun journeys across the heavens from the east to the west. But what people are saying about the Nilfgaardian Imperator and the Princess of Cintra seems to be true. It’s all anyone’s talking about.’

‘Why this sudden interest?’

‘You really don’t know? She’s said to be bringing Emhyr a goodly acreage of land in her dowry! And not just Cintra, but land on this side of the Yaruga too! Ha, and she’ll be my Lady as well, for I’m from Upper Sodden, and the whole of Sodden, it turns out, is her fiefdom! So if I bring down a buck in her forests and they lay hands on me, I can be hung on her orders . . . Oh, what a rotten world! And a pox on it, I can’t keep my eyes open . . .’

‘Just one more question. Did they capture any sorceresses— I mean did they capture anyone from that pack of treacherous sorcerers?’

‘No. But one enchantress, they say, took her own life. Soon after Vengerberg fell and the Kaedwen Army entered Aedirn. No doubt out of distress, or fear of torture—’

‘There were riderless horses in the commando you brought here. Would the elves give me one?’

‘Oh, in a hurry, I see,’ she muttered, wrapping herself in the blanket. ‘I think I know where you’re planning to . . .’

She fell silent, astonished by the expression on his face before she realised that the news she had brought was not at all happy. She saw that she understood nothing, nothing at all. Suddenly, unexpectedly, unawares, she felt the urge to sit down by his side, bombard him with questions, listen to him, learn more, perhaps offer counsel . . . She urgently ground her knuckles into the corners of her eyes. I’m exhausted, she thought, death was breathing down my neck all night. I have to rest. And anyway, why should I be bothered by his sorrows and cares? What does he matter to me? And that wench? To hell with him and with her! A pox on it, all this has driven the sleep from me . . .

The Witcher stood up.

‘Will the elves give me a horse?’ he repeated.

‘Take whichever you please,’ she said a moment later. ‘But don’t let them see you. They gave us a good hiding by the ford, blood was spilt . . . And don’t touch the black; he’s mine . . . What are you waiting for?’

‘Thank you for your help. For everything.’

She didn’t answer.

‘I’m indebted to you. How shall I pay you back?’

‘How? By getting out of my sight!’ she cried, raising herself on an elbow and tugging sharply at the blanket. ‘I . . . I have to sleep! Take a horse . . . and go . . . To Nilfgaard, to hell, to all the devils. Makes no difference to me! Go away and leave me in peace!’

‘I’ll pay back what I owe,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t forget. It may happen that one day you’ll be in need of help. Or support. A shoulder to lean on. Then call out, call out in the night. And I’ll come.’

The buck lay on the edge of the slope, which was spongy from gushing springs and densely overgrown with ferns, his neck contorted, with a glassy eye staring up at the sky. Milva saw several large ticks bored into his light brown belly.

‘You’ll have to find yourselves some other blood, vermin,’ she muttered, rolling up her sleeves and drawing a knife. ‘Because this is going cold.’

With a swift and practised movement, she slit the skin from sternum to anus, adroitly running the blade around the genitalia. She cautiously separated the layer of fat, up to her elbows in blood. She severed the gullet and pulled the entrails out. She cut open the stomach and gall bladder, hunting for bezoars. She didn’t believe in their magical qualities, but there was no shortage of fools who did and would pay well for them.

She lifted the buck and laid him on a nearby log, his slit belly pointing downwards, letting the blood drain out. She wiped her hands on a bunch of ferns.

She sat down by her quarry.

‘Possessed, insane Witcher,’ she said softly, staring at the crowns of the Brokilon pines looming a hundred feet above her. ‘You’re heading for Nilfgaard to get your wench. You’re heading to the end of the world, which is all in flames, and you haven’t even thought about supplying yourself with victuals. I know you have someone to live for. But do you have anything to live on?’

Naturally enough, the pines didn’t comment or interrupt her monologue.

‘I don’t think,’ Milva said, using her knife to scrape the blood out from beneath her fingernails, ‘you have the slightest chance of getting your young girl back. You won’t make it to the Yaruga, never mind Nilfgaard. I don’t think you’ll even make it to Sodden. I think you’re fated to die. It’s written on your fierce face, it’s staring through your hideous eyes. Death will catch up with you, O mad Witcher, it’ll catch up with you soon. But thanks to this little buck at least it won’t be death by starvation. It may not be much, but it’s something. That’s what I think.’

Dijkstra sighed to himself at the sight of the Nilfgaardian ambassador entering the audience chamber. Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, Imperator Emhyr var Emreis’s envoy, was accustomed to conducting conversations in diplomatic language, and adored larding his sentences with pompous linguistic oddities, comprehensible only to diplomats and scholars. Dijkstra had studied at the Academy of Oxenfurt, and although he had not been awarded the title of Master of Letters, he knew the basics of bombastic scholarly jargon. However, he was reluctant to use it, since he hated with a vengeance pomposity and all forms of pretentious ceremony.

‘Greetings, Your Excellency.’

‘Your Lordship,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen said, bowing ceremoniously. ‘Ah, please forgive me. Perhaps I ought to say: Your Grace the Duke? Your Highness the Regent? Secretary of State? ’Pon my word, offices are falling on you like hailstones, such that I really don’t know how to address you so as not to breach protocol.’

‘“Your Majesty” would be best,’ Dijkstra replied modestly. ‘You are aware after all, Your Excellency, that the king is judged by his court. And you are probably aware that when I shout: “Jump!” the court in Tretogor asks: “How high?”’

The ambassador knew that Dijkstra was exaggerating, but not inordinately. Prince Radovid was still a minor, Queen Hedwig distraught by her husband’s tragic death, and the aristocracy intimidated, stupefied, at variance and divided into factions. Dijkstra was the de facto governor of Redania and could have taken any rank he pleased with no difficulty. But Dijkstra had no desire to do so.

‘Your Lordship deigned to summon me,’ the ambassador said a moment later. ‘Passing over the Foreign Minister. To what do I owe this honour?’

‘The minister,’ Dijkstra said, looking up at the ceiling, ‘resigned from the post owing to his poor state of health.’

The ambassador nodded gravely. He knew perfectly well that the Foreign Minister was languishing in a dungeon and, being a coward and a fool, had doubtless told Dijkstra everything about his collusion with the Nilfgaardian secret service during the demonstration of torture instruments preceding his interrogation. He knew that the network established by Vattier de Rideaux, head of the imperial secret service, had been crushed, and all its threads were in Dijkstra’s hands. He also knew that those threads led directly to his person. But his person was protected by immunity and protocol forced them to play this game to the bitter end. Particularly following the curious, encoded instructions recently sent to the embassy by Vattier and Coroner Stephan Skellen, the imperial agent for special affairs.

‘Since his successor has not yet been named,’ Dijkstra continued, ‘it is my unpleasant duty to inform you that Your Excellency is now deemed persona non grata in the Kingdom of Redania.’

The ambassador bowed.

‘I regret,’ he said, ‘that the distrust that resulted in the mutual recall of ambassadors are the consequence of matters which, after all, directly concern neither the Kingdom of Redania nor the Nilfgaardian Empire. The Empire has not undertaken any hostile measures against Redania.’

‘Apart from a blockade against our ships and goods at the mouth of the Yaruga and the Skellige Islands. And apart from arming and supporting gangs of Scoia’tael.’

‘Those are insinuations.’

‘And the concentration of imperial forces in Verden and Cintra? The raids on Sodden and Brugge by armed gangs? Sodden and Brugge are under Temerian protection; we in turn are in alliance with Temeria, Your Excellency, which makes an attack on Temeria an attack on us. In addition, there are matters which directly concern Redania: the rebellion on the Isle of Thanedd and the criminal assassination of King Vizimir. And the question of the role the Empire played in those incidents.’

‘Quod attinet the incident on Thanedd,’ the ambassador said, spreading his arms, ‘I have not been empowered to express an opinion. His Imperial Highness Emhyr var Emreis is unaware of the substance of the private feuds of your mages. I regret the fact that our protests are achieving minimal success in the face of the propaganda which seeks to suggest something else. Propaganda disseminated, I dare say, not without the support of the highest authorities of the Kingdom of Redania.’

‘Your protests greatly astonish and surprise me,’ Dijkstra said, smiling faintly. ‘Since the Imperator in no way conceals the presence of the Cintran princess at his court, after she was abducted from the very same Thanedd.’

‘Cirilla, Queen of Cintra,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen corrected him with emphasis, ‘was not abducted, but sought asylum in the Empire. That has nothing to do with the incident on Thanedd.’

‘Indeed?’

‘The incident on Thanedd,’ the ambassador continued, his countenance stony, ‘aroused the Imperator’s horror. And the murderous attack on the life of King Vizimir, carried out by a madman, evoked his sincere and intense abomination. However, the vile rumour being disseminated among the common people is an even greater abomination, which dares to search for the instigators of these crimes in the Empire.’

‘The capture of the actual instigators,’ Dijkstra said slowly, ‘will put an end to the rumours, one would hope. And their capture and the meting out of justice to them is purely a matter of time.’

‘Justitia fundamentum regnorum,’ admitted Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen gravely. ‘And crimen horribilis non potest non esse punibile. I affirm that His Imperial Majesty also wishes this to happen.’

‘The Imperator has it in his power to fulfil that wish,’ Dijkstra threw in casually, folding his arms. ‘One of the leaders of the conspiracy, Enid an Gleanna, until recently the sorceress Francesca Findabair, is playing at being queen of the elven puppet state in Dol Blathanna, by the imperial grace.’

‘His Imperial Majesty,’ said the ambassador, bowing stiffly, ‘cannot interfere in the doings of Dol Blathanna, recognised by all its neighbouring powers as an independent kingdom.’

‘But not by Redania. For Redania, Dol Blathanna remains part of the Kingdom of Aedirn. Although together with the elves and Kaedwen you have dismantled Aedirn – although not a stone remains of Lyria – you are striking those kingdoms too swiftly from the map of the world. It’s too soon, Your Excellency. However, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it. Let Francesca Findabair play at reigning for now; she’ll get her comeuppance. And what of the other rebels and King Vizimir’s assassins? What about Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, what about Yennefer of Vengerberg? There are grounds to believe they both fled to Nilfgaard following the collapse of the rebellion.’

‘I assure you that is not so,’ said the ambassador, raising his head. ‘But were it true, they would not escape punishment.’

‘They did not wrong you, thus their punishment does not rest with you. Imperator Emhyr would prove his sincere desire for justice, which after all is fundamentum regnorum, by handing the criminals over to us.’

‘One may not deny the validity of your request,’ admitted Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, feigning an embarrassed smile. ‘However, primo, those individuals are not in the Empire. And secundo, had they even reached it, there exists an impediment. Extradition is carried out on the basis of a judgment of the law, each case decided upon by the Imperial Council. Bear in mind, Your Lordship, that the breaking of diplomatic ties by Redania is a hostile act; it would be difficult to expect the Council to vote in favour of the extradition of persons seeking asylum, were a hostile country to demand that extradition. It would be an unprecedented matter . . . Unless . . .’

‘Unless what?’

‘A precedent were established.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘Were the Kingdom of Redania prepared to hand one of his subjects to the Imperator, a common criminal who had been captured here, the Imperator and his Council would have grounds to reciprocate this gesture of good will.’

Dijkstra said nothing for a long time, giving the impression he was either dozing or thinking.

‘Whom do you have in mind?’

‘The name of the criminal . . .’ said the ambassador, pretending to recall it. He finally searched for a document in his saffian portfolio. ‘Forgive me, memoria fragilis est. Here it is. A certain Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach. Serious gravamina weigh on him. He is being sought for murder, desertion, raptus puellae, rape, theft and forging documents. Fleeing from the Imperator’s wrath, he escaped abroad.’

‘To Redania? He chose a long route.’

‘Your Lordship,’ said Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, smiling faintly, ‘does not limit his interests only to Redania, after all. There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that were the criminal to be seized in any of the allied kingdoms, Your Lordship would hear of it from the reports of numerous . . . friends.’

‘What did you say the name of the felon was?’

‘Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.’

Dijkstra fell silent again, pretending to be searching in his memory.

‘No,’ he said finally. ‘No one of that name has been apprehended.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Regrettably, my memoria is not fragilis in such cases, Your Excellency.’

‘I regret it too,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen responded icily. ‘Particularly since the mutual extradition of criminals seems to be impossible to carry out in such circumstances. I shall not weary Your Lordship any longer. I wish you good health and good fortune.’

‘Likewise. Farewell, Your Excellency.’

The ambassador left, after several elaborate, ceremonial bows.

‘You can kiss sempiternum meam, you sly old devil,’ Dijkstra muttered, folding his arms. ‘Ori!’

His secretary, red in the face from suppressing his cough, emerged from behind a curtain.

‘Is Philippa still in Montecalvo?’

‘Yes, hem, hem. Mistresses Laux-Antille, Merigold and Metz are with her.’

‘War may break out in a day or two, the border on the Yaruga will soon go up in flames, and they’ve hidden themselves in some godforsaken castle! Take a quill and write. Darling Phil . . . Oh, bugger!’

‘I’ve written: “Dear Philippa”.’

‘Good. Continue. It may interest you that the freak in the plumed helmet, who disappeared from Thanedd as mysteriously as he appeared, is called Cahir Mawr Dyffryn and is the son of Seneschal Ceallach. This strange individual is being sought not only by us, but also, it would appear, by the secret service of Vattier de Rideaux and the men of that son-of-a-bitch . . .’

‘Mistress Philippa, hem, hem, does not like expressions of that kind. I have written: “that scoundrel”.’

‘Let it be: that scoundrel Stephan Skellen. You know as well as I do, dear Phil, that the imperial secret service is urgently hunting only those agents and emissaries who got under Emhyr’s skin. Those who, instead of carrying out their orders or dying, betrayed him and their orders alike. The case thus appears quite curious, since we were certain that this Cahir’s orders concerned the capture of Princess Cirilla and her delivery to Nilfgaard.

‘New paragraph: I would like to discuss in person the strange, but well-founded suspicions this matter has evoked in me, and the somewhat astonishing, but reasonable theories I have arrived at. With my deepest respect et cetera, et cetera.’

Milva rode south, as the crow flies, first along the banks of the Ribbon, through Burn Stump, and then, having crossed the river, through marshy gorges covered in a soft, bright green carpet of hair-cap moss. She guessed that the Witcher, not knowing the terrain as well as she did, would not risk crossing onto the human-controlled bank. Taking a short cut across a huge bend in the river, which curved towards Brokilon, there was a chance she might catch up with him in the region of the Ceann Treise Falls. Were she to ride hard and not take a break, she even stood a chance of overtaking him.

The chirruping chaffinches hadn’t been mistaken. The sky had clouded over considerably to the south. The air had become dense and heavy, and the mosquitoes and horseflies extremely annoying.

When she rode into the wetlands, thick with hazel hung with still-green nuts and leafless, blackish buckthorn, she felt a presence. She didn’t hear it. She felt it. And so she knew it must be elves.

She reined in her horse, so the bowmen concealed in the undergrowth could have a good look at her. She also held her breath. In the hope that she hadn’t happened upon quick-tempered ones.

A fly buzzed over the buck, which was slung over the horse’s rump.

A rustling. A soft whistling. She whistled back. The Scoia’tael emerged from the brush soundlessly and only then did Milva breathe freely again. She knew them. They belonged to Coinneach Dá Reo’s commando.

‘Hael,’ she said, dismounting. ‘Que’ss va?’

‘Ne’ss,’ an elf whose name she couldn’t recall replied coldly. ‘Caemm.’

Other elves were encamped in the nearby clearing. There were at least thirty of them, more than there should be in Coinneach’s commando. This surprised Milva; in recent times, Squirrel units were more likely to shrink than grow in size. In recent times, commandos had become groups of bloodied, nervy ragamuffins who could barely stand or stay upright in the saddle. This commando was different.

‘Cead, Coinneach,’ she greeted the approaching commander.

‘Ceadmil, sor’ca.’

Sor’ca. Little sister. It’s how she was addressed by those she was friendly with, when they wanted to express their respect and affection. And that they were indeed many, many more winters older than she. At first, she had only been Dh’oine – human – to the elves. Later, when she had begun helping them regularly, they called her Aen Woedbeanna, ‘woman of the forest’. Still later, when they knew her better, they called her – following the dryads’ example – Milva, or Red Kite. Her real name, which she only revealed to those she was closest to, responding to similar gestures received from them, didn’t suit the elves – they pronounced it Mear’ya, with a hint of a grimace, as though in their speech it carried negative connotations. Then they would immediately switch to ‘sor’ca’.

‘Where are you headed?’ asked Milva, looking around more intently, but still not seeing any wounded or ill elves. ‘To Eight-Mile? To Brokilon?’

‘No.’

She refrained from further questions; she knew them too well. It was enough to glance several times at their motionless, hardened faces, at the exaggerated, pointed calm with which they were preparing their tackle and weapons. One close look into their deep, fathomless eyes was enough. She knew they were going into battle.

To the south the sky was darkening, becoming overcast.

‘And where are you headed, sor’ca?’ asked Coinneach, then quickly glanced at the buck slung over her horse and smiled faintly.

‘South,’ she said coldly, putting him right. ‘Towards Drieschot.’

The elf stopped smiling.

‘Along the human bank?’

‘At least as far as Ceann Treise,’ she said, shrugging. ‘When I reach the falls I’ll definitely go back over to the Brokilon side, because . . .’

She turned around, hearing the snorting of horses. Fresh Scoia’tael were joining the already unusually large commando. Milva knew these new ones even better.

‘Ciaran!’ she shouted softly, without attempting to hide her astonishment. ‘Toruviel! What are you doing here? I’ve only just led you to Brokilon, and you’re already—’

‘Ess’creasa, sor’ca,’ Ciaran aep Dearbh said gravely. The bandage swathed around his head was stained with oozing blood.

‘We have no choice,’ Toruviel repeated. She dismounted cautiously using one arm, in order to protect the other one, which was still bent in a sling. ‘News has come. We may not remain in Brokilon, when every bow counts.’

‘If I had known,’ Milva said, pouting, ‘I wouldn’t have bothered. I wouldn’t have risked my neck at the ford.’

‘News came last night,’ explained Toruviel quietly. ‘We could not . . . We cannot leave our comrades in arms at a time like this. We cannot. Understand that, sor’ca.’

The sky had darkened even more. This time Milva clearly heard thunder in the distance.

‘Don’t ride south, sor’ca,’ Coinneach Dá Reo pleaded. ‘There’s a storm coming.’

‘What can a storm do to. . . ?’ She broke off and looked at him intently. ‘Ah! So that kind of tidings have reached you, have they? It’s Nilfgaard, is it? They are crossing the Yaruga in Sodden? They are striking Brugge? And that’s why you’re marching?’

He did not answer.

‘Yes, just like it was in Dol Angra,’ she said, looking into his dark eyes. ‘Once again the Nilfgaardian Imperator has you sowing mayhem with fire and sword on the humans’ rear lines. And then he will make peace with the kings and they will slaughter you all. You will burn in the very fire you are starting.’

‘Fire purges. And hardens. It must be passed through. Aenyell’hael, ell’ea, sor’ca? In your tongue: a baptism of fire.’

‘I prefer another kind of fire,’ Milva said, untying the buck and throwing it down onto the ground at the feet of the elves. ‘The kind that crackles under the spit. Have it, so you won’t fall from hunger on the march. It’s of no use to me now.’

‘Aren’t you riding south?’

‘I am.’

I’m going south, she thought, and quickly. I have to warn that fool of a witcher, I have to warn him about what kind of a turmoil he’s getting himself into. I have to make him turn back.

‘Don’t go, sor’ca.’

‘Give me a break, Coinneach.’

‘A storm is coming from the south,’ the elf repeated. ‘A great tempest is coming. And a great fire. Hide in Brokilon, little sister, don’t ride south. You’ve done enough for us, you cannot do any more now. And you do not have to. We have to. Ess’tedd, esse creasa! It is time we left. Farewell.’

The air around them was heavy and dense.

The teleprojective spell was complicated; they had to cast it together, joining their hands and thoughts. Even then, it turned out to be a devilishly great effort. Because the distance was considerable too.

Philippa Eilhart’s tightly closed eyelids twitched, Triss Merigold panted and there were beads of sweat on Keira Metz’s high forehead. Only on Margarita Laux-Antille’s face was there no sign of fatigue.

It suddenly became very bright in the poorly lit chamber and a mosaic of flashes danced across the dark wood panelling. A sphere glowing with a milky light was suspended over the round table. Philippa Eilhart chanted the end of the spell and the sphere descended away from her onto one of the twelve chairs positioned around the table. A vague shape appeared inside the sphere. The image shimmered, as the projection was not very stable. But it quickly became more defined.

‘Bloody hell,’ Keira muttered, wiping her forehead. ‘Haven’t they heard of glamarye or beautifying spells down in Nilfgaard?’

‘Apparently not,’ said Triss out of the corner of her mouth. ‘They don’t seem to have heard of fashion either.’

‘Or of make-up,’ Philippa said softly. ‘But now hush. And don’t stare at her. We must stabilise the projection and welcome our guest. Intensify me, Rita.’

Margarita Laux-Antille repeated the spell’s formula and Philippa’s movements. The image shimmered several times, lost its foggy vagueness and unnatural gleam, and its contours and colours sharpened. The sorceresses could now look at the shape on the other side of the table even more closely. Triss bit her lip and winked at Keira conspiratorially.

The woman in the projection had a pale face with poor complexion, dull, expressionless eyes, thin bluish lips and a somewhat hooked nose. She was wearing a strange, conical and slightly crumpled hat. Dark, not very fresh-looking hair fell from beneath the soft brim. The impressions of unattractiveness and seediness were complemented by her shapeless, black, baggy robes, embroidered on the shoulders with frayed silver thread. The embroidery depicted a half-moon within a circle of stars. It was the only decoration worn by the Nilfgaardian sorceress.

Philippa Eilhart stood up, trying not display her jewellery, lace or cleavage too ostentatiously.

‘Mistress Assire,’ she said. ‘Welcome to Montecalvo. We are immensely pleased that you have agreed to accept our invitation.’

‘I did it out of curiosity,’ the sorceress from Nilfgaard said, in an unexpectedly pleasant and melodious voice, straightening her hat involuntarily. Her hand was slim, marked by yellow spots, her fingernails broken and uneven, and clearly bitten.

‘Only out of curiosity,’ she repeated. ‘The consequences of which may yet prove catastrophic for me. I would ask for an explanation.’

‘I shall provide one forthwith,’ Philippa nodded, giving a sign to the other sorceresses. ‘But first, however, allow me to call forth projections of the other participants of this gathering and make some introductions. Please be patient for a moment.’

The sorceresses linked hands again and together began the incantations once more. The air in the chamber hummed like a taut wire as a glowing fog flowed down from behind the panels on the ceiling, filling the room with a shimmer of shadows. Spheres of pulsing light hung above three of the unoccupied chairs and the outlines of shapes became visible. The first one to appear was Sabrina Glevissig, in a turquoise dress with a provocatively plunging neckline and a large, lace, standing-up collar, beautifully framing her coiffured hair, which was held in a diamond tiara. Next to her Sheala de Tancarville emerged from the hazy light of the projection, dressed in black velvet sewn with pearls and with her neck draped with silver fox furs. The enchantress from Nilfgaard nervously licked her thin lips.

Just you wait for Francesca, thought Triss. When you see Francesca, you black rat, your eyes will pop out of your head.

Francesca Findabair did not disappoint. Not by her lavish dress, the colour of bull’s blood, nor with her majestic hairstyle, nor her ruby necklace, nor her doe eyes ringed with provocative elven make-up.

‘Welcome, ladies,’ Philippa said, ‘to Montecalvo Castle, whither I have invited you to discuss certain issues of considerable importance. I bemoan the fact that we are meeting in the form of teleprojection. But neither the time, nor the distances dividing us, nor the situation we all find ourselves in permitted a face-to-face meeting. I am Philippa Eilhart, the lady of this castle. As the initiator of this meeting and the hostess, I shall perform the introductions. On my right is Margarita Laux-Antille, the rectoress of the academy in Aretuza. On my left is Triss Merigold of Maribor and Keira Metz of Carreras. Continuing, Sabrina Glevissig of Ard Carraigh. Sheala de Tancarville of Creyden in Kovir. Francesca Findabair, also known as Enid an Gleanna, the present queen of the Valley of Flowers. And finally Assire var Anahid of Vicovaro the Nilfgaardian Empire. And now—’

‘And now I bid farewell!’ Sabrina Glevissig screamed, pointing a heavily beringed hand at Francesca. ‘You have gone too far, Philippa! I have no intention of sitting at the same table as that bloody elf – even as an illusion! The blood on the walls and floors of Garstang has not even faded! And she spilt that blood! She and Vilgefortz!’

‘I would request you observe etiquette,’ Philippa said, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. ‘And keep calm. Listen to what I have to say, I ask for nothing more. When I finish, each of you shall decide whether to stay or leave. The projection is voluntary, it may be interrupted at any moment. All I ask is that those who decide to leave keep this meeting secret.’

‘I knew it!’ Sabrina jumped up so suddenly that for a moment she moved out of the projection. ‘A secret meeting! Clandestine arrangements! To put it bluntly: a conspiracy! And it’s quite clear against whom it is directed. Are you mocking us, Philippa? You demand that we keep a secret from our kings and comrades, whom you did not condescend to invite. And there sits Enid Findabair – reigning in Dol Blathanna by the grace of Emhyr var Emreis – the queen of the elves, who are actively providing Nilfgaard with armed support. If that were not enough, I notice with astonishment that we are joined by a Nilfgaardian sorceress. Since when did the mages of Nilfgaard stop professing blind obedience and slavish servility to imperial rule? Secrets? What secrets, I am asking! If she is here, it is with the permission of Emhyr! By his order! As his eyes and ears!’

‘I repudiate that,’ Assire var Anahid said calmly. ‘No one knows that I am taking part in this meeting. I was asked to keep it secret, which I have done and will continue to do. For my own sake, as much as yours. For were it to come to light, I would not survive. That’s the servility of the Empire’s mages for you. We have the choice of servility or the scaffold. I took a risk. I did not come here as a spy. I can only prove it in one way: through my own death. It would be sufficient for the secrecy that our hostess is appealing for to be broken. It would be sufficient for news of our meeting to go beyond these walls, for me to lose my life.’

‘Betrayal of the secret could have unpleasant consequences for me, too,’ Francesca said, smiling charmingly. ‘You have a wonderful opportunity for revenge, Sabrina.’

‘My revenge will come about in other ways, elf,’ said Sabrina, and her black eyes flashed ominously. ‘Should the secret come to light, it won’t be through my fault or through my carelessness. By no means mine!’

‘Are you suggesting something?’

‘Of course,’ interrupted Philippa Eilhart. ‘Of course Sabrina is. She is subtly reminding you about my collaboration with Sigismund Dijkstra. As though she didn’t have any contact with King Henselt’s spies!’

‘There is a difference,’ Sabrina barked. ‘I wasn’t Henselt’s lover for three years! Nor that of his spies, for that matter!’

‘Enough of this! Be quiet!’

‘I concur,’ Sheala de Tancarville suddenly said in a loud voice. ‘Be quiet, Sabrina. That’s enough about Thanedd, enough about spying and extramarital affairs. I did not come here to take part in arguments or to listen to old grudges and insults being bandied about. Nor am I interested in being your mediator. And if I was invited with that intention, I declare that those efforts were in vain. Indeed, I have my suspicions that I am participating in vain and without purpose, that I am wasting time, which I only wrested with difficulty from my scholarly work. I shall, however, refrain from presuppositions. I propose that we give the floor to Philippa Eilhart. Let us discover the aim of this gathering. Let us learn the roles we are expected to play here. Then we shall decide – without unnecessary emotion – whether to continue with the performance or let the curtain fall. The discretion we have been asked for binds us all. Along with the measures that I, Sheala de Tancarville, will personally take against the indiscreet.’

None of the sorceresses moved or spoke. Triss did not doubt Sheala’s warning for a second. The recluse from Kovir was not one to make hollow threats.

‘We give you the floor, Philippa. And I ask the honourable assembly to remain quiet until she indicates that she has finished.’

Philippa Eilhart stood up, her dress rustling.

‘Distinguished sisters,’ she said. ‘Our situation is grave. Magic is under threat. The tragic events on Thanedd, to which my thoughts return with regret and reluctance, proved that the effects of hundreds of years of apparently peaceful cooperation could be laid waste in an instant, as self-interest and inflated ambitions came to the fore. We now have discord, disorder, mutual hostility and mistrust. Events are beginning to get out of control. In order to regain control, in order to prevent a cataclysm happening, the helm of this storm-tossed ship must be grasped by strong hands. Mistress Laux-Antille, Mistress Merigold, Mistress Metz and I have discussed the matter and we are in agreement. It is not enough to re-establish the Chapter and the Council, which were destroyed on Thanedd. In any case, there is no one left to rebuild the two institutions, no guarantee that should they be rebuilt they would not be infected with the disease that destroyed the previous ones. An utterly new, secret organisation should be founded which will exclusively serve matters of magic. Which will do everything to prevent a cataclysm. For if magic were to perish, our world would perish with it. Just as happened many centuries ago, the world without magic and the progress it brings with it will be plunged into chaos and darkness; will drown in blood and barbarity. We invite the ladies present here to take part in our initiative: to actively participate in the work proposed by this secret assembly. We took the decision to summon you here in order to hear your opinions on this matter. With this, I have finished.’

‘Thank you,’ Sheala de Tancarville said, nodding. ‘If you will allow, ladies, I shall begin. My first question, dear Philippa, is: why me? Why have I been summoned here? Many times have I refused to have my candidature to the Chapter put forward, and I resigned my seat on the Council. Firstly, my work absorbs me. Secondly, I am ever of the opinion that there are others in Kovir, Poviss and Hengfors more worthy of these honours. So I ask why I have been invited here, and not Carduin. Not Istredd of Aedd Gynvael, not Tugdual or Zangenis?’

‘Because they are men,’ replied Philippa. ‘This organisation will consist exclusively of women. Mistress Assire?’

‘I withdraw my question,’ the Nilfgaardian enchantress smiled. ‘It was coincident with the substance of Mistress De Tancarville’s. The answer satisfies me.’

‘It smacks to me of female chauvinism,’ Sabrina Glevissig said with a sneer. ‘Particularly coming from your lips, Philippa, after your change in . . . sexual orientation. I have nothing against men. I’d go further; I adore men and I cannot imagine life without them. But . . . after a moment’s reflection . . . Yours is actually a reasonable proposal. Men are psychologically unstable, too prone to emotions; not to be relied upon in moments of crisis.’

‘That’s right,’ Margarita Laux-Antille admitted calmly. ‘I often compare the results of the novices from Aretuza with those of the boys from the school in Ban Ard, and the comparisons are invariably to the girls’ credit. Magic requires patience, delicacy, intelligence, prudence, and perseverance, not to mention the humble, but calm, endurance of defeat and failure. Ambition is the undoing of men. They always want what they know to be impossible and unattainable. And they are unaware of the attainable.’

‘Enough, enough, enough,’ Sheala interrupted her, making no effort to hide a smile. ‘There is nothing worse than chauvinism underpinned by scholarship. You ought to be ashamed, Rita. Nonetheless . . . Yes, I also consider the proposed single-sex structure of this . . . convent or perhaps, if you will, this lodge, justified. As we have heard, it concerns the future of magic, and magic is too important a matter to entrust its fate to men.’

‘If I may,’ came the melodious voice of Francesca Findabair, ‘I should like to cut these digressions about the natural and undeniable domination of our sex short for a moment, and focus on matters concerning the proposed initiative, the goal of which is still not entirely clear to me. For the moment chosen is not accidental and gives food for thought. A war is being waged. Nilfgaard has crushed the northern kingdoms and nailed them down. Is there not then, concealed beneath the vague slogans I have heard here, the understandable desire to reverse that state of affairs? To crush and nail down Nilfgaard? And then to tan the hides of the insolent elves? If that is so, my dear Philippa, we shall not find common grounds for agreement.’

‘Is that the reason I have been invited here?’ Assire var Anahid asked. ‘I do not pay much attention to politics, but I know that the imperial army is seizing the advantage over your armies in this war. Apart from Mistresses Francesca and de Tancarville, who represents a neutral kingdom, all of you ladies represent kingdoms which are hostile to the Nilfgaardian Empire. How am I to understand these words of magical solidarity? As an incitement to treachery? I’m sorry, but I cannot see myself in such a role.’

On finishing her speech, Assire leant forward, as though touching something which was outside the frame of the projection. It seemed to Triss she could hear miaowing.

‘She’s even got a cat,’ Keira Metz whispered. ‘And I bet it’s black . . .’

‘Quiet,’ hissed Philippa. ‘My dear Francesca, most esteemed Mistress Assire. Our initiative is intended to be utterly apolitical; that is its fundamental premise. We shall not be guided by interests of race, kingdoms, kings or imperators, but by the interests of magic and its future.’

‘While putting magic first,’ Sabrina Glevissig said and smiled sneeringly, ‘I hope we will not forget, though, about the interests of sorceresses. We know, after all, how sorcerers are treated in Nilfgaard. We can sit here chatting away apolitically, but when Nilfgaard triumphs and we end up under imperial rule, we shall all look like . . .’

Triss shifted anxiously, Philippa sighed almost inaudibly. Keira lowered her head, Sheala pretended to be straightening her boa. Francesca bit her lip. Assire var Anahid’s face did not twitch, but a faint blush appeared on it.

‘It will be bad for all of us, is what I meant to say,’ Sabrina finished quickly. ‘Philippa, Triss and I, all three of us were on Sodden Hill. Emhyr will seek revenge for that defeat, for Thanedd, for all our activities. But that is only one of the reservations that the declared political neutrality of this convent arouses in me. Does participation in it mean immediate resignation from the active – and indeed political – service we presently offer to our kings? Or are we to remain in that service and serve two masters: magic and kingly rule?’

‘When someone tells me he is politically neutral,’ Francesca smiled, ‘I always ask which politics he specifically has in mind.’

‘And I know he definitely isn’t thinking about the one he engages in,’ Assire var Anahid added, looking at Philippa.

‘I am politically neutral,’ Margarita Laux-Antille chimed in, lifting her head, ‘and my school is politically neutral. I have in mind every type, kind and class of politics which exists!’

‘Dear ladies,’ Sheala said, having remained silent for some time. ‘Remember you are the dominant sex. So don’t behave like little girls, fighting over a tray of sweetmeats. The principium proposed by Philippa is clear, at least to me, and I still have too little cause to consider you any less intelligent. Outside this chamber be who you want, serve who you wish, as faithfully as you want. But when the convent meets, we shall focus exclusively on magic and its future.’

‘That is precisely how I imagine it,’ Philippa Eilhart agreed. ‘I know there are many problems, and that there are doubts and uncertainties. We shall discuss them during the next meeting, in which we shall all participate; not in the form of projections or illusions, but in person. Your presence will be treated not as a formal act of accession to the convent, but as a gesture of good will. We shall decide together whether a convent of this kind will be founded at all, then. Together. All of us. With equal rights.’

‘All of us?’ Sheala repeated. ‘I see empty seats and I presume they were not put here inadvertently.’

‘The convent ought to number twelve sorceresses. I would like the candidate for one of those empty seats to be proposed and presented to us at our next meeting by Mistress Assire. There must be at least one more worthy sorceress in the Nilfgaardian Empire. I leave the second place for you to fill, Francesca, so that you will not feel alone as the only pureblood elf. The third . . .’

Enid an Gleanna raised her head.

‘I would like two places. I have two candidates.’

‘Do any of you have any objections to this request? If not, then I concur. Today is the fifth day of August, the fifth day after the new moon. We shall meet again on the second day after the full moon, sisters dear, in fourteen days.’

‘Just a moment,’ Sheala de Tancarville interrupted. ‘One place still remains empty. Who is to be the twelfth sorceress?’

‘That is precisely the first problem the lodge will have to solve,’ Philippa said, smiling mysteriously. ‘In two weeks’ time I shall tell you who ought to take their place in the twelfth seat. And then we shall ponder over how to get that person to take it up. My choice will astonish you. Because it is not an ordinary person, most esteemed sisters. It is death or life, destruction or rebirth, chaos or order. Depending on how you look at it.’

The entire village had poured out of their houses to watch the gang pass through. Tuzik also joined them. He had work to do, but he couldn’t resist it. In recent days, people had been talking a great deal about the Rats. A rumour was even going around that they had all been caught and hanged. The rumour had been false, though, the evidence of which was ostentatiously and unhurriedly parading in front of the whole village at this very moment.

‘Impudent scoundrels,’ someone behind Tuzik whispered, and it was a whisper full of admiration. ‘Ambling down the main street . . .’

‘Decked out like wedding guests . . .’

‘And what horses! You don’t even see Nilfgaardians with horses like that!’

‘Ha, they’re nicked. Nobody’s horses are safe from them. And you can offload them everywhere nowadays. But they keep the best for ’emselves . . .’

‘That one up the front, look, that’s Giselher . . . Their leader.’

‘And next to him, on the chestnut, it’s that she-elf . . . they call her Iskra . . .’

A cur came scuttling out from behind a fence, barking furiously, scurrying around near the fore hooves of Iskra’s mare. The elf shook her luxurious mane of dark hair, turned her horse around, leant down to the ground and lashed the dog with a knout. The cur howled and spun on the spot three times, as Iskra spat on it. Tuzik muttered a curse between clenched teeth.

The people standing close by continued to whisper, discreetly pointing out the various Rats as they passed through the village. Tuzik listened, because he had to. He knew the gossip and tales as well as the others, and easily recognised the one with the long, tousled, straw-coloured hair, eating an apple, as Kayleigh, the broad-shouldered one as Asse, and the one in the embroidered sheepskin jerkin as Reef.

Two girls, riding side by side and holding hands, brought up the rear of the procession. The taller of the two, riding a bay, had her hair shorn as though recovering from the typhus, her jacket was unbuttoned, her lacy blouse gleamed white beneath it, and her necklace, bracelets and earrings flashed brightly.

‘That shaven-headed one is Mistle . . .’ someone near Tuzik said. ‘Dripping with trinkets, just like a Yule tree.’

‘They say she’s killed more people than she’s seen springs . . .’

‘And the other one? On the roan? With the sword across her back?’

‘Falka, they call her. She’s been riding with the Rats since the summer. She also s’pposed to be a nasty piece of work . . .’

That nasty piece of work, Tuzik guessed, wasn’t much older than his daughter, Milena. The flaxen hair of the young bandit tumbled from beneath her velvet beret decorated with an impudently jiggling bunch of pheasant feathers. Around her neck glowed a poppy-red silk kerchief, tied up in a fanciful bow.

A sudden commotion had broken out among the villagers who had poured out in front of their cottages. For Giselher, the one riding at the head of the gang, had reined in his horse, and with a careless gesture thrown a clinking purse at the foot of Granny Mykita, who was standing leaning on a cane.

‘May the Gods protect you, gracious youth!’ wailed Granny Mykita. ‘May you enjoy good health, O our benefactor, may you—’

A peal of laughter from Iskra drowned out the crone’s mumbling. The elf threw a jaunty leg over her pommel, reached into a pouch and vigorously scattered a handful of coins among the crowd. Reef and Asse followed her lead, a veritable silver rain showering down on the dusty road. Kayleigh, giggling, threw his apple core into the figures scrambling to gather up the money.

‘Our benefactors!’

‘Our bold young hawks!’

‘May fate be kind to you!’

Tuzik didn’t run after the others, didn’t drop to his knees to scrabble in the sand and chicken shit for coins. He stood by the fence, watching the girls pass slowly by.

The younger of the two, the one with the flaxen hair, noticed his gaze and expression. She let go of the short-haired girl’s hand, spurred her horse and rode straight for him, pressing him against the fence and almost getting her stirrup caught. Her green eyes flashed and he shuddered, seeing so much evil and cold hatred in them.

‘Let him be, Falka,’ the other girl called, needlessly.

The green-eyed bandit settled for pushing Tuzik against the fence, and rode off after the Rats, without even looking back.

‘Our benefactors!’

‘Young hawks!’

Tuzik spat.

In the early evening, men in black uniforms arrived in the village. They were forbidding-looking horsemen from the fort near Fen Aspra. Their hooves thudded, their horses neighed and their weapons clanked. When asked, the village headman and other peasants lied through their teeth, and sent the pursuers on a false trail. No one asked Tuzik. Fortunately.

When he returned from the pasture and went into his garden, he heard voices. He recognised the twittering of Zgarba the carter’s twin girls, the cracking falsettos of his neighbour’s adolescent boys. And Milena’s voice. They’re playing, he thought. He turned the corner beyond the woodshed. And froze in his tracks.

‘Milena!’

Milena, his only surviving daughter, the apple of his eye, had hung a piece of wood across her back on a string, like a sword. She’d let her hair down, attached a cockerel’s feather to her woollen hat, and tied her mother’s kerchief around her neck. In a bizarre, fanciful bow.

Her eyes were green.

Tuzik had never beaten his daughter before, never raised his hand against her.

That was the first time.

Lightning flashed on the horizon and thunder rumbled. A gust of wind raked across the surface of the Ribbon.

There’s going to be a storm, thought Milva, and after the storm the rain will set in. The chaffinches weren’t mistaken.

She urged her horse on. She would have to hurry if she wanted to catch up with the Witcher before the storm broke.

I have met many military men in my life. I have known marshals, generals, commanders and governors, the victors of numerous campaigns and battles. I’ve listened to their stories and recollections. I’ve seen them poring over maps, drawing lines of various colours on them, making plans, thinking up strategies. In those paper wars everything worked, everything functioned, everything was clear and everything was in exemplary order. That’s how it has to be, explained the military men. The army represents discipline and order above all. The army cannot exist without discipline and order.

So it is all the stranger that real wars – and I have seen several real wars – have as much in common with discipline and order as a whorehouse with a fire raging through it.

Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

CHAPTER TWO

The crystalline clear water of the Ribbon brimmed over the edge of the drop in a smooth, gentle arc, falling in a soughing and frothing cascade among boulders as black as onyx. It broke up on them and vanished in a white foam, from where it spilt into a wide pool which was so transparent that every pebble and every green strand of waterweed swaying in the current could be seen in the variegated mosaic of the riverbed.

Both banks were overgrown with carpets of knotgrass, through which dippers bustled, proudly flashing the white ruffles on their throats. Above the knotgrass, bushes shimmered green, brown and ochre against spruce trees which looked as though they had been sprinkled with silver.

‘Indeed,’ Dandelion sighed. ‘It’s beautiful here.’

A large, dark bull trout attempted to jump the lip of the waterfall. For a moment it hung in the air, flexing its fins and flicking its tail, and then fell heavily into the seething foam.

The darkening sky to the south was split by a forked ribbon of lightning and the dull echo of distant thunder rumbled over the wall of trees. The Witcher’s bay mare danced, jerked her head and bared her teeth, trying to spit out the bit. Geralt tugged the reins hard and the mare skittered backwards, dancing hooves clattering on the stones.

‘Whoa! Whoaaa! Do you see her, Dandelion? Damned ballerina! I’m getting rid of this bloody beast the first chance I get! Strike me down, if I don’t swap her for a donkey!’

‘See that happening anytime soon?’ said the poet, scratching the itching mosquito bites on the nape of his neck. ‘This valley’s savage landscape indeed offers unparalleled aesthetic impressions, but for a change I’d be happy to gaze on a less aesthetic tavern. I’ve spent almost a week admiring nothing but romantic nature, breathtaking panoramas and distant horizons. I miss the indoors. Particularly the kind where they serve warm victuals and cold beer.’

‘You’ll have to carry on missing them a bit longer,’ said the Witcher, turning around in the saddle. ‘That I miss civilisation a little too may alleviate your suffering. As you know, I was stuck in Brokilon for exactly thirty-six days . . . and nights too, when romantic nature was freezing my arse, crawling across my back and sprinkling dew on my nose— Whoaaa! Pox on you! Will you stop sulking, you bloody nag?’

‘It’s the horseflies biting her. The bugs are getting vicious and bloodthirsty, because a storm’s approaching. The thunder and lightning’s getting more frequent to the south.’

‘So I see,’ the Witcher said, looking at the sky and reining in his skittish horse. ‘And the wind’s coming from a different direction, too. It smells of the sea. The weather’s changing, without a doubt. Let’s ride. Urge on that fat gelding of yours, Dandelion.’

‘My steed is called Pegasus.’

‘Of course, what else? Know what? Let’s think up a name for my elven nag. Mmm . . .’

‘Why not Roach?’ mocked the troubadour.

‘Roach,’ agreed the Witcher. ‘Nice.’

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever had a horse that wasn’t called Roach?’

‘No,’ answered the Witcher after a moment’s thought. ‘I haven’t. Spur on that castrated Pegasus of yours, Dandelion. We’ve a long road ahead of us.’

‘Indeed,’ grunted the poet. ‘Nilfgaard . . . How many miles away, do you reckon?’

‘Plenty.’

‘Will we make it before winter?’

‘We’ll ride to Verden first. We have to discuss . . . certain matters there.’

‘What matters? You’ll neither discourage me nor get rid of me. I’m coming along! That is my last word.’

‘We shall see. As I said, we ride to Verden.’

‘Is it far? Do you know these lands?’

‘Yes I do. We are at Ceann Treise Falls and in front of us there’s a place called Seventh Mile. Those are the Owl Hills beyond the river.’

‘And we’re heading south, downriver? The Ribbon joins the Yaruga near the stronghold at Bodrog . . .’

‘We’re heading south, but along the other bank. The Ribbon bends towards the west and we’ll go through the forest. I want to get to a place called Drieschot, or the Triangle. The borders of Verden, Brugge and Brokilon meet there.’

‘And from there?’

‘Along the Yaruga. To the mouth. And to Cintra.’

‘And then?’

‘And then we’ll see. If at all possible, force that idle Pegasus of yours to go a little quicker.’

A downpour caught them as they were crossing, right in the middle of the river. First a strong wind got up, with hurricane-force gusts blowing their hair and mantles around and lashing their faces with leaves and branches torn from the trees along the banks. They urged on their horses with shouts and kicks of their heels, stirring up the water as they headed for the bank. Then the wind suddenly dropped and they saw a grey curtain of rain gliding towards them. The surface of the Ribbon turned white and boiling, as though someone were hurling great handfuls of gravel at the river.

Having reached the bank, drenched to the skin, they hurried to hide in the forest. The branches created a dense, green roof over their heads, but it was not a roof capable of protecting them from such a downpour. The rain lashed intensely and forced down the leaves, and was soon pouring on them almost as hard as it had in the open.

They wrapped themselves up in their mantles, put up their hoods and kept moving. It became dark among the trees, the only light coming from the increasingly frequent flashes of lightning. The thunder followed, with long, deafening crashes. Roach shied, stamped her hooves and skittered around. Pegasus remained utterly calm.

‘Geralt!’ Dandelion yelled, trying to outshout a peal of thunder which was crashing through the forest like a gigantic wagon. ‘We have to stop! Let’s shelter somewhere!’

‘Where?’ he shouted back. ‘Ride on!’

And they rode on.

After some time the rain visibly eased off, the strong wind once again soughed in the branches, and the crashes of thunder stopped boring into their ears. They rode out onto a track among a dense alder grove, then into a clearing. A towering beech tree stood in the middle. Beneath its boughs, on a thick, wide carpet of brown leaves and beechnuts, stood a wagon harnessed to a pair of mules. A wagoner sat on the coachman’s seat pointing a crossbow at them. Geralt swore. His curse was drowned out by a clap of thunder.

‘Put the bow down, Kolda,’ said a short man in a straw hat, turning from the trunk of a beech tree, hopping on one leg and fastening his trousers. ‘They’re not the ones we’re waiting for. But they are customers. Don’t frighten away customers. We don’t have much time, but there’s always time to trade!’

‘What the bloody hell?’ muttered Dandelion behind Geralt’s back.

‘Over here, Master Elves!’ the man in the hat called over. ‘Don’t you worry, no harm will come your way. N’ess a tearth! Va, Seidhe. Ceadmil! We’re mates, right? Want to trade? Come on, over here, under this tree, out of the rain!’

Geralt wasn’t surprised by the wagoner’s mistake. Both he and Dandelion were wrapped in grey elven mantels. He was also wearing a jerkin decorated with the kind of leafy pattern elves favoured, given to him by the dryads, was riding a horse with typical elven trappings and a decorated bridle. His face was partially hidden by his hood. As far as the foppish Dandelion was concerned, he was regularly mistaken for an elf or half-elf, particularly since he had begun wearing his hair shoulder-length and taken up the habit of occasionally curling it with tongs.

‘Careful,’ Geralt muttered, dismounting. ‘You’re an elf. So don’t open your trap if you don’t have to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re hawkers.’

Dandelion hissed softly. He knew what that meant.

Money made the world go round, and supply was driven by demand. The Scoia’tael roaming the forests gathered saleable booty that was useless to them, while suffering from a shortage of equipment and weapons themselves. That was how forest trading began. And how a class of humans who earned their living from this kind of trade sprang up. The wagons of profiteers who traded with the Squirrels began appearing clandestinely on forest tracks, paths, glades and clearings. The elves called them hav’caaren, an untranslatable word, but one which was associated with rapacious greed. Among humans the term ‘hawker’ became widespread, and the connotations were even more hideous than usual, because the traders themselves were so awful. Cruel and ruthless, they stopped at nothing, not even killing. A hawker caught by the army could not count on mercy. Hence he was not in the habit of showing it himself. If they came across anyone who might turn them in, hawkers would reach for a crossbow or a knife without a second thought.

So they were out of luck. It was fortunate the hawkers had taken them for elves. Geralt pulled his hood down over his eyes and began to wonder what would happen if the hav’caaren saw through the masquerade.

‘What foul weather,’ said the trader, rubbing his hands. ‘It’s pouring like the sky was leaking! Awful tedd, ell’ea? But what to do, there’s no bad weather for doing business. There’s only bad goods and bad money, innit! You know what I’m saying?’

Geralt nodded. Dandelion grunted something from under his hood. Luckily for them, the elves’ contemptuous dislike of conversing with humans was generally known and came as no surprise. The wagoner did not put the crossbow down, however, which was not a good sign.

‘Who are you with? Whose commando?’ the hawker asked, unconcerned, as any serious trader would be, by the reticence of his customers. ‘Coinneach Dá Reo’s? Or Angus Bri-Cri’s? Or maybe Riordain’s? I heard Riordain put some royal bailiffs to the sword. They were travelling home after they’d done their duty, collecting a levy. And they had it in coinage, not grain. I don’t take wood tar nor grain in payment, nor blood-stained clothing, and if we’re talking furs, only mink, sable or ermine. But what I like most is common coinage, precious stones and trinkets! If you have them we can trade! I only have first-class goods! Evelienn; vara en ard scedde, ell’ea, you know what I mean? I’ve got everything. Take a look.’

The trader went over to the wagon and pulled back the edge of the wet tarpaulin. They saw swords, bows, bunches of arrows and saddles. The hawker rooted around among them and took out an arrow. The arrowhead was serrated and sawn through.

‘You won’t find any other traders selling this,’ he said boastfully. ‘They’d shit themselves if they were to touch ’em. You’d be torn apart by horses if you were caught with arrows like that. But I know what you Squirrels like. Customer comes first, and you’ve got to take a risk when you barter, as long as there’s a profit from it! I’ve got barbed arrowheads at . . . nine orens a dozen. Naev’de aen tvedeane, ell’ea, got it, Seidhe? I swear I’m not fleecing you, I don’t make much myself, I swear on my little children’s heads. And if you take three dozen straight away, I’ll knock a bit off the price. It’s a bargain, I swear, a sheer bargain— Hey, Seidhe, hands off my wagon!’

Dandelion nervously withdrew his hand from the tarpaulin and pulled his hood further down over his face. Once again, Geralt quietly cursed the bard’s irrepressible curiosity.

‘Mir’me vara,’ mumbled Dandelion, raising his hand in a gesture of apology. ‘Squaess’me.’

‘No harm done,’ said the hawker, grinning. ‘But no looking in there, because there’s other goods in the wagon too. Not for sale, those, not for Seidhe. A special order, ha, ha. But that’s enough rabbiting . . . Show us the colour of your money.’

Here we go, thought Geralt, looking at the wagoner’s nocked crossbow. He had reason to believe the quarrel’s tip was barbed too – just like the arrows he’d been so proudly shown moments before – and would, after entering the belly, exit through the back in three or sometimes four places, turning the victim’s internal organs into a very messy goulash.

‘N’ess tedd,’ he said, trying to speak in a singsong way. ‘Tearde. Mireann vara, va’en vort. We’ll trade when we return from the commando. Ell’ea? Understood, Dh’oine?’

‘Understood,’ the hawker said, spitting. ‘Understood that you’re skint. You’d like the goods, you just don’t have the readies. Be off with you! And don’t come back, because I’m meeting important parties here. It’ll be safer if they don’t clap eyes on you. Go to—’

He broke off, hearing the snorting of a horse.

‘Damn it!’ he snarled. ‘It’s too late! They’re here! Hoods down, elves! Don’t move and button your lips! Kolda, you ass, put that crossbow down and fast!’

The heavy rain, thunder and the carpet of leaves had dampened the thudding of hooves, which meant the riders had been able to ride up undetected and surround the beech tree in an instant. They weren’t Scoia’tael. Squirrels didn’t wear armour, and the metal helmets, spaulders and hauberks of the eight horsemen surrounding the tree were glistening in the rain.

One of the horsemen approached at a walk and towered over the hawker like a mountain. He was of impressive height and was mounted on a powerful warhorse. A wolf skin was draped over his armoured shoulders and his face was obscured by a helmet with a broad, protruding nose-guard reaching down to his lower lip. The stranger was holding a menacing-looking war hammer.

‘Rideaux!’ he called huskily.

‘Faoiltiarna!’ replied the trader in a slightly quavering voice.

The horseman came even closer and leant forward. Water poured down from his steel nose-guard straight onto his vambrace and the balefully glistening point of the hammer.

‘Faoiltiarna!’ the hawker repeated, bowing low. He removed his hat and the rain immediately plastered his thinning hair to his head. ‘Faoiltiarna! I’m your man; I know the password and the countersign . . . I’ve been with Faoiltiarna, Your Lordship . . . Here I am, as arranged . . .’

‘And those men, who are they?’

‘My escort,’ the hawker said, bowing even lower. ‘You know, elves . . .’

‘The prisoner?’

‘On the wagon. In a coffin.’

‘In a coffin?’ The thunder partially drowned the furious roar of the horseman. ‘You won’t get away with this! Viscount de Rideaux gave clear instructions that the prisoner was to be handed over alive!’

‘He’s alive, he’s alive,’ the trader gibbered hurriedly. ‘As per orders . . . Shoved into a coffin, but alive . . . The coffin wasn’t my idea, Your Lordship. It was Faoiltiarna’s . . .’

The horseman rapped the hammer against his stirrup, as a sign. Three other horsemen dismounted and pulled the tarpaulin off the wagon. When they had thrown various saddles, blankets and bunches of harnesses onto the ground, Geralt actually saw a coffin made of fresh pine, lit by a flash of lightning. He didn’t look too closely, however. He felt a tingling in the tips of his fingers. He knew what was about to happen.

‘What’s all this, Your Lordship?’ the hawker said, looking at the goods lying on the wet leaves. ‘You’re chucking all my gear out of the wagon.’

‘I’ll buy it all. Along with the horse and cart.’

‘Aaah,’ a repulsive grin crept over the trader’s bristly face. ‘Now you’re talking. That’ll be . . . Let me think . . . Five hundred, if you’ll excuse me, Your Nobleness, if we’re talking Temerian currency. If it’s your florins, then it’ll be forty-five.’

‘That’s cheap,’ snorted the horseman, smiling eerily behind his nose-guard. ‘Come closer.’

‘Watch out, Dandelion,’ hissed the Witcher, imperceptibly unfastening the buckle of his mantle. It thundered once more.

The hawker approached the horseman, naively counting on the deal of his life. And in a way it was the deal of his life, not the best, perhaps, but certainly the last. The horseman stood in his stirrups and drove the point of the hammer down with great force onto the hawker’s bald crown. The trader dropped without a sound, shuddered, flapped his arms and scraped the wet carpet of leaves with his heels. One of the men rummaging around on the wagon threw a leather strap around the wagoner’s neck and pulled it tight; the other leapt forward and stabbed him with a dagger.

One of the horsemen raised his crossbow quickly to his shoulder and took aim at Dandelion. But Geralt already had a sword – one of those thrown from the wagon – in his hand. Seizing the weapon halfway down the blade, he flung it like a javelin and hit the crossbowman, who fell off the horse with an expression of utter astonishment on his face.

‘Run, Dandelion!’

Dandelion caught up with Pegasus and leapt for the saddle with a desperate bound. The jump was a tad too desperate, however, and the poet was a tad too inexperienced. He didn’t hang onto the pommel and tumbled to the ground on the other side of the horse. And that saved his life, as the blade of the attacking horseman’s sword cut through the air above Pegasus’s ears with a hiss. The gelding shied, jerked, and collided with the attacker’s horse.

‘They aren’t elves!’ yelled the horseman in the helmet with the nose-guard, drawing his sword. ‘Take them alive! Alive!’

One of the men who had jumped down from the wagon hesitated on hearing the order. Geralt, however, had already drawn his own sword and didn’t hesitate for a second. The fervour of the other two men was somewhat cooled by the fountain of blood which spurted over them. He took advantage of the situation and cut one of them down. But the horsemen were already charging at him. He ducked under their swords, parried their blows, dodged aside and suddenly felt a piercing pain in his right knee. He could feel himself keeling over. He wasn’t hurt; the injured leg, which had been treated in Brokilon, had simply crumpled under him without warning.

The foot soldier aiming for him with the butt of a battle-axe suddenly groaned and lurched forward, as though someone had shoved him hard in the back. Before he fell, the Witcher saw an arrow with long fletchings sticking out of his assailant’s side, driven in to halfway up the shaft. Dandelion yelled; a thunderclap drowned out his cry.

Geralt, who was hanging on to one of the cartwheels, saw a fair-haired girl with a drawn bow dashing out of an alder grove. The horsemen saw her too. They couldn’t fail to see her, because at that moment one of them tumbled backwards over his horse’s croup, his throat transformed into a scarlet pulp by an arrow. The remaining three, including the leader in the helmet with the nose-guard, assessed the danger immediately and galloped towards the archer, hiding behind their horses’ necks. They thought the horses’ necks represented sufficient protection against the arrows. They were mistaken.

Maria Barring, also known as Milva, drew her bow. She took aim calmly, the bowstring pressed against her cheek.

The first of her attackers screamed and slid off his horse. One foot caught in the stirrup and he was trampled beneath the horse’s iron-shod hooves. Another arrow hurled the second from his saddle. The third man, the leader, who was already close, stood in the saddle and raised his sword to strike. Milva did not even flinch. Fearlessly looking straight at her attacker, she bent her bow and shot an arrow right into his face from a distance of five paces, striking just to the side of the steel nose-guard and jumping aside as she shot. The arrow passed right through his skull, knocking off his helmet. The horse did not slow its gallop. The horseman, now lacking a helmet and a considerable part of his skull, remained in the saddle for a few seconds, then slowly tipped over and crashed into a puddle. The horse neighed and ran on.

Geralt struggled to his feet and massaged his leg which, though painful, for a wonder seemed to be functioning normally. He could stand on it without difficulty and walk. Next to him, Dandelion hauled himself up, throwing off the corpse with a mutilated throat which was weighing down on him. The poet’s face was the colour of quicklime.

Milva came closer, pulling an arrow from a dead man as she approached.

‘Thank you,’ the Witcher said. ‘Dandelion, say thank you. This is Maria Barring, or Milva. It’s thanks to her we’re alive.’

Milva yanked an arrow from another of the dead bodies and examined the bloody arrowhead. Dandelion mumbled incoherently, bent over in a courtly – but somewhat quavering – bow, then dropped to his knees and vomited.

‘Who’s that?’ the archer asked, wiping the arrowhead on some wet leaves and replacing it in her quiver. ‘A comrade of yours, Witcher?’

‘Yes. His name’s Dandelion. He’s a poet.’

‘A poet,’ Milva watched the troubadour wracked by attacks of dry retching and then looked up. ‘That I can understand. But I don’t quite understand why he’s puking here, instead of writing rhymes in a quiet spot somewhere. But I suppose that’s none of my business.’

‘It is yours, in a sense. You saved his skin. And mine too.’

Milva wiped her rain-splashed face, with the imprint of the bowstring still visible on it. Although she had shot several arrows, there was only one imprint; the bowstring pressed against the same place each time.

‘I was already in the alder grove when you started talking to the hawker,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want the scoundrel to see me, for there was no need. And then those others arrived and the slaughter began. You messed a few of them up very nicely. You know how to swing a sword, I’ll give you that. Even if you are a cripple. You should have stayed in Brokilon till your peg healed instead of making it worse. You might limp for the rest of your life. You realise that, don’t you?’

‘I’ll survive.’

‘I reckon you will, too. I followed you to warn you, and to make you turn back. Your quest won’t come to anything. There’s a war raging in the south. The Nilfgaardian Army are marching on Brugge from Drieschot.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Just look at them,’ the girl said, making a sweeping gesture and pointing at the bodies and the horses. ‘I mean, they’re Nilfgaardians! Can’t you see the suns on their helmets? The embroidery on their saddlecloths? Pack up your things, and we’ll take to our heels; more of them may arrive any moment. These were mounted scouts.’

‘I don’t think they were just scouts,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They were after something.’

‘What might that be, just out of interest?’

‘That,’ he said, pointing at the pinewood coffin lying in the wagon, now darkened from the rain. It wasn’t raining as hard as it had been during the short battle, and it had stopped thundering. The storm was moving north. The Witcher picked up his sword from among the leaves and jumped onto the wagon, quietly cursing because his knee still hurt.

‘Help me get it open.’

‘What do you want with a stiff . . . ?’ Milva broke off, seeing the holes bored into the lid. ‘Bloody hell! Was the hawker lugging a live person around in here?’

‘It’s some kind of prisoner,’ Geralt said, levering the lid open. ‘The trader was waiting for these Nilfgaardians, to hand him over to them. They exchanged passwords and countersigns . . .’

The lid tore off with the sound of splitting wood, revealing a man with a gag over his mouth, his arms and legs fastened to the sides of the coffin by leather straps. The Witcher leant over. He took a good look. And again, this time more intently. And swore.

‘Well I never,’ he drawled. ‘What a surprise. Who would have thought it?’

‘Do you know him, Witcher?’

‘By sight.’ He smiled hideously. ‘Put the knife away, Milva. Don’t cut his bonds. It seems this is an internal Nilfgaardian matter. We shouldn’t get involved. Let’s leave him as he is.’

‘Am I hearing right?’ Dandelion asked, joining in from behind. He was still pale, but curiosity had overcome his other emotions. ‘Are you planning to leave him tied up in the forest? I’m guessing you’ve recognised someone you have a bone to pick with, but he’s a prisoner, by the Gods! He was the prisoner of the men who jumped us and almost killed us. And the enemy of our enemy . . .’

He broke off, seeing the Witcher removing a knife from his boot-top. Milva coughed quietly. The captive’s dark blue eyes, previously screwed up against the rain, widened. Geralt leant over and cut the strap fastened around the prisoner’s left arm.

‘Look, Dandelion,’ he said, seizing the captive’s wrist and raising his now-free arm. ‘Do you see the scar on his hand? Ciri did that. On the Isle of Thanedd, a month ago. He’s a Nilfgaardian. He came to Thanedd specifically to abduct Ciri and she wounded him, defending herself from being captured.’

‘But it all came to nothing anyway,’ muttered Milva. ‘I sense something doesn’t add up here. If he kidnapped your Ciri for Nilfgaard, how did he end up in this coffin? Why was that hawker handing him over to the Nilfgaardians? Take that gag off him, Witcher. Perhaps he’ll tell us something.’

‘I have no desire to listen to him,’ he said flatly. ‘My hand is itching to stab him through the heart, with him lying there looking at me. It’s all I can do to restrain myself. And if he opens his mouth, I know I won’t be able to hold back. I haven’t told you everything.’

‘Don’t hold back then.’ Milva shrugged her shoulders. ‘Stick him, if he’s such a villain. But do it quickly, because time’s getting on. As I said, the Nilfgaardians will be here soon. I’m going to get my horse.’

Geralt straightened up and released the captive’s hand. The man immediately loosened the gag and spat it out of his mouth. But he said nothing. The Witcher threw his knife onto the man’s chest.

‘I don’t know what sins you committed for them to trap you in this chest, Nilfgaardian,’ he said. ‘And I don’t care. I’ll leave you this blade. Free yourself. Wait here for your own people, or escape into the forest, it’s up to you.’

The captive said nothing. Tied up and lying in that wooden crate, he looked even more miserable and defenceless than he had on Thanedd – and Geralt had seen him there on his knees, wounded and trembling with fear in a pool of blood. He also looked considerably younger now. The Witcher wouldn’t have put him at more than twenty-five.

‘I spared your life on the island,’ he said. ‘And I’m doing it again. But it’s the last time. The next time we meet I’ll kill you like a dog. Remember that. If you persuade your comrades to pursue us, take the coffin with you. It’ll come in useful. Let’s go, Dandelion.’

‘Make haste!’ Milva shouted, turning away at full gallop from the westward track. ‘But not that way! Into the trees, by thunder, into the trees!’

‘What’s going on?’

‘A large group of riders are heading towards us from the Ribbon! It’s Nilfgaard! What are you staring at? To horse, before they’re upon us!’

The battle for the village had been going on for an hour and wasn’t showing any signs of finishing soon. The infantry, holding out behind stone walls, fences and upturned wagons, had repulsed three attacks by the cavalry, who came charging at them from the causeway. The width of the causeway did not permit the horsemen to gain enough momentum for a frontal attack, but allowed the foot soldiers to concentrate their defence. As a result, waves of cavalry repeatedly foundered on the barricades, behind which the desperate but fierce soldiers were shooting a hail of quarrels and arrows into the mounted throng. The cavalry seethed and teemed under this assault, and then the defenders rushed out at them in a rapid counterattack, fighting furiously with battle-axes, guisarmes and studded flails. The cavalry retreated to the ponds, leaving human and equine corpses behind, while the infantry concealed themselves among the barricades and hurled filthy insults at the enemy. After a while, the cavalry formed up and attacked once again.

And again.

‘Who do you think’s fighting whom?’ Dandelion asked once more, but indistinctly, as he was trying to soften and chew a piece of hard tack he had scrounged from Milva.

They were sitting on the very edge of the cliff, well hidden among juniper shrubs. They were able to watch the battle without being afraid anyone would notice them. Actually, they could do nothing but watch. They had no choice: a battle was raging in front of them and a forest fire was raging behind them.

‘It’s easy to identify them,’ Geralt said, reluctantly responding to Dandelion’s question. ‘They’re Nilfgaardian horsemen.’

‘And the infantry?’

‘The infantry aren’t Nilfgaardian.’

‘The horsemen are regular cavalrymen from Verden,’ said Milva, until then sombre and strangely taciturn. ‘They have the Verdenian checkerboard emblem sewn onto their tunics. And the ones in the village are the Bruggian regular infantry. You can tell by their banners.’

Indeed, encouraged by another small victory, the infantrymen raised their green standard – with a white cross moline – above the entrenchment. Geralt had been watching intently, but hadn’t noticed the standard before. It must have gone missing at the start of the battle.

‘Are we staying here for much longer?’ Dandelion asked.

‘Oh dear,’ muttered Milva ‘Here he goes. Take a look around! Whichever way you turn, it looks pretty shitty, doesn’t it?

Dandelion didn’t have to look or turn around. The entire horizon was striped with columns of smoke. It was thickest to the north and the west, where the armies had set fire to the forests. Smoke was also rising into the sky in many places to the south, where they had been heading when the battle had barred their way. And during the hour they had spent on the hill, smoke had also started rising to the east.

‘However,’ the archer began a moment later, looking at Geralt, ‘I’d really like to know what you intend doing now, Witcher. Behind us we’ve got Nilfgaard and a burning forest, and you can see for yourself what’s in front of us. So what are your plans?’

‘My plans haven’t changed. I’ll wait for this scrap to finish and then I’ll head south. Towards the Yaruga.’

‘I think you’ve lost your mind.’ Milva scowled. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening? It’s as clear as the nose on your face that it’s not some leaderless band of mercenaries, but something called war. Nilfgaard and Verden are on the march. They’re sure to have crossed the Yaruga in the south and probably the whole of Brugge and possibly Sodden are in flames—’

‘I have to get to the Yaruga.’

‘Excellent. And what then?’

‘I’ll find a boat, I’ll sail downstream and try to make it to the delta. Then a ship— I mean, hell, some ships must still sail from there—’

‘To Nilfgaard?’ she snorted. ‘So the plans haven’t changed?’

‘You don’t have to go with me.’

‘No, I don’t. And praise the Gods for that, because I don’t have a death wish. I’m not afraid, but mind you: getting yourself killed is no claim to fame.’

‘I know,’ he replied calmly. ‘I know from experience. I wouldn’t be heading that way if I didn’t have to. But I have to, so I’m going. Nothing’s going to stop me.’

‘Ah,’ she said, looking him up and down. ‘Listen to this hero, his voice like someone scraping a sword across a shield. If Imperator Emhyr could hear you, I’m sure he’d be shitting his britches in terror. “To my side, guards, to my side, my imperial regiments, oh woe is me, the Witcher’s heading for Nilfgaard in a rowing boat, soon he’ll be here to take my crown and life from me! I’m doomed!” ’

‘Give over, Milva.’

‘I won’t! It’s time someone finally told you the truth to your face. Fuck me with a mangy rabbit if I’ve ever seen a stupider clod! You’re going to snatch your maid from Emhyr? The same maid Emhyr has got lined up as his Imperatoress? The girl he snatched from Thanedd? Emhyr’s got long hands. They don’t let go of what they seize. The kings stand no chance against him, but still you fancy yours?’

He didn’t answer.

‘You’re heading for Nilfgaard,’ Milva repeated, shaking her head in mock sympathy. ‘To fight the Imperator and rescue his fiancée. But have you thought about what might happen? When you get there, when you find Ciri in her imperial apartments, all dressed in gold and silk, what will you say to her? Follow me, my darling. What do you want with an imperial throne? We’ll live together in a shack and eat bark during the lean season. Look at yourself, you lame scruff. You even got your coat and boots from the dryads, stripped from some elf who died of his wounds in Brokilon. And do you know what’ll happen when your maid sees you? She’ll spit in your eye and scorn you. She’ll order the imperial guard to throw you out on your ear and set the dogs on you!’

Milva was speaking louder and louder and she was almost shouting by the end of her tirade. Not only from anger, but also to be heard over the intensifying noise of battle. Down below, scores – or even hundreds – of throats were roaring. Another attack descended on the Bruggian infantry. But this time from two sides simultaneously. Verdenians dressed in greyish-blue tunics adorned with a chequered pattern galloped along the causeway, while a powerful cavalry force in black cloaks dashed out from behind the ponds, striking the defenders’ flank.

‘Nilfgaard,’ said Milva tersely.

This time the Bruggian infantry had no chance. The cavalry forced their way through the barricades and ripped the defenders apart with their swords. The standard with the cross fell. Some of the infantrymen laid down their arms and surrendered; others tried to escape towards the trees. But as they ran a third unit emerged from the trees and attacked; a mixed band of light cavalry.

‘The Scoia’tael,’ Milva said, getting to her feet. ‘Now do you understand what’s going on, Witcher? Do you get it? Nilfgaard, Verden and the Squirrels all at once. War. Like it was in Aedirn a month ago.’

‘It’s a raid,’ Geralt said, shaking his head. ‘A plundering raid. Only horsemen, no infantry . . .’

‘The infantry are capturing forts and their garrisons. Where do you think those plumes of smoke are coming from? Smokehouses?’

The bestial, dreadful screams of people fleeing only to be caught and slaughtered by the Squirrels drifted up from the village. Smoke and flames belched from the roofs of the cottages. A strong wind was swiftly spreading the fire from one thatched roof to another.

‘Look at that village going up in smoke,’ muttered Milva. ‘And they’d only just finished rebuilding it after the last war. They sweated for two years to put up the foundations and it’ll burn down in a few seconds. That’s a lesson to be learned!’

‘What lesson would that be?’ asked Geralt brusquely.

She didn’t answer. The smoke from the burning village rose up to the top of the cliff, stung their eyes and made them water. They could hear the screams from the inferno. Dandelion suddenly went as white as a sheet.

The captives were driven into a huddle, surrounded by a ring of soldiers. On the order of a knight in a black-plumed helmet the horsemen began to slash and stab the unarmed villagers. They were trampled by horses as they fell. The ring tightened. The screams which reached the cliff top no longer resembled sounds made by humans.

‘And you want to travel south?’ asked the poet, looking meaningfully at the Witcher. ‘Through these fires? Where these butchers come from?’

‘Seems to me,’ Geralt replied reluctantly, ‘that we don’t have a choice.’

‘Yes, we do,’ Milva said. ‘I can lead you through the forests to the Owl Hills and back to Ceann Treise. And Brokilon.’

‘Through those burning forests? Through more skirmishes like this?’

‘It’s safer than the road south. It’s no more than fourteen miles to Ceann Treise and I know which paths to take.’

The Witcher looked down at the village perishing in the flames. The Nilfgaardians had dealt with the captives and the cavalry had formed up in marching order. The motley band of Scoia’tael set off along the highway leading east.

‘I’m not going back,’ he retorted. ‘But you can escort Dandelion to Brokilon.’

‘No!’ the poet protested, although he still hadn’t regained his normal colour. ‘I’m going with you.’

Milva shrugged, picked up her quiver and bow, took a step towards the horses and then suddenly turned around.

‘Devil take it!’ she snapped. ‘I’ve been saving elves from death for too long. I can’t just let someone go to his death! I’ll lead you to the Yaruga, you crazy fools. But by the eastern route, not the southern one.’

‘The forests are burning there too.’

‘I’ll lead you through the fire. I’m used to it.’

‘You don’t have to, Milva.’

‘Too right I don’t. Now to horse! And get a bloody move on!’

They didn’t get far. The horses had difficulty moving through the undergrowth and along the overgrown tracks, and they didn’t dare use roads; the hoofbeats and clanking could be heard everywhere, betraying the presence of armed forces. Dusk surprised them among brush-covered ravines, so they stopped for the night. It wasn’t raining and the sky was bright from the glow of fires.

They found a fairly dry place, wrapped themselves in their mantles and blankets and sat down. Milva went off to search the surrounding area. As soon as she moved away, Dandelion gave vent to the long-suppressed curiosity that the Brokilonian archer had aroused in him.

‘That’s a comely girl if ever there was one,’ he murmured. ‘You’re lucky when it comes to the female of the species, Geralt. She’s tall and curvaceous, and walks as though she were dancing. A little too slim in the hips for my taste, and a little too sturdy in the shoulders, but she’s very womanly . . . And those two little apples in the front, ho, ho . . . Almost bursting out of her blouse—’

‘Shut it, Dandelion.’

‘I happened to bump against her by accident on the road,’ the poet dreamed on. ‘A thigh, I tell you, like marble. Methinks you weren’t bored during that month in Brokilon—’

Milva, who had just returned from her patrol, heard his theatrical whispering and noticed their expressions.

‘Are you talking about me, poet? What are you staring at as soon as my back’s turned? Has a bird shat on me?’

‘We’re amazed by your archery skills.’ Dandelion grinned. ‘You wouldn’t find much competition at an archery tournament.’

‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before, and the rest.’

‘I’ve read,’ Dandelion said, winking tellingly at Geralt, ‘that the best archeresses can be found among the Zerrikanian steppe clans. I gather that some even cut off their left breast, so it won’t interfere when they draw the bow. Their breast, they say, gets in the way of the bowstring.’

‘Some poet must have dreamed that up,’ Milva snorted. ‘He sits down and writes twaddle like that, dipping his quill in a chamber pot, and foolish people believe it. Think I use my tits to shoot with, do you? You pull the bowstring back to your kisser, standing side on, like this. Nothing snags on the bowstring. All that talk of cutting off a tit is hogwash, thought up by some layabout with nothing but women’s bodies on the brain.’

‘Thank you for your kind words about poets and poetry. And the archery lesson. Good weapon, a bow. You know what? I think the arts of war will develop in that direction. People are going to fight at a distance in the wars of the future. They’ll invent a weapon with such a long range that the two sides will be able to kill each other while completely out of eyeshot.’

‘Twaddle,’ Milva said bluntly. ‘A bow’s a good thing, but war’s all about man against man, a sword’s length apart, the stouter one smashing the weaker one’s head in. That’s how it’s always been and that’s how it’ll always be. And once that finishes, all wars will finish. But for now, you’ve seen how wars are fought. You saw it in that village, by the causeway. And that’s enough idle talk. I’m going to have another look around. The horses are snorting as though a wolf was sniffing around . . .’

‘Comely, oh yes.’ Dandelion followed her with his gaze. ‘Mmm . . . Going back to the village by the causeway and what she told you when we were sitting on the cliff— Don’t you think there’s something in what she says?’

‘About?’

‘About . . . Ciri,’ the poet stammered slightly. ‘Our beautiful, sharp-shooting wench seems not to understand the relationship between you and Ciri, and thinks, it seems to me, that you intend to woo her away from the Nilfgaardian Imperator. That that’s the real motive behind your expedition to Nilfgaard.’

‘So in that regard she’s totally wrong. But what’s she right about?’

‘Take it easy, keep your cool. Nonetheless stare the truth in the face. You took Ciri under your wing and consider yourself her guardian, but she’s no ordinary girl. She’s a princess, Geralt. Without beating about the bush, she’s in line for the throne. For the palace. And the crown. Maybe not necessarily the Nilfgaardian crown. I don’t know if Emhyr is the best husband for her—’

‘Precisely. You don’t know.’

‘And do you?’

The Witcher wrapped himself up in a blanket.

‘You’re heading, quite naturally, towards a conclusion,’ he said. ‘But don’t bother; I know what you’re thinking. “There’s no point saving Ciri from a fate she’s been doomed to since the day of her birth. Because Ciri, who doesn’t need saving at all, will be quite ready to order the imperial guard to throw us down the stairs. Let’s forget about her.” Right?’

Dandelion opened his mouth, but Geralt didn’t let him speak.

‘ “After all,’ he continued in an even harsher voice, ‘the girl wasn’t abducted by a dragon or an evil wizard, nor did pirates seize her for the ransom money. She’s not locked in a tower, a dungeon or a cage; she’s not being tortured or starved. Quite the opposite; she sleeps on damask, eats from silverware, wears silks and lace, is bedecked with jewellery and is just waiting to be crowned. In short, she’s happy. Meanwhile some witcher who, by some unfortunate fate happened upon her, has taken it upon himself to disrupt, spoil, destroy and crush that happiness beneath the rotten old boots he pulled off some dead elf.” Right?’

‘That’s not what I was thinking,’ Dandelion muttered.

‘He wasn’t talking to you,’ Milva said, suddenly looming up from the darkness and after a moment’s hesitation sitting down beside the Witcher. ‘That was for me. It was my words that upset him. I spoke in anger, without thinking . . . Forgive me, Geralt. I know what it’s like when a claw scratches an open wound. Come on, don’t fret. I won’t do it any more. Do you forgive me? Or should I say sorry by kissing you?’

Not waiting either for an answer or permission she grabbed him powerfully by the neck and kissed him on the cheek. He squeezed her shoulder hard.

‘Slide nearer.’ He coughed. ‘And you too, Dandelion. We’ll be warmer together.’

They said nothing for a long time. Clouds scudded across a sky bright with firelight, obscuring the twinkling stars.

‘I want to tell you something,’ Geralt said at last. ‘But promise you won’t laugh.’

‘Out with it.’

‘I had some strange dreams. In Brokilon. At first I thought they were ravings; something wrong with my head. You know, I got a good beating on Thanedd. But I keep having the same dream. Always the same one.’

Dandelion and Milva said nothing.

‘Ciri,’ he began a moment later, ‘isn’t sleeping in a palace beneath a brocade canopy. She’s riding a horse through a dusty village . . . the villagers are pointing at her. They’re calling her by a name I don’t recognise. Dogs are barking. She’s not alone. There are others with her. There’s a crop-haired girl, who’s holding Ciri’s hand . . . and Ciri’s smiling at her but I don’t like that smile. I don’t like her heavy make-up . . . But the thing I like least is that she leaves a trail of death.’

‘So where is the girl?’ Milva mused, snuggling up to him like a cat. ‘Not in Nilfgaard?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said with difficulty. ‘But I’ve had the same dream several times. The problem is I don’t believe in dreams like that.’

‘Well, you’re a fool. I do.’

‘I don’t know it,’ he repeated. ‘But I can feel it. There’s fire ahead of her and death behind her. I have to make haste.’

It began to rain at dawn. Not like the previous day, when the storm had been accompanied by a brief but strong downpour. The sky turned grey and took on a leaden patina. It began to spit with rain; a fine, even and drenching drizzle.

They rode east. Milva led the way. When Geralt pointed out to her that the Yaruga was to the south, the archer growled and reminded him she was the guide and knew what she was doing. He said nothing after that. After all, the most important thing was that they were under way. The direction wasn’t so important.

They rode in silence, wet, chilled to the bone, and hunched over their saddles. They kept to footpaths, stole along forest tracks, cut across highways. They disappeared into the undergrowth at the sound of thudding hooves of cavalry tramping along the roads. They gave a wide berth to the uproar of battle. They rode past villages engulfed in flames, past smoking and glowing rubble, and past settlements and hamlets which had been razed to black squares of burnt earth and the acrid stench of rain-soaked charred embers. They startled flocks of crows feeding on corpses. They passed groups and columns of peasants bent beneath bundles, fleeing from war and conflagration, dazed, responding to questions with nothing but a fearful, uncomprehending and mute raising of their eyes, emptied by misfortune and horror.

They rode east, amidst fire and smoke, amidst drizzle and fog, and the tapestry of war unfolded in front of their eyes. So many sights.

There was a black silhouette of a crane projecting among the ruins of a burnt-out village, with a naked corpse dangling from it head downwards. Blood from the mutilated crotch and belly dripped down onto its chest and face, to hang like icicles from its hair. The Rune of Ard was visible on its back. Carved with a knife.

‘An’givare,’ Milva said, throwing her wet hair off her neck. ‘The Squirrels were here.’

‘What does an’givare mean?’

‘Informer.’

There was a grey horse, saddled in a black caparison. It was walking unsteadily around the edge of the battlefield, wandering between piles of corpses and broken spears stuck into the ground, whinnying quietly and pitifully, dragging its entrails behind it, dangling from its mutilated belly. They couldn’t finish it off, for on the battlefield – apart from the horse – there were also marauders robbing corpses.

There was a spread-eagled girl, lying near a burnt-out farmyard, naked, bloody, staring at the sky with glazed eyes.

‘They say war’s a male thing,’ Milva growled. ‘But they have no mercy on women; they have to have their fun. Fucking heroes; damn them all.’

‘You’re right. But you won’t change it.’

‘I already have. I ran away from home. I didn’t want to sweep the cottage and scrub the floors. I wasn’t going to wait until they arrived and put the cottage to the torch, spread me out on the very same floor and . . .’ She broke off, and spurred her horse forward.

And later there was a tar house. Here Dandelion puked up everything he’d eaten that day: some hard tack and half a stockfish.

In the tar house some Nilfgaardians – or perhaps Scoia’tael – had dealt with a group of captives. It was impossible even to guess at the exact size of the group. Because during the carnage they had not only used arrows, swords and lances, but also woodmen’s tools they’d found there: axes, drawknives and crosscut saws.

There were other scenes of war, but Geralt, Dandelion and Milva didn’t remember them. They had discarded them from their memories.

They had become indifferent.

Over the next two days they didn’t even cover twenty miles. It continued to rain. The earth, absorbent after the summer drought, sucked up water like a sponge, and the forest tracks were transformed into muddy slides. Fog and haze prevented them from spotting the smoke from fires, but the stench of burning buildings told them the armies were still close at hand and were still setting light to anything that would catch fire.

They didn’t see any fugitives. They were alone in the forest. Or so they thought.

Geralt was the first to hear the snorting of the horse following in their tracks. With a stony countenance, he turned Roach back. Dandelion opened his mouth, but Milva gestured him to remain silent, and removed her bow from where it hung by her saddle.

The rider following them emerged from the brush. He saw they were waiting for him and reined back his horse, a chestnut colt. They stood in a silence broken only by the beating of the rain.

‘I forbade you from riding after us,’ the Witcher finally said.

The Nilfgaardian, whom Dandelion had last seen lying in a coffin, looked down at his horse’s wet mane. The poet barely recognised him, as he was now dressed in a hauberk, leather tunic and cloak, no doubt stripped from one of the horsemen killed by the wagon. However, he remembered the young face, which hadn’t grown much more stubble since the adventure under the beech tree.

‘I forbade it,’ the Witcher repeated.

‘You did,’ the young man finally agreed. He spoke without a Nilfgaardian accent. ‘But I must.’

Geralt dismounted, handing the reins to the poet. And drew his sword.

‘Get down,’ he said calmly. ‘You’ve equipped yourself with some hardware, I see. Good. There was no way I could kill you then, while you were unarmed. Now it’s different. Dismount.’

‘I’m not fighting you. I don’t want to.’

‘So I imagine. Like all your fellow countrymen, you prefer another kind of fight. Like in that tar house, which you must have ridden past, following our trail. Dismount, I said.’

‘I am Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.’

‘I didn’t ask you to introduce yourself. I ordered you to dismount.’

‘I will not. I don’t want to fight you.’

‘Milva.’ The Witcher nodded at the archer. ‘Be so kind as to shoot his horse from under him.’

‘No!’ the Nilfgaardian raised an arm, before Milva had time to nock her arrow. ‘Please don’t. I’m dismounting.’

‘That’s better. Now draw your sword, son.’

The young man folded his arms across his chest.

‘Kill me, if you want. If you prefer, order the she-elf to shoot me. I’m not fighting you. I am Cahir Mawr Dyffryn . . . son of Ceallach. I want . . . I want to join you.’

‘I must have misheard. Say that again.’

‘I want to join you. You’re riding to search for the girl. I want to help you. I have to help you.’

‘He’s a madman.’ Geralt turned to Milva and Dandelion. ‘He’s taken leave of his senses. We’re dealing with a madman.’

‘He’d suit the company,’ muttered Milva. ‘He’d suit it perfectly.’

‘Think his proposition over, Geralt,’ Dandelion mocked. ‘After all, he’s a Nilfgaardian nobleman. Perhaps with his help it’ll be easier for us to get to—’

‘Keep your tongue in check,’ the Witcher interrupted the poet sharply. ‘As I said, draw your sword, Nilfgaardian.’

‘I am not going to fight. And I am not a Nilfgaardian. I come from Vicovaro, and my name is—’

‘I’m not interested in your name. Draw your weapon.’

‘No.’

‘Witcher.’ Milva leant down from the saddle and spat on the ground. ‘Time’s flying and the rain’s falling. The Nilfgaardian doesn’t want to fight, and although you’re pulling a stern face, you won’t cut him to pieces in cold blood. Do we have to hang about here all fucking day? I’ll stick an arrow in his chestnut’s underbelly and let’s be on our way. He won’t catch up on foot.’

Cahir, son of Ceallach, was by his chestnut colt in one bound, jumped into the saddle and galloped back the way he’d come, yelling at his steed to go faster. The Witcher watched him riding off for a moment then mounted Roach. In silence. Without looking back.

‘I’m getting old,’ he mumbled some time later, after Roach had caught up with Milva’s black. ‘I’m starting to develop scruples.’

‘Aye, it can happen with old ’uns,’ said the archer, looking at him in sympathy. ‘A decoction of lungwort can help. But for now put a cushion on your saddle.’

‘Scruples,’ Dandelion explained gravely, ‘are not the same as piles, Milva. You’re confusing the terms.’

‘Who could understand your smart-arsed chatter? You never stop jabbering, it’s the only thing you know! Come on, let’s ride!’

‘Milva,’ the Witcher asked a moment later, protecting his face from the rain, which stabbed against it as they galloped. ‘Would you have killed the horse under him?’

‘No,’ she confessed reluctantly. ‘The horse hadn’t done anything. But that Nilfgaardian— Why in hell is he stalking us? Why does he say he has to?’

‘Devil take me if I know.’

It was still raining when the forest suddenly came to an end and they rode onto a highway winding between the hills from the south to the north. Or the other way around, depending on your point of view. What they saw on the highway didn’t surprise them. They had already seen similar sights. Overturned and gutted wagons, dead horses, scattered bundles, saddlebags and baskets. And ragged shapes, which not long before had been people, frozen into strange poses.

They rode closer, without fear, because it was apparent that the slaughter had not taken place that day. They had come to recognise such things; or perhaps to sense them with a purely animalistic instinct, which the last days had awoken and sharpened in them. They had also learned to search through battlefields, because occasionally – though not often – they had managed to find a little food or a sack of fodder among the scattered objects.

They stopped by the last wagon of a devastated column. It had been pushed into the ditch, and was resting on the hub of a shattered wheel. Beneath the wagon lay a stout woman with an unnaturally twisted neck. The collar of her tunic was covered with rain-washed streaks of coagulated blood from her torn ear, from which an earring had been ripped. The sign on the tarpaulin pulled over the wagon read: ‘Vera Loewenhaupt and Sons’. There was no sign of the sons.

‘They weren’t peasants,’ Milva said through pursed lips. ‘They were traders. They came from the south, wending from Dillingen towards Brugge, and were caught here. It’s not good, Witcher. I thought we could turn south at this point, but now I truly have no idea what to do. Dillingen and the whole of Brugge is sure to be in Nilfgaardian hands, so we won’t make it to the Yaruga this way. We’ll have to go east, through Turlough. There are forests and wildernesses there, the army won’t go that way.’

‘I’m not going any further east,’ Geralt protested. ‘I have to get to the Yaruga.’

‘You’ll get there,’ she replied, unexpectedly calm. ‘But by a safer route. If we head south from here, you’ll fall right into the Nilfgaardians’ jaws. You won’t gain anything.’

‘I’ll gain time,’ he snapped, ‘by heading east I’m just wasting it. I told you, I can’t afford to—’

‘Quiet,’ Dandelion said suddenly, steering his horse around. ‘Be quiet for a moment.’

‘What is it?’

‘I can hear . . . singing.’

The Witcher shook his head. Milva snorted.

‘You’re hearing things, poet.’

‘Quiet! Shut up! I’m telling you, someone’s singing! Can’t you hear it?’

Geralt lowered his hood; Milva also strained to listen and a moment later glanced at the Witcher and nodded silently.

The troubadour’s musical ear hadn’t let him down. What had seemed impossible turned out to be true. Here they were, standing in the middle of a forest, in the drizzle, on a road strewn with corpses, and they could hear singing. Someone was approaching from the south, singing jauntily and gaily.

Milva tugged the reins of her black, ready to flee, but the Witcher gestured to her to wait. He was curious. Because the singing they could hear wasn’t the menacing, rhythmic, booming, massed singing of marching infantry, nor a swaggering cavalry song. The singing, which was becoming louder all the time, didn’t arouse any anxiety.

Quite the opposite.

The rain drummed on the foliage. They began to make out the words of the song. It was a merry song, which seemed strange, unnatural and totally out of place in this landscape of death and war.

Look how the wolf dances in the holt.

Teeth bared, tail waving, leaping like a colt.

Oh, why does he prance like one bewitched?

The frolicking beast simply hasn’t been hitched!

Oom-pah, oom-pah, oom-pah-pah!

Dandelion suddenly laughed, took his lute from under his wet mantle, and – ignoring the hissing from the Witcher and Milva – strummed the strings and joined in at the top of his voice:

Look how the wolf is dragging his paws.

Head drooping, tail hanging, clenching his jaws.

Oh, why is the beast in such a sorry state?

He’s either proposed or he’s married his mate!

‘Ooh-hoo-ha!’ came the roared response from many voices close by.

Thunderous laughter burst out, then someone whistled piercingly through their fingers, after which a strange but colourful company came walking around a bend in the highway, marching in single file, splashing mud with rhythmic steps of their heavy boots.

‘Dwarves,’ Milva said under her breath. ‘But they aren’t Scoia’tael. They don’t have plaited beards.’

There were six of them, dressed in short, hooded capes, shimmering with countless shades of grey and brown, the kind which were usually worn by dwarves in foul weather. Capes like that, as Geralt knew, had the quality of being totally waterproof, which was achieved by the impregnation of wood tar over many years, not to mention dust from the highway and the remains of greasy food. These practical garments passed from fathers to oldest sons; as a result they were used exclusively by mature dwarves. And a dwarf attains maturity when his beard reaches his waist, which usually occurs at the age of fifty-five.

None of the approaching dwarves looked young. But none looked old either.

‘They’re leading some humans,’ muttered Milva, indicating to Geralt with a movement of her head a small group emerging from the forest behind the company of dwarves, ‘who must be fugitives, because they’re laden down with goods and chattels.’

‘The dwarves aren’t exactly travelling light themselves,’ Dandelion added.

Indeed, each dwarf was heaving a load that many humans and horses would soon have collapsed under. In addition to the ordinary sacks and saddlebags, Geralt noticed iron-bound chests, a large copper cauldron and something that looked like a small chest of drawers. One of them was even carrying a cartwheel on his back.

The one walking at the front wasn’t carrying anything. He had a small battle-axe in his belt, on his back was a long sword in a scabbard wrapped in tabby cat skins, and on his shoulder sat a green parrot with wet, ruffled feathers. The dwarf addressed them.

‘Greetings!’ he roared, after coming to a halt in the middle of the road and putting his hands on his hips. ‘These days it’s better to meet a wolf in the forest than a human. And if you do have such bad luck, you’re more likely to be greeted with an arrow in the chest than a kind word! But whoever greets someone with a song or music must be a sound fellow! Or a sound wench; my apologies to the good lady! Greetings. I’m Zoltan Chivay.’

‘I’m Geralt,’ the Witcher introduced himself after a moment’s hesitation. ‘The singer is Dandelion. And this is Milva.’

‘’Kin’ ’ell!’ the parrot squawked.

‘Shut your beak,’ Zoltan Chivay growled at the bird. ‘Excuse me. This foreign bird is clever but vulgar. I paid ten thalers for the freak. He’s called Field Marshal Windbag. And while I’m at it, this is the rest of my party. Munro Bruys, Yazon Varda, Caleb Stratton, Figgis Merluzzo and Percival Schuttenbach.’

Percival Schuttenbach wasn’t a dwarf. From beneath his wet hood, instead of a matted beard, stuck out a long, pointed nose, unerringly identifying its owner as one of the old and noble race of gnomes.

‘And those,’ Zoltan Chivay said, pointing at the small group of humans, who had stopped and were huddled together, ‘are fugitives from Kernow. As you can see, they’re women and children. There were more, but Nilfgaard seized them and their fellows three days ago, put some of them to the sword and scattered the others. We came across them in the forest and now we’re travelling together.’

‘It’s bold of you,’ the Witcher ventured, ‘to be marching along the highway, singing as you go.’

‘I don’t reckon,’ the dwarf said, wiggling his beard, ‘that weeping as we go would be any better. We’ve been marching through the woods since Dillingen, quietly and out of sight, and after the army passed we joined the highway to make up time.’ He broke off and looked around the battlefield.

‘We’ve grown accustomed to sights like this,’ he said, pointing at the corpses. ‘Beyond Dillingen and the Yaruga there’s nothing but dead bodies on the roads . . . Were you with this lot?’

‘No. Nilfgaard put some traders to the sword.’

‘Not Nilfgaard,’ said the dwarf, shaking his head and looking at the dead with an indifferent expression. ‘Scoia’tael. The regular army don’t bother pulling arrows out of corpses. And a good arrowhead costs half a crown.’

‘He knows his prices,’ Milva muttered.

‘Where are you headed?’

‘South,’ Geralt answered immediately.

‘I advise you against it,’ Zoltan Chivay said, and shook his head again. ‘It’s sheer hell, fire and slaughter there. Dillingen is taken for sure, the Nilfgaardians are crossing the Yaruga in greater and greater numbers; any moment now they’ll flood the whole valley on the right bank. As you see, they’re also in front of us, to the north. They’re heading for the city of Brugge. So the only sensible direction to escape is east.’

Milva glanced knowingly at the Witcher, who refrained from comment.

‘And that’s where we’re headed; east,’ Zoltan Chivay continued. ‘The only chance is to hide behind the frontline, and wait until the Temerian Army finally start out from the River Ina in the east. Then we plan to march along forest tracks until we reach the hills. Turlough, then the Old Road to the River Chotla in Sodden, which flows into the Ina. We can travel together, if you wish. If it doesn’t bother you that we make slow progress. You’re mounted and I realise our refugees slow the pace down.’

‘It doesn’t seem to bother you, though,’ Milva said, looking at him intently. ‘A dwarf, even fully laden, can march thirty miles a day. Almost the same as a mounted human. I know the Old Road. Without those refugees you’d reach the Chotla in about three days.’

‘They are women and children,’ Zoltan Chivay said, sticking out his beard and his belly. ‘We won’t leave them to their fate. Would you suggest we do anything else, eh?’

‘No,’ the Witcher said. ‘No, we wouldn’t.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it. That means my first impressions didn’t deceive me. So what’s it to be? Do we march as one company?’

Geralt looked at Milva and the archer nodded.

‘Very well,’ Zoltan Chivay said, noticing the nod. ‘So let’s head off, before some raiding party chances upon us on the highway. But first— Yazon, Munro, search the wagons. If you find anything useful there, get it stowed away, and pronto. Figgis, check if our wheel fits that little wagon, it’ll be just right for us.’

‘It fits!’ yelled the one who’d been lugging the cartwheel. ‘Like it was made for it!’

‘You see, muttonhead? And you were so surprised when I made you take that wheel and carry it! Put it on! Help him, Caleb!’

In an impressively short time the wagon of the dead Vera Loewenhaupt had been equipped with a new wheel, stripped of its tarpaulin and inessential elements, and pulled out of the ditch and onto the road. All their goods were heaved onto it in an instant. After some thought, Zoltan Chivay also ordered the children to be loaded onto the wagon. The instruction was carried out reluctantly; Geralt noticed that the children’s mothers scowled at the dwarves and tried to keep their distance from them.

With visible distaste, Dandelion watched two dwarves trying on articles of clothing removed from some corpses. The remaining dwarves rummaged around among the wagons, but didn’t consider anything to be worth taking. Zoltan Chivay whistled through his fingers, signalling that the time for looting was over, and then he looked over Roach, Pegasus and Milva’s black with an expert eye.

‘Saddle horses,’ he said, wrinkling his nose in disapproval. ‘In other words: useless. Figgis and Caleb, to the shaft. We’ll be hauling in turn. Maaaaarch!’

Geralt was certain the dwarves would quickly discard the wagon the moment it got well and truly stuck in soft, boggy ground, but he was mistaken. They were as strong as oxen, and the forest tracks leading east turned out to be grassy and not too swampy, even though it continued to rain without letting up. Milva became gloomy and grumpy, and only broke her silence to express the conviction that the horses’ softened hooves would split at any moment. Zoltan Chivay licked his lips in reply, examined the hooves in question and declared himself a master at roasting horsemeat, which infuriated Milva.

They kept to the same formation, the core of which was formed by the wagon hauled on a shift system. Zoltan marched in front of the wagon. Next to him, on Pegasus, rode Dandelion, bantering with the parrot. Geralt and Milva rode behind them, and at the back trudged the six women from Kernow.

The leader was usually Percival Schuttenbach, the long-nosed gnome. No match for the dwarves in terms of height or strength, he was their equal in stamina and considerably superior in agility. During the march he never stopped roaming around and rummaging in bushes; then he would pull ahead and disappear, only to appear and with nervous, monkey-like gestures signal from a considerable distance away that everything was in order and that they could continue. Occasionally he would return and give a rapid report about the obstacles on the track. Whenever he did, he would have a handful of blackberries, nuts or strange – but clearly tasty – roots for the four children sitting on the wagon.

Their pace was frightfully slow and they spent three days marching along forest tracks. They didn’t happen upon any soldiers; they saw no smoke or the glow of fires. They were not alone, however. Every so often Percival spotted groups of fugitives hiding in the forests. They passed several such groups, hurriedly, because the expressions of the peasants armed with pitchforks and stakes didn’t encourage them to try to make friends. There was nonetheless a suggestion to try to negotiate and leave the women from Kernow with one of the groups, but Zoltan was against it and Milva backed him up. The women were in no hurry at all to leave the company either. This was all the stranger since they treated the dwarves with such obvious, fearful aversion and reserve, hardly ever spoke, and kept out of the way during every stop.

Geralt ascribed the women’s behaviour to the tragedy they had experienced a short time before, although he suspected that their aversion may have been due to the dwarves’ casual ways. Zoltan and his company cursed just as filthily and frequently as the parrot called Field Marshal Windbag, but had a wider repertoire. They sang dirty songs, which Dandelion enthusiastically joined in with. They spat, blew their noses on their fingers and gave thunderous farts, which usually prompted laughs, jokes and competition. They only went into the bushes for major bodily needs; with the minor ones they didn’t even bother moving very far away. This finally enraged Milva, who gave Zoltan a good telling-off when one morning he pissed on the still warm ashes of the campfire, totally oblivious to his audience. Having been dressed down, Zoltan was unperturbed and announced that shamefully concealing that kind of activity was only common among two-faced, perfidious people who were likely to be informers, and could be identified as such by doing just that. This eloquent explanation made no impression on the archer. The dwarves were treated to a rich torrent of abuse, with several very specific threats, which was effective, since they all obediently began to go into the bushes. To avoid laying themselves open to the appellation of ‘perfidious informers’, however, they went in a group.

The new company, nevertheless, changed Dandelion utterly. He got on famously with the dwarves, particularly when it turned out that some of them had heard of him and even knew his ballads and couplets. Dandelion dogged Zoltan’s company. He wore a quilted jacket he had weaselled out of the dwarves, and his crumpled hat with a feather was replaced by a swashbuckling marten-fur cap. He sported a broad belt with brass studs, into which he had stuck a cruel-looking knife he had been given. This knife pricked him in the side each time he tried to lean over. Fortunately, he quickly mislaid it and wasn’t given another.

They wandered through the dense forests covering the hillsides of Turlough. The forests seemed deserted; there were no traces of any wild animals, for they had apparently been frightened away by the armies and fugitives. There was nothing to hunt, but they weren’t immediately threatened by hunger. The dwarves were lugging along a large quantity of provisions. As soon as they were finished, however – and that occurred quickly, because there were many mouths to feed – Yazon Varda and Munro Bruys vanished soon after dark, taking an empty sack with them. When they returned at dawn, they had two sacks, both full. In one was fodder for the horses, in the other barley groats, flour, beef jerky, an almost entire cheese, and even a huge haggis: a delicacy in the form of a pig’s stomach stuffed with offal and pressed between two slats, the whole resembling a pair of bellows.

Geralt guessed where the haul had come from. He didn’t comment right away, but bided his time until a moment when he was alone with Zoltan, and then asked him politely if he saw nothing indecent in robbing other fugitives, who were no less hungry than them, after all, and fighting for survival just like them. The dwarf answered gravely that indeed, he was very ashamed of it, but unfortunately, such was his character.

‘Unbridled altruism is a huge vice of mine,’ he explained. ‘I simply have to do good. I am a sensible dwarf, however, and know that I’m unable to do everyone good. Were I to attempt to be good to everyone, to the entire world and to all the creatures living in it, it would be a drop of fresh water in the salt sea. In other words, a wasted effort. Thus, I decided to do specific good; good which would not go to waste. I’m good to myself and my immediate circle.’

Geralt asked no further questions.

At one of the camps, Geralt and Milva chatted at length with Zoltan Chivay, the incorrigible and compulsive altruist. The dwarf was well informed about how the military activities were proceeding. At least, he gave that impression.

‘The attack,’ he said, frequently quietening down Field Marshal Windbag, who was screeching obscenities, ‘came from Drieschot, and began at dawn on the seventh day after Lammas. Nilfgaard marched with its allies, the Verdenian Army, since Verden, as you know, is now an imperial protectorate. They moved swiftly, putting all the villages beyond Drieschot to the torch and wiping out the Bruggian Army which was garrisoned there. The Nilfgaardian infantry marched on the fortress in Dillingen from the other side of the Yaruga. They crossed the river in a totally unexpected place. They built a pontoon bridge. Only took them half a day, can you believe it?’

‘It’s possible to believe anything,’ muttered Milva. ‘Were you in Dillingen when it started?’

‘Thereabouts,’ the dwarf replied evasively. ‘When news of the attack reached us, we were already on the way to the city of Brugge. The highway was an awful shambles, it was teeming with fugitives, some of them fleeing from the south to the north, others from the north to the south. They jammed up the highway, so we got stuck. And Nilfgaard, as it turned out, were both behind us and in front of us. The forces that had left Drieschot must have split up. I reckon a large cavalry troop had headed north-east, towards Brugge.’

‘So the Nilfgaardians are already north of Turlough. It appears we’re stuck between two forces, right in the middle. And safe.’

‘Right in the middle, yes,’ the dwarf agreed. ‘But not safe. The imperial troops are flanked by the Squirrels, Verdenian volunteers and various mercenaries, who are even worse than the Nilfgaardians. It was them as burnt down Kernow and almost seized us later; we barely managed to leg it into the woods. So we shouldn’t poke our noses out of the forest. And we should remain on guard. We’ll make it to the Old Road, then downstream by the River Chotla to the Ina, and at the Ina we’re sure to bump into the Temerian Army. King Foltest’s men must have shaken off their surprise and begun standing up to the Nilfgaardians.’

‘If only,’ Milva said, looking at the Witcher. ‘But the problem is that urgent and important matters are driving us on to the south. We pondered heading south from Turlough, towards the Yaruga.’

‘I don’t know what matters are driving you to those parts,’ Zoltan said, glowering suspiciously at them. ‘They must indeed be greatly urgent and important to risk your necks for them.’

He paused and waited, but neither of them was in a hurry to explain. The dwarf scratched his backside, hawked and spat.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me,’ he said finally, ‘if Nilfgaard had both banks of the Yaruga right up to the mouth of the Ina in their grasp. And where exactly on the Yaruga do you need to be?’

‘Nowhere specific,’ Geralt decided to reply. ‘As long as we reach the river. I want to take a boat up to the delta.’

Zoltan looked at him and laughed. Then stopped immediately when he realised it hadn’t been a joke.

‘I have to admit,’ he said a moment later, ‘you’ve got quite some route in mind. But get rid of those pipe dreams. The whole of south Brugge is in flames. They’ll impale you before you reach the Yaruga, or drive you to Nilfgaard in fetters. However, were you by some miracle to reach the river, there’d be no chance of sailing to the delta. That pontoon bridge spanning the river from Cintra to the Bruggian bank? They guard it day and night; nothing could get through that part of the river, except perhaps a salmon. Your urgent and important matters will have to lose their urgency and importance. You haven’t got a prayer. That’s how I see it.’

Milva’s glance testified that she shared his opinion. Geralt didn’t comment. He felt terrible. The slowly healing bone in his left forearm and his right knee still gnawed with the invisible fangs of a dull, nagging pain, made worse by effort and the constant damp. He was also being troubled by overwhelming, disheartening, exceptionally unpleasant feelings, alien feelings he had never experienced before and was unable to deal with.

Helplessness and resignation.

After two days, it stopped raining and the sun came out. The forests breathed forth mists and quickly dissipating fog, and birds began to vigorously make up for the silence forced on them by the constant rain. Zoltan cheered up and ordered a long break, after which he promised a quicker march and that they would reach the Old Road in a day at most.

The women from Kernow draped all the surrounding branches with the black and grey of drying clothing, and then, dressed only in their shifts, hid shamefacedly in the bushes and prepared food. The children charged around naked, disturbing the dignified calm of the steaming forest in elaborate ways. Dandelion slept off his tiredness. Milva vanished.

The dwarves took their rest seriously. Figgis Merluzzo and Munro Bruys went off hunting mushrooms. Zoltan, Yazon Varda, Caleb Stratton and Percival Schuttenbach sat down near the wagon and without taking a breather played Barrel, their favourite card game, which they devoted every spare minute to, including the previous wet evenings.

The Witcher occasionally sat down to join them and watch them play, as he did during this break. He was still unable to understand the complicated rules of this typical dwarven game, but was fascinated by the amazing, intricate workmanship of the cards and the drawings of the figures. Compared to the cards humans played with, the dwarves’ cards were genuine works of art. Geralt was once again convinced that the advanced technology of the bearded folk was not limited to the fields of mining and metallurgy. The fact that in this specific, card-playing field the dwarves’ talents hadn’t helped them to monopolise the market was because cards were still less popular among humans than dice, and human gamblers attached little importance to aesthetics. Human card players, whom the Witcher had had several opportunities to observe, always played with greasy cards, so dirty that before cards were placed on the table they had to be laboriously peeled away from the fingers. The court cards were painted so carelessly that distinguishing the lady from the knave was only possible because the knave was mounted on a horse. Which actually looked more like a crippled weasel.

Mistakes of that kind were impossible with the dwarves’ cards. The crowned king was really regal, the lady comely and curvaceous, and the halberd-wielding knave jauntily moustachioed. The colour cards were called, in Dwarven Speech, the hraval, vaina and ballet, but Zoltan and company used the Common Speech and human names when they played.

The sun shone warmly, the forest steamed, and Geralt watched.

The fundamental principle of dwarven Barrel was something resembling an auction at a horse fair, both in its intensity and the volume of the bidders’ voices. The pair declaring the highest ‘price’ would endeavour to win as many tricks as possible, which the rival pair had to impede at all costs. The game was played noisily and heatedly, and a sturdy staff lay beside each player. These staffs were seldom used to beat an opponent, but were often brandished.

‘Look what you’ve done! You plonker! You bonehead! Why did you open with spades instead of hearts? Think I was leading hearts just for the fun of it? Why, I ought to take my staff and knock some sense into you!’

‘I had four spades up to the knave, so I was planning to make a good contract!’

‘Four spades, ’course you did! Including your own member, which you counted when you looked down at your cards. Use your loaf, Stratton, we’re not at university! We’re playing cards here! And remember that when the fool has the cards and doesn’t blunder, he’ll even beat the sage, by thunder. Deal, Varda.’

‘Contract in diamonds.’

‘A small slam in diamonds!’

‘The king led diamonds, but lost his crown, fled the kingdom with his trousers down. A double in spades!’

‘Barrel!’

‘Wake up, Caleb. That was a double with a Barrel! What are you bidding?’

‘A big slam in diamonds!’

‘No bid. Aaagh! What now? No one’s Barrelling? Chickened out, laddies? You’re leading, Varda. Percival, if you wink at him again, I’ll whack you so hard in the kisser your eyes’ll be screwed up till next winter.’

‘Knave.’

‘Lady!’

‘And the king on the lady! The lady’s shafted! I’ll take her and, ha, ha, I’ve got another heart, kept for a rainy day! Knave, a ten and another—’

‘And a trump! If you can’t play a trump, you’d better take a dump. And diamonds! Zoltan? Grabbed you where it hurts!’

‘Do you see him, fucking gnome. Pshaw, I’m gonna take my staff to him . . .’

Before Zoltan could use his stick, a piercing cry was heard from the forest.

Geralt was the first to his feet. He swore as he ran, pain shooting through his knee. Zoltan Chivay rushed after him, seizing his sword wrapped in tabby cat skins from the wagon. Percival Schuttenbach and the rest of the dwarves ran after them, armed with sticks, while Dandelion, who’d been woken by the screaming, brought up the rear. Figgis and Munro leapt out of the forest from one side. Throwing down their baskets of mushrooms, the two dwarves gathered up the scattering children and pulled them away. Milva appeared from nowhere, drawing an arrow from her quiver while running and showing the Witcher where the scream had come from. There was no need. Geralt saw and heard, and now knew what it was all about.

One of the children was screaming. She was a freckled, little girl with plaits, aged about nine. She stood petrified, a few paces from a pile of rotten logs. Geralt was with her in an instant. He seized her under the arms, interrupting her terrified shrieking, and watched the movement among the logs out of the corner of his eye. He quickly withdrew and bumped into Zoltan and his dwarves. Milva, who had also seen something moving, nocked her arrow and took aim.

‘Don’t shoot,’ Geralt hissed. ‘Get this kid out of here, fast. And you, get back. But nice and easy. Don’t make any sudden movements.’

At first it seemed to them that the movement had come from one of the rotten logs, as though it was intending to crawl out of the sunlit woodpile and look for shade among the trees. It was only when they looked closer that they saw features which were atypical for a log: in particular, four pairs of thin legs with knobbly joints sticking up from the furrowed, speckled, segmented crayfish-like shell.

‘Easy does it,’ Geralt said quietly. ‘Don’t provoke it. Don’t let its apparent sluggishness deceive you. It isn’t aggressive, but it moves like lightning. If it feels threatened it may attack and there’s no antidote for its venom.’

The creature slowly crawled onto a log. It looked at the humans and the dwarves, slowly turning its eyes, which were set on stalks. It was barely moving. It cleaned the ends of its legs, lifting them up one by one and carefully nibbling them with its impressive-looking, sharp mandibles.

‘There was such an uproar,’ Zoltan declared emotionlessly, appearing beside the Witcher, ‘I thought it was something really worrying. Like a cavalryman from a Verdenian reserve troop. Or a military prosecutor. And what is it? Just an overgrown creepy-crawly. You have to admit, nature takes on some pretty curious forms.’

‘Not any longer,’ Geralt replied. ‘The thing that’s sitting there is an eyehead. A creature of Chaos. A dying, post-conjunction relic, if you know what I’m talking about.’

‘Of course I do,’ the dwarf said, looking him in the eyes. ‘Although I’m not a witcher, nor an authority on Chaos and creatures like that. Well, I’m very curious to see what the Witcher will do with this post-conjunction relic. Or to be more precise, I’m wondering how the Witcher will do it. Will you use your sword or do you prefer my sihil?’

‘Nice weapon,’ Geralt said, glancing at the sword, which Zoltan had drawn from its lacquered scabbard wrapped in tabby cat skins. ‘But it won’t be necessary.’

‘Interesting,’ Zoltan repeated. ‘So are we just going to stand here looking at each other? Just wait until that relic feels threatened? Or should we withdraw and ask some Nilfgaardians for help? What do you suggest, monster slayer?’

‘Fetch the ladle and the cauldron lid from the wagon.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t question his authority, Zoltan,’ Dandelion chipped in.

Percival Schuttenbach scurried off to the wagon and soon returned with the requested objects. The Witcher winked at the company and then began to beat the ladle against the lid with all his strength.

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Zoltan Chivay screamed a moment later, covering his ears with his hands. ‘You’ll break the fucking ladle! The beast’s run off! He’s gone, for pox’s sake!’

‘Oh yes,’ Percival said, delighted. ‘Did you see him? On my life, he showed a clean pair of heels! Not that he has any!’

‘The eyehead,’ Geralt explained calmly, handing back the slightly dented kitchen utensils to the dwarves, ‘has remarkably delicate, sensitive hearing. It doesn’t have any ears, but hears, so to speak, with its entire body. In particular it can’t bear metallic noises. It feels them as a pain . . .’

‘Even in the arse,’ Zoltan interrupted. ‘I know, because it pained me too when you started whacking that lid. If the monster has more sensitive hearing than I do, he has my sympathy. Sure he won’t be back? He won’t rustle up some mates?’

‘I don’t imagine many of its mates are left on this earth. That specimen is certain not to be back in these parts for a long time. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

‘I’m not going to talk about monsters,’ the dwarf said, looking glum. ‘But your concerto for brass instruments must have been heard as far away as the Skellige Islands, so it’s possible some music lovers might be heading this way. And we’d better not be around when they come. Strike camp, boys! Hey, ladies, get clad and count up the children! We’re moving out, and quickly!’

When they stopped for the night, Geralt decided to clear up a few issues. This time Zoltan Chivay hadn’t sat down to play Barrel, so there was no difficulty leading him away to a secluded place for a frank, man-to-man conversation. He got straight to the point.

‘Out with it. How do you know I’m a witcher?’

The dwarf winked at him and smiled slyly.

‘I might boast about my perspicacity. I could say I noticed your eyes changing after dusk and in full sunlight. I could show that I’m a dwarf-of-the-world and that I’ve heard this and that about Geralt of Rivia. But the truth is much more banal. Don’t scowl. You can keep things to yourself, but your friend the bard sings and jabbers; he never shuts his trap. That’s how I know about your profession.’

Geralt refrained from asking another question. And rightly so.

‘It’s like this,’ Zoltan continued. ‘Dandelion told me everything. He must have sensed we value sincerity, and, after all, he didn’t have to sense our friendly disposition to you, because we don’t hide our dispositions. So in short: I know why you’re in a hurry to go south. I know what important and urgent matters are taking you to Nilfgaard. I know who you’re planning to seek. And not just from the poet’s gossip. I lived in Cintra before the war and I heard tales of the Child of Destiny and the white-haired witcher to whom the child was granted.’

Geralt did not respond this time either.

‘The rest,’ the dwarf said, ‘is just a question of observation. You let that crusty monstrosity go, even though you’re a witcher and it’s your professional duty to exterminate monsters like that. But the beast didn’t do your Surprise any harm, so you spared it and just drove it away by banging on a cauldron lid. Because you’re no longer a witcher; you’re a valiant knight, who is hastening to rescue his kidnapped and oppressed maiden.

‘Why don’t you stop glaring at me,’ he added, still not hearing an answer or an explanation. ‘You’re constantly sniffing out treachery; fearful of how this secret – now it’s out – may turn against you. Don’t fret. We’re all going to the Ina, helping each other, supporting each other. The challenge you have in front of you is the same one we face: to survive and stay alive. In order for this noble mission to continue. Or live an ordinary life, but so as not to be ashamed at the hour of death. You think you’ve changed. That the world has changed. But look; the world’s the same as it’s always been. Quite the same. And you’re the same as you used to be. Don’t fret.

‘But drop your idea about heading off alone,’ Zoltan continued his monologue, unperturbed by the Witcher’s silence, ‘and about a solo journey south, through Brugge and Sodden to the Yaruga. You’ll have to search for another way to Nilfgaard. If you want, I can advise you—’

‘Don’t bother,’ Geralt said, rubbing his knee, which had been hurting incessantly for several days. ‘Don’t bother, Zoltan.’

He found Dandelion watching the Barrel-playing dwarves. He took the poet by the sleeve and led him off to the forest. Dandelion realised at once what it was all about; one glance at the Witcher’s face was enough.

‘Babbler,’ Geralt said quietly. ‘Windbag. Bigmouth. I ought to shove your tongue in a vice, you blockhead. Or put a bit between your teeth.’

The troubadour said nothing, but his expression was haughty.

‘When news got out that I’d started to associate with you,’ the Witcher continued, ‘some sensible people were surprised by our friendship. It astonished them that I let you travel with me. They advised me to abandon you in a desert, to rob you, strangle you, throw you into a pit and bury you in dung. Indeed, I regret I didn’t follow their advice.’

‘Is it such a secret who you are and what you’re planning to do?’ Dandelion suddenly said, losing his temper. ‘Are we to keep the truth from everybody and pretend all the time? Those dwarves . . . We’re all one company now . . .’

‘I don’t have a company,’ the Witcher snapped. ‘I don’t have one, and I don’t want to have one. I don’t need one. Do you get it?’

‘Of course he gets it,’ Milva said from behind him. ‘And I get it too. You don’t need anyone, Witcher. You show it often enough.’

‘I’m not fighting a private war,’ he said, turning around suddenly. ‘I don’t need a company of daredevils, because I’m not going to Nilfgaard to save the world or to bring down an evil empire. I’m going to get Ciri. And that’s why I can go alone. Forgive me if that sounds unkind, but the rest of it doesn’t concern me. And now leave me. I want to be alone.’

When he turned around a moment later, he discovered that only Dandelion had walked away.

‘I had that dream again,’ he said abruptly. ‘Milva, I’m wasting time. I’m wasting time! She needs me. She needs help.’

‘Talk,’ she said softly. ‘Get it out. No matter how frightening it is, get it out.’

‘It wasn’t frightening. In my dream . . . She was dancing. She was dancing in some smoky barn. And she was – hell’s bells – happy. There was music playing, someone was yelling . . . The entire barn was shaking from shouting and music . . . And she was dancing, dancing, clicking her heels . . . And on the roof of that bloody barn, in the cold, night air . . . death was dancing too. Milva . . . Maria . . . She needs me.’

Milva turned her face away.

‘Not just her,’ she whispered. Quietly, so he wouldn’t hear.

At the next stop, the Witcher demonstrated his interest in Zoltan’s sword, the sihil, which he had glanced at during the adventure with the eyehead. Without hesitation, the dwarf unwrapped the weapon from its catskins and drew it from its lacquered scabbard.

The sword measured a little over three feet, but didn’t weigh much more than two pounds. The blade, which was decorated along much of its length with mysterious runes, had a bluish hue and was as sharp as a razor. In the right hands, it could have been used to shave with. The twelve-inch hilt, wound around with criss-crossed strips of lizard skin, had a cylindrical brass cap instead of a spherical pommel and its crossguard was very small and finely crafted.

‘A fine piece of work,’ Geralt said, making a quick, hissing moulinet followed by a thrust from the left and then a lightning transition to a high seconde parry and then laterally into prime. ‘Indeed, a nice bit of ironmongery.’

‘Phew!’ Percival Schuttenbach snorted. ‘Bit of ironmongery! Take a better look at it, because you’ll be calling it a horseradish root next.’

‘I had a better sword once.’

‘I don’t dispute that,’ Zoltan said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Because it was sure to have come from our forges. You witchers know how to wield a sword, but you don’t make them yourselves. Swords like that are only forged by dwarves, in Mahakam under Mount Carbon.’

‘Dwarves smelt the steel,’ Percival added, ‘and forge the laminated blades. But it’s us, the gnomes, who do the finishing touches and the sharpening. In our workshops. Using our own, gnomish technology, as we once made our gwyhyrs, the best swords in the world.’

‘The sword I wield now,’ Geralt said, baring the blade, ‘comes from the catacombs of Craag An in Brokilon. It was given to me by the dryads. It’s a first-class weapon, but it’s neither dwarven nor gnomish. It’s an elven blade, at least one or maybe two hundred years old.’

‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!’ the gnome called, picking up the sword and running his fingers over it. ‘The details are elven, I give you that. The hilt, crossguard and pommel. The etching, engraving, chasing and other decorative elements. But the blade was forged and sharpened in Mahakam. And it’s true that it was made several centuries ago, because it’s obvious that the steel is mediocre and the workmanship primitive. Now, hold Zoltan’s sihil against it; do you see the difference?’

‘Yes I do. And I have the impression mine’s just as well made.’

The gnome snorted and waved a hand. Zoltan smiled superciliously.

‘The blade,’ he explained in a patronising voice, ‘should cut, not make an impression, and it shouldn’t be judged on first impressions either. The point is that your sword is a typical composition of steel and iron, while my sihil’s blade was forged from a refined alloy containing graphite and borax . . .’

‘It’s a modern technique!’ Percival burst out, a little excited, since the conversation was moving inevitably towards his field of expertise. ‘The blade’s construction and composition, numerous laminates in its soft core, edged with hard – not soft – steel . . .’

‘Take it easy,’ the dwarf said, reining him in. ‘You won’t make a metallurgist out of him, Schuttenbach, so don’t bore him with details. I’ll explain it in simple terms. It’s incredibly difficult to sharpen good, hard, magnetite steel, Witcher. Why? Because it’s hard! If you don’t have the technology, as we dwarves once did not, and you humans still don’t have, but you want a sharp sword, you forge soft steel edges, which are more malleable, onto a hardened core. Your Brokilonian sword is made using just such a simplified method. Modern dwarven blades are made the opposite way around: with a soft core and hard edges. The process is time-consuming and, as I said, demands advanced technology. But as a result you get a blade which will cut a batiste scarf tossed up in the air.’

‘Is your sihil capable of a trick like that?’

‘No’ The dwarf smiled. ‘The swords sharpened to that degree are few and far between, and not many of them ever left Mahakam. But I guarantee that the shell of that knobbly old crab wouldn’t have put up much resistance against it. You could have sliced him up without breaking a sweat.’

The discussion about swords and metallurgy continued for some time. Geralt listened with interest, shared his own experiences, added some extra information, asked about this and that and then examined and tried out Zoltan’s sihil. He had no idea that the following day he would have the opportunity to add practice to the theory he had acquired.

The first indication that humans were living in the area was the neatly stacked cord of firewood standing among woodchips and tree bark by the track, spotted by Percival Schuttenbach, who was walking at the head of the column.

Zoltan stopped the procession and sent the gnome ahead to scout. Percival vanished and after half an hour hurried back, excited and out of breath and gesticulating from a long way off. He reached them, but instead of giving his report, grabbed his long nose in his fingers and blew it powerfully, making a sound resembling a shepherd’s horn.

‘Don’t frighten away the game,’ Zoltan Chivay barked. ‘And talk. What lies ahead of us?’

‘A settlement,’ the gnome panted, wiping his fingers on the tails of his many-pocketed kaftan. ‘In a clearing. Three cottages, a barn, a few mud and straw huts . . . There’s a dog running around in the farmyard and the chimney’s smoking. Someone’s preparing food there. Porridge. And made with milk.’

‘You mean you went into the kitchen?’ Dandelion laughed. ‘And peered into the pot? How do you know it’s porridge?’

The gnome looked at him with an air of superiority and Zoltan snarled angrily.

‘Don’t insult him, poet. He can sniff out grub a mile away. If he says it’s porridge, it’s porridge. Still, I don’t like the sound of this.’

‘Why’s that? I like the sound of porridge. I’d be happy to try some.’

‘Zoltan’s right,’ Milva said. ‘And you keep quiet, Dandelion, because this isn’t poetry. If the porridge is made with milk that means there’s a cow. And a peasant who sees fires burning will take his cow and disappear into the forest. Why didn’t this one? Let’s duck into the forest and give it a wide berth. There’s something fishy about this.’

‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ the dwarf muttered. ‘There’ll be plenty of time to flee. Perhaps the war’s over. Perhaps the Temerian Army has finally moved out. What do we know, stuck in this forest? Perhaps the decisive battle’s over, perhaps Nilfgaard’s been repulsed, perhaps the front’s already behind us, and the peasants are returning home with their cows. We ought to examine this and find out what’s behind it. Figgis and Munro; you two stay here and keep your eyes peeled. We’ll do a bit of reconnaissance. If it’s safe, I’ll make a call like a sparrow hawk.’

‘Like a sparrow hawk?’ said Munro Bruys, anxiously moving his chin. ‘Since when did you know anything about mimicking bird calls, Zoltan?’

‘That’s the whole point. If you hear a strange, unrecognisable sound, you’ll know it’s me. Percival, lead on. Geralt, will you come with us?’

‘We’ll all go,’ Dandelion said, dismounting. ‘If it’s a trap we’ll be safer in a bigger group.’

‘I’ll leave you the Field Marshal,’ Zoltan said, removing the parrot from his shoulder and passing him to Figgis Merluzzo. ‘This ugly bird might suddenly start effing and blinding at the top of his voice and then our silent approach will go to fuck. Let’s go.’

Percival quickly led them to the edge of the forest, into dense elder shrubs. The ground fell away slightly beyond the shrubs, where they saw a large pile of uprooted tree stumps. Beyond them there was a broad clearing. They peered out cautiously.

The gnome’s account had been accurate. There really were three cottages, a barn and several sod-roofed mud and straw huts in the middle of the clearing. A huge puddle of muck glistened in the farmyard. The buildings and a small, untended plot were surrounded by a low, partly fallen down fence, on the other side of which a scruffy dog was barking. Smoke was rising from the roof of one of the cottages, creeping lazily over the sunken turfs.

‘Indeed,’ Zoltan whispered, sniffing, ‘that smoke smells good. Particularly since my nostrils are used to the stench of burnt-down houses. There are no horses or guards around, which is good, because I bore in mind that some rabble might be resting up and cooking a meal here. Mmm, I’d say it’s safe.’

‘I’ll take a look,’ volunteered Milva.

‘No,’ the dwarf protested. ‘You look too much like a Squirrel. If they see you they might get frit, and humans can be unpredictable when they’re startled. Yazon and Caleb will go. But keep your bow at the ready; you can cover them if needs be. Percival, leg it over to the others. You lot be prepared, in case we have to sound the retreat.’

Yazon Varda and Caleb Stratton cautiously left the thicket and headed towards the buildings. They walked slowly, looking around intently.

The dog smelled them right away, started barking furiously, then ran around the farmyard, not reacting to the dwarves’ clucking and whistling. The door to the cottage opened. Milva raised her bow and drew back the bowstring in a single movement. And then immediately slackened it.

A short, stout girl with long plaits came rushing out. She shouted something, waving her arms. Yazon Varda spread his arms and shouted something back. The girl continued to bawl something. They could hear the sound but were unable to make out what she was saying.

But the words must have reached Yazon and Caleb, who made an about-turn and hurried back towards the elder shrubs. Milva drew her bow again and swept around with the arrowhead, searching for a target.

‘What the devil’s going on?’ Zoltan rasped. ‘What’s happening? What are they running away from? Milva?’

‘Shut your trap,’ the archer hissed, still taking aim at each cottage and hut in turn. But she couldn’t find anyone to shoot. The girl with the plaits disappeared into her cottage and shut the door behind her.

The dwarves were sprinting as though the Grim Reaper was on their heels. Yazon yelled something – or possibly cursed. Dandelion suddenly blanched.

‘He’s saying . . . Oh, Gods!’

‘What . . .’ Zoltan broke off, for Yazon and Caleb had made it back, red in the face. ‘What is it? Spit it out!’

‘The plague . . .’ Caleb gasped. ‘Smallpox . . .’

‘Did you touch anything?’ Zoltan Chivay asked, stepping back nervously and almost knocking Dandelion over. ‘Did you touch anything in the farmyard?’

‘No . . . The dog wouldn’t let us near . . .’

‘May the fucking mutt be praised,’ Zoltan said, raising his eyes heavenwards. ‘May the Gods give it a long life and a heap of bones higher than Mount Carbon. That girl, the plump one, did she have blisters?’

‘No. She’s healthy. The infected ones are in the last cottage, her in-laws. And a lot of people have already died, she said. Blimey, Zoltan, the wind was blowing right towards us!’

‘That’s enough teeth chattering,’ Milva said, lowering her bow. ‘If you didn’t touch any infected people, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If it’s true what she says about the pox. Maybe the girl just wanted to scare you away.’

‘No,’ Yazon replied, still breathing heavily. ‘There was a pit behind the hut . . . with bodies in it. The girl doesn’t have the strength to bury the dead, so she throws them into the pit . . .’

‘Well,’ Zoltan said, sniffing. ‘That’s your porridge, Dandelion. But I’ve slightly lost my appetite for it. Let’s get out of here; and fast.’

The dog in the farmyard began barking again.

‘Get down,’ the Witcher hissed, dropping into a crouch.

A group of horsemen came riding out from a gap in the trees on the other side of the clearing. Whistling and whooping, they circled the farmstead at a gallop and then burst into the yard. The riders were armed, but weren’t in identical uniforms. Quite the contrary, in fact – they were all dressed differently and haphazardly, and their weaponry and tackle gave the impression of being assembled at random. And not in an armoury, but on a battlefield.

‘Thirteen,’ Percival Schuttenbach said, making a quick tally.

‘Who are they?’

‘Neither Nilfgaard, nor any other regulars,’ came Zoltan’s assessment. ‘Not Scoia’tael. I think they’re volunteers. A random mob.’

‘Or marauders.’

The horsemen were yelling and cavorting around the farmyard. One of them hit the dog with a spear shaft and it bolted. The girl with the plaits ran outside, shouting. But this time her warning had no effect or wasn’t taken seriously. One of the horseman galloped up, seized the girl by one of her plaits, pulled her away from the doorway and dragged her through the puddle of muck. The others jumped off their horses to assist the first, dragging the girl to the end of the farmyard. They tore her shift off her and threw her down onto a pile of rotten straw. The girl fought back ferociously, but she had no chance. Only one of the marauders didn’t join in the fun; he guarded the horses, which were tied to the fence. The girl gave a long, piercing scream. Then a short, pained one. They heard nothing after that.

‘Warriors!’ Milva said, jumping to her feet. ‘Fucking heroes!’

‘They aren’t afraid of the pox,’ Yazon Varda said, shaking his head.

‘Fear,’ Dandelion muttered, ‘is a human quality. There’s nothing human in them any longer.’

‘Apart from their innards,’ Milva rasped, carefully nocking an arrow, ‘which I shall now prick.’

‘Thirteen,’ Zoltan Chivay repeated gravely. ‘And they’re all mounted. You’ll knock off one or two and the rest will have us surrounded. And anyway, it might be an advance party. The devil knows what kind of bigger force they belong to.’

‘Do you expect me to stand by and watch?’

‘No,’ Geralt said, straightening his headband and the sword on his back. ‘I’ve had enough of standing by and watching. I’m fed up with my own helplessness. But first we have to stop them from getting away. See the one holding the horses? When I get there, knock him out of the saddle. And if you can, take out another. But only when I get down there.’

‘That leaves eleven,’ the archer said, turning to face him.

‘I can count.’

‘You’ve forgotten about the smallpox,’ Zoltan Chivay muttered. ‘If you go down there, you’ll come back infected . . . Bollocks to that, Witcher! You’re putting us all at risk . . . For fuck’s sake, she’s not the girl you’re looking for!’

‘Shut up, Zoltan. Go back to the wagon and hide in the forest.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ Milva declared hoarsely.

‘No. Cover me from here, you’ll be helping more if you do that.’

‘What about me?’ Dandelion asked. ‘What should I do?’

‘The same as usual. Nothing.’

‘You’re insane . . .’ Zoltan snarled. ‘Taking on the entire band? What’s got into you? Want to play the hero, rescuing fair maidens?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Go to hell! No, wait. Leave your sword. There’s a whole bunch of them, so it’d be better if you didn’t have to swing twice. Take my sihil. One blow is enough.’

The Witcher took the dwarf’s weapon without a word or a moment’s hesitation. He pointed out the marauder guarding the horses one more time. And then hopped over the tree stumps and moved quickly towards the cottages.

The sun was shining. Grasshoppers scattered in front of him.

The man guarding the horses saw him and pulled a spear from its place by his saddle. He had very long, unkempt hair, falling onto a torn hauberk, patched up with rusty wire. He was wearing brand-new – clearly stolen – boots with shiny buckles.

The guard yelled and another marauder appeared from behind the fence. He was carrying a sword slung from a belt around his neck and was just buttoning his britches. Geralt was quite close by now. He could hear the guffawing of the men amusing themselves with the girl on the pile of straw. He took some deep breaths and each one intensified his blood lust. He could have calmed himself down, but didn’t want to. He wanted to have some fun himself.

‘And who might you be? Stop!’ the long-haired man shouted, hefting the spear in his hand. ‘What do you want here?’

‘I’ve done enough standing and watching.’

‘Whaaat?’

‘Does the name Ciri mean anything to you?’

‘I’ll—’

The marauder was unable to finish his sentence. A grey-fletched arrow hit him in the middle of his chest and threw him from the saddle. Before he hit the ground, Geralt could hear the next arrow whistling. The second soldier caught the arrowhead in the abdomen, low, right between the hands buttoning up his fly. He howled like an animal, bent double and lurched back against the fence, knocking over and breaking some of the pickets.

Before the others had managed to come to their senses and pick up their weapons, the Witcher was among them. The dwarven blade glittered and sang. There was a savage craving for blood in the song of the feather-light, razor-sharp steel. The bodies and limbs offered almost no resistance. Blood splashed onto his face; he had no time to wipe it off.

Even if the marauders were thinking about putting up a fight, the sight of falling corpses and blood gushing in streams effectively discouraged them. One of them, who had his trousers around his knees since he hadn’t even had time to pull them up, was slashed in the carotid artery and tumbled onto his back, comically swinging his still unsatisfied manhood. The second, nothing but a stripling, covered his head with both hands, which the sihil severed at the wrists. The remaining men took flight, dispersing in various directions. The Witcher pursued them, softly cursing the pain that was once again pulsing through his knee. He hoped the leg wouldn’t buckle under him.

He managed to pin two of them against the fence. They tried to defend themselves by holding up their swords. Paralysed by terror, their defence was woeful. The Witcher’s face was once again spattered with blood from arteries slashed open by the dwarven blade. But the remaining men made use of the time and managed to get away; they were already mounted. One of them fell, however, hit by an arrow, wriggling and squirming like a fish emptied from a net. The last two spurred their horses into a gallop. But only one of them managed to escape, because Zoltan Chivay had suddenly appeared in the farmyard. The dwarf swung his axe around his head and threw it, hitting one of the fleeing men in the centre of the back. The marauder screamed and tumbled from the saddle, legs kicking. The last one pressed himself tight to his horse’s neck, cleared the pit full of dead bodies and galloped towards the gap in the trees.

‘Milva!’ the Witcher and the dwarf both yelled.

The archer was already running towards them. Now she stopped, frozen, with legs apart. She let her nocked bow fall and then began to lift it up slowly, higher and higher. They didn’t hear the twang of the bowstring, neither did Milva change her position or even twitch. They only saw the arrow when it dipped and hurtled downwards. The horseman lurched sideways out of the saddle, the feathered shaft protruding from a shoulder. But he didn’t fall. He straightened up and with a cry urged his horse into a faster gallop.

‘What a bow,’ Zoltan Chivay grunted in awe. ‘What a shot!’

‘What a shot, my arse,’ the Witcher said, wiping blood from his face. ‘The whoreson’s got away and he’ll be back with a bunch of his mates.’

‘She hit him! And it must have been two hundred paces!’

‘She could have aimed at the horse.’

‘The horse isn’t guilty of anything,’ Milva panted with anger, walking over to them. She spat and watched the horseman disappear into the forest. ‘I missed the good-for-nothing, because I was a mite out of breath . . . Ugh, you rat, running away with my arrow! I hope it brings you bad luck!’

The neighing of a horse could be heard from the gap in the trees, and immediately afterwards the dreadful cry of a man being killed.

‘Ho, ho!’ Zoltan said, looking at the archer in awe. ‘He didn’t get very far! Your arrows are damned effective! Poisoned? Or enchanted perhaps? Because even if the good-for-nothing had caught the smallpox, the plague wouldn’t have taken its toll so quickly!’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Milva said, looking knowingly at the Witcher. ‘Nor the smallpox. But I think I know who it was.’

‘I think I do too,’ the dwarf said, chewing his moustache with a canny smile on his face. ‘I’ve noticed you keep looking back, and I know someone’s secretly following us. On a chestnut colt. I don’t know who he is, but since it doesn’t bother you . . . It’s none of my business.’

‘Particularly since a rearguard can have its uses,’ Milva said, looking at Geralt meaningfully. ‘Are you certain that Cahir’s your enemy?’

The Witcher didn’t reply. He gave Zoltan his sword back.

‘Thanks. It cuts nicely.’

‘In the right hands,’ the dwarf said, grinning. ‘I’ve heard tales about witchers, but to fell eight in less than two minutes . . .’

‘It’s nothing to brag about. They didn’t know how to defend themselves.’

The girl with the plaits raised herself onto her hands and knees, stood up, staggered, and then tried ineffectually to pull down her torn shift with trembling hands. The Witcher was astonished to see that she was in no way similar to Ciri, when a moment earlier he would have sworn they were twins. The girl wiped her face with an uncoordinated movement, and moved unsteadily towards the cottage. Straight through the puddle of muck.

‘Hey, wait,’ Milva called. ‘Hey, you . . . Need any help? Hey!’

The girl didn’t even look towards her. She stumbled over the threshold, almost falling, then grabbed the door jamb. And slammed the door behind her.

‘Human gratitude knows no boundaries,’ the dwarf commented. Milva jerked around, her face hardened.

‘What does she have to be grateful for?’

‘Exactly,’ the Witcher added. ‘What for?’

‘For the marauders’ horses,’ Zoltan said, not lowering his gaze. ‘She can slaughter them for their meat; she won’t have to kill the cow. She’s clearly resistant to smallpox and now she doesn’t have to fear hunger. She’ll survive. And in a few days, when she gathers her thoughts, she’ll understand that thanks to you she avoided a longer frolic and these cottages being burnt to the ground. Let’s get out of here before the plague blows our way . . . Hey, Witcher, where are you going? To get a token of gratitude?’

‘To get a pair of boots,’ Geralt said coldly, stooping down over the long-haired marauder, whose dead eyes stared heavenwards. ‘These look right for me.’

They ate horsemeat for several days. The boots with the shiny buckles were quite comfortable. The Nilfgaardian called Cahir was still riding in their tracks on his chestnut colt, but the Witcher had stopped looking back.

He had finally fathomed the arcana of Barrel and even played a hand with the dwarves. He lost.

They didn’t speak about the incident in the forest clearing. There was nothing to say.

Mandrake, or Love Apple, is a class of plant from the Mandragora or nightshade family, a group including herbaceous, stemless plants with parsnip-like roots, in which a similarity to the human form may be observed; the leaves are arranged in a rosette. M. autumnalis or officinalis, is cultivated on a small scale in Vicovaro, Rowan and Ymlac, rarely found in the wild. Its berries, which are green and later turn yellow, are eaten with vinegar and pepper, while its leaves are consumed raw. The root of the m., which is a valued ingredient in medicine and herb lore, long ago had great import in superstitions, particularly among the Nordlings; human effigies (called alruniks or alraunes) were carved from it and kept in homes as revered talismans. They were believed to offer protection from illnesses, to bring good fortune during trials, and to ensure fertility and uncomplicated births. The effigies were clad in dresses which were changed at each new moon. M. roots were bought and sold, with prices reaching as much as sixty florins. Bryony roots (q.v.) were used as substitutes. According to superstition, m. was used for making spells, magical philtres and poisons. This belief returned during the period of the witch hunts. The charge of the criminal use of m. was made, for example, during the trial of Lucretia Vigo (q.v.). The legendary Philippa Alhard (q.v.) was also said to have used m. as a poison.

Effenberg and Talbot, Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, Volume IX

CHAPTER THREE

The Old Road had changed somewhat since the last time the Witcher had travelled along it. Once a level highway paved with slabs of basalt, built by elves and dwarves centuries before, it had now become a potholed ruin. In some places the holes were so deep that they resembled small quarries. The pace of the march dropped since the dwarves’ wagon wove between the potholes with extreme difficulty, frequently becoming stuck.

Zoltan Chivay knew the reason for the road’s desperate state of disrepair. Following the last war with Nilfgaard, he explained, the need for building materials had increased tremendously. People had recalled that the Old Road was an almost inexhaustible source of dressed stone. And since the neglected road, built in the middle of nowhere and leading nowhere, had long ago lost its importance for transport and served few people, it was vandalised without mercy or restraint.

‘Your great cities,’ the dwarf complained, accompanied by the parrot’s screeched expletives, ‘were without exception built on dwarven and elven foundations. You built your own foundations for your smaller castles and towns, but you still use our stones for the walls. And yet you never stop repeating that it’s thanks to you – humans – that the world progresses and develops.’

Geralt did not comment.

‘But you don’t even know how to destroy things wisely,’ Zoltan griped, ordering yet another attempt to pull a wheel out of a hole. ‘Why can’t you remove the stones gradually, from the edges of the road? You’re like children! Instead of eating a doughnut systematically, you gouge the jam out with a finger and then throw away the rest because it’s not sweet any more.’

Geralt explained patiently that political geography was to blame for everything. The Old Road’s western end lay in Brugge, the eastern end in Temeria and the centre in Sodden, so each kingdom destroyed its own section at its own discretion. In response, Zoltan obscenely stated where he’d happily shove all the kings and listed some imaginative indecencies he would commit regarding their politics, while Field Marshal Windbag added his own contribution to the subject of the kings’ mothers.

The further they went, the worse it became. Zoltan’s comparison with a jam doughnut turned out to be less than apt; the road was coming to resemble a suet pudding with all the raisins gouged out. It looked as though the inevitable moment was approaching when the wagon would shatter or become totally and irreversibly stuck. They were saved, however, by the same thing that had destroyed the road. They happened upon a track heading towards the south-east, worn down and compacted by the heavy wagons which had been used to transport the pillaged stone. Zoltan brightened up, for he recognised that the track led unerringly to one of the forts on the Ina, on whose bank he was hoping to meet the Temerian Army. The dwarf solemnly believed that, as during the previous war, a crushing counter-attack by the northern kingdoms would be launched from Sodden on the far side of the Ina, following which the survivors of Nilfgaard’s thoroughly decimated forces would scurry back across the Yaruga.

And indeed, the change in their trek’s direction once again brought them closer to the war. During the night a great light suddenly flared up in front of them, while during the day they saw columns of smoke marking the horizon to the south and the east. Since they were still uncertain who was attacking and burning and who was being attacked and burnt they proceeded cautiously, sending Percival Schuttenbach far ahead to reconnoitre.

They were astonished one morning to be overtaken by a riderless horse, the chestnut colt. The green saddlecloth embroidered with Nilfgaardian symbols was stained with dark streaks of blood. There was no way of knowing if it was the blood of the horseman who had been killed near the hawker’s wagon or if it had been spilt later, when the horse had acquired a new owner.

‘Well, that takes care of the problem,’ Milva said, glancing at Geralt. ‘If it ever really was a problem.’

‘The biggest problem is we don’t know who knocked the rider from the saddle,’ Zoltan muttered. ‘And whether that someone is following our trail and the trail of our erstwhile, unusual rearguard.’

‘He was a Nilfgaardian,’ Geralt said between clenched teeth. ‘He spoke almost without an accent, but runaway peasants could have recognised it . . .’

Milva turned to face him.

‘You ought to have finished him off, Witcher,’ she said softly. ‘He would have had a kinder death.’

‘He got out of that coffin,’ Dandelion said, nodding, looking meaningfully at Geralt, ‘just to rot in some ditch.’

And that was the epitaph for Cahir, son of Ceallach, the Nilfgaardian who insisted he wasn’t a Nilfgaardian. He was not talked about any longer. Since Geralt – in spite of repeated threats – seemed to be in no hurry to part with the skittish Roach, Zoltan Chivay mounted the chestnut. The dwarf’s feet didn’t reach the stirrups, but the colt was mild-mannered and let himself be ridden.

During the night the horizon was bright with the glow of fires and during the day ribbons of smoke rose into the sky, soiling the blue. They soon came upon some burnt-out buildings, with flames still creeping over the charred beams and ridges. Alongside the smouldering timbers sat eight ragged figures and five dogs, all busily gnawing the remains of the flesh from a bloated, partly charred horse carcass. At the sight of the dwarves the feasters fled in a panic. Only one man and one dog remained, who no threats were capable of tearing away from the carrion on the arched spine and ribs. Zoltan and Percival tried to question the man, but learned nothing. He only whimpered, trembled, tucked his head into his shoulders and choked on the scraps torn from the bones. The dog snarled and bared its teeth up to its gums. The horse’s carcass stank repulsively.

They took a risk and didn’t leave the road, and soon reached the next smouldering remains. A sizeable village had been burnt down and a skirmish must have taken place nearby, because they saw a fresh burial mound directly behind the smoking ruins. And at a certain distance beyond the mound a huge oak tree stood by the crossroads. The tree was hung with acorns.

And human corpses.

‘We ought to take a look,’ Zoltan Chivay decided, putting an end to the discussion about the risks and the danger. ‘Let’s go closer.’

‘Why the bloody hell,’ Dandelion asked, losing his temper, ‘do you want to look at those corpses, Zoltan? To despoil them? I can see from here they don’t even have boots.’

‘Fool. It’s not their boots I’m interested in but the military situation. I want to know of the developments in the theatre of war. What’s so funny? You’re just a poet, and you don’t know what strategy is.’

‘You’re in for a surprise. I do.’

‘Nonsense. You wouldn’t know strategy from your own arse, even if your life depended on it.’

‘Indeed, I wouldn’t. I’ll leave half-arsed strategies to dwarves. The same applies to strategies dangling from oak trees.’

Zoltan dismissed him with a wave and tramped over to the tree. Dandelion, who had never been able to rein in his curiosity, urged Pegasus on and trotted after him. A moment later Geralt decided to follow them. And then noticed that Milva was riding behind him.

The crows feeding on the carcasses took flight, cawing and flapping their wings noisily. Some of them flew off towards the forest, while others merely alighted on the mighty tree’s higher branches, intently observing Field Marshal Windbag, who was coarsely defaming their mothers from the dwarf’s shoulder.

The first of the seven hanged humans had a sign on his chest reading: ‘Traitor’. The second was described as a ‘Collaborator’, the third as an ‘Elven Nark’ and the fourth as a ‘Deserter’. The fifth was a woman in a torn and bloodied shift, described as a ‘Nilfgaardian Whore’. Two of the corpses weren’t bearing signs, which suggested at least some of the victims had been hanged by chance.

‘Look,’ Zoltan Chivay said cheerfully, pointing at the signs. ‘Our army passed by this way. Our brave boys have taken the initiative and repulsed the enemy. And they had time, as we can see, for relaxation and wartime entertainment.’

‘And what does that mean for us?’

‘That the front has moved and the Temerian Army are between us and the Nilfgaardians. We’re safe.’

‘And the smoke ahead of us?’

‘That’s our boys,’ the dwarf declared confidently. ‘They’re burning down villages where Squirrels were given rest or vittles. We’re behind the front line now, I’m telling you. The southern way heads from the crossroads to Armeria, a fortress lying in a fork of the Chotla and the Ina. The road looks decent, we can take it. We needn’t be afraid of Nilfgaardians now.’

‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ Milva said. ‘And where there’s fire you can get your fingers burnt. I reckon it’s stupid to head towards the flames. It’s also stupid to travel along a road, when the cavalry could be on us in an instant. Let’s disappear into the trees.’

‘The Temerians or an army from Sodden passed through here,’ the dwarf insisted. ‘We’re behind the front line. We can march along the highway without fear; if we come across an army it’ll be ours.’

‘Risky,’ said the archer, shaking her head. ‘If you’re such an old hand, Zoltan, you must know that Nilfgaard usually sends advance parties a long way ahead. Perhaps the Temerians were here. But we have no idea what’s in front of us. The sky’s black from smoke to the south. That fortress of yours in Armeria is probably burning right now. Which means we aren’t behind the front line, but right on it. We may run into the army, marauders, leaderless bands of rogues, or Squirrels. Let’s head for the Chotla, but along forest tracks.’

‘She’s right,’ Dandelion concurred. ‘I don’t like the look of that smoke either. And even if Temeria is on the offensive, there may still be advance Nilfgaardian squadrons in front of us. The Nilfgaardians are fond of long-distance raids. They attack the rear lines, link up with the Scoia’tael, wreak havoc and ride back. I remember what happened in Upper Sodden during the last war. I’m also in favour of travelling through the forest. We have nothing to fear there.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Geralt said, pointing to the last corpse who, although he was dangling high up, had bloody stumps instead of feet. They looked like they had been raked by talons until all that was left was protruding bones. ‘Look. That’s the work of ghouls.’

‘Ghouls?’ Zoltan Chivay said, retreating and spitting on the ground. ‘Flesh-eaters?’

‘Naturally. We have to beware in the forest at night.’

‘Fuuuckiiin’ ’ell!’ Field Marshal Windbag screeched.

‘You took the words right out of my mouth, birdie,’ Zoltan Chivay said, frowning. ‘Well, we’re in a pretty pickle. What’s it to be, then? Into the forest, where there’s ghouls, or along the road, where there’s armies and marauders?’

‘Into the forest,’ Milva said with conviction. ‘The denser the better. I prefer ghouls to humans.’

They marched through the forest, at first cautious, on edge, reacting with alarm to every rustle in the undergrowth. Soon, however, they regained their poise, their good humour and their previous speed. They didn’t see any ghouls, or the slightest trace of their presence. Zoltan joked that spectres and any other demons must have heard about the approaching armies, and if the fiends had happened to see the marauders and Verdenian volunteers in action, then – seized with terror – they would have hidden in their most remote and inaccessible lairs, where they were now cowering and trembling, fangs chattering.

‘And they’re guarding the she-ghouls, their wives and their daughters,’ Milva snapped. ‘The monsters know that a soldier on the march won’t even pass up a sheep. And if you hung a woman’s shift on a willow tree, a knothole would be enough for those heroes.’ She looked pointedly at the women and children from Kernow, who were still with the group.

Dandelion, who had been full of vigour and good humour for quite some time, tuned his lute and began to compose a fitting couplet about willows, knotholes and lascivious warriors, and the dwarves and the parrot outdid each other in supplying ideas for rhymes.

‘O,’ Zoltan stated.

‘What? Where?’ Dandelion asked, standing up in his stirrups and looking down into the ravine in the direction the dwarf was pointing. ‘I can’t see anything!’

‘O.’

‘Don’t drivel like your parrot! What do you mean “oh”?’

‘It’s a stream,’ Zoltan calmly explained. ‘A right-bank tributary of the Chotla. It’s called the O.’

‘Ey . . .’

‘Not a bit of it!’ Percival Schuttenbach laughed. ‘The A joins the Chotla upstream, some way from here. That’s the O, not the A.’

The ravine, along the bottom of which flowed the stream with the uncomplicated name, was overgrown with nettles taller than the marching dwarves, smelled intensively of mint and rotten wood and resounded with the unremitting croaking of frogs. It also had steep sides, which turned out to be fatal. Vera Loewenhaupt’s wagon, which from the beginning of the journey had valiantly born the adversities of fate and overcome every obstacle, lost out in its clash with the stream by the name of ‘O’. It slipped from the hands of the dwarves leading it downwards, bounced on down to the very bottom of the ravine and was smashed to matchwood.

‘’Kin’ . . . ’ell!’ Field Marshal Windbag squawked, a counterpoint to the massed cry of Zoltan and his company.

‘To tell the truth,’ Dandelion concluded, scrutinising the remains of the vehicle and the scattered possessions, ‘perhaps it’s for the best. That bloody wagon of yours only slowed down the march. There were constant problems with it. Look at it realistically, Zoltan. We were just lucky that no one was following us. If we’d had to suddenly run for it we’d have had to abandon the wagon along with all of your belongings, which we can now at least salvage.’

The dwarf seethed and grunted angrily into his beard, but Percival Schuttenbach unexpectedly backed up the troubadour. The support, as the Witcher observed, was accompanied by several conspiratorial winks. The winks were meant to be surreptitious, but the lively expression of the gnome’s little face revealed everything.

‘The poet’s right,’ Percival repeated, contorting his face and winking. ‘We’re a muddy stone’s throw from the Chotla and the Ina. Fen Carn’s in front of us; not a road to be seen. It would have been arduous with a wagon. And should we meet the Temerian Army by the Ina, with our load . . . we might be in trouble.’

Zoltan pondered this, sniffing.

‘Very well,’ he said finally, looking at the remains of the wagon being washed by the O’s lazy current. ‘We’ll split up. Munro, Figgis, Yazon and Caleb will stay here. The rest of us will continue on our way. We’ll have to saddle the horses with our sacks of vittles and small tackle. Munro, do you know what to do? Got spades?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just don’t leave the merest trace! And mark the spot well and remember it!’

‘Rest assured.’

‘You’ll catch up with us easily,’ Zoltan said, throwing his rucksack and sihil over his shoulder and adjusting the battle-axe in his belt. ‘We’ll be heading down the O and then along the Chotla to the Ina. Farewell.’

‘I wonder,’ Milva mumbled to Geralt when the depleted unit had set off, sent on its way by the waving of the four dwarves who were remaining behind, ‘I wonder what they have in those chests that needs burying in secret.’

‘It’s not our business.’

‘I can’t imagine,’ Dandelion said, sotto voce, cautiously steering Pegasus between the fallen trees, ‘that there were spare trousers in those chests. They’re pinning their hopes on that load. I talked with them enough to work out how the land lies and what might be concealed in those coffers.’

‘And what might be concealed in them, in your opinion?’

‘Their future,’ the poet said, looking around to check no one could hear. ‘Percival’s a stone polisher and cutter by trade, and wants to open his own workshop. Figgis and Yazon are smiths, they’ve been talking about a forge. Caleb Stratton plans to marry, but his fiancée’s parents have already driven him away once as a penniless bum. And Zoltan . . .’

‘That’s enough, Dandelion. You’re gossiping like an old woman. No offence, Milva.’

‘None taken.’

The trees thinned out beyond the stream and the dark, boggy strip of ancient woodland. They rode into a clearing with low birch woods and dry meadows. In spite of that they made slow progress. Following the example of Milva, who right away had lifted the freckled girl with the plaits onto her saddle, Dandelion also put a child on Pegasus, while Zoltan put a couple on his chestnut colt and walked alongside, holding the reins. But the pace didn’t increase, since the women from Kernow were unable to keep up.

It was almost evening when, after nearly an hour of roaming through ravines and gorges, Zoltan Chivay stopped, exchanged a few words with Percival Schuttenbach, and then turned to the rest of the company.

‘Don’t yell and don’t laugh at me,’ he said, ‘but I reckon we’re lost. I don’t bloody know where we are or which way to go.’

‘Don’t talk drivel,’ Dandelion said, irritated. ‘What do you mean you don’t know? After all, we’re following the course of the river. And down there in the ravine is your O. Right?’

‘Right. But look which way it’s flowing.’

‘Oh bugger. That’s impossible!’

‘No, it’s not,’ Milva said gloomily, patiently pulling dry leaves and pine needles from the hair of the freckled girl who was riding in front of her. ‘We’re lost among the ravines. The stream twists and turns. We’re on a meander.’

‘But it’s still the O,’ Dandelion insisted. ‘If we follow the river, we can’t get lost. Little rivers are known to meander, I admit, but ultimately they all invariably flow into something bigger. That is the way of the world.’

‘Don’t play the smart-arse, singer,’ Zoltan said, wrinkling his nose. ‘And shut your trap. Can’t you see I’m thinking?’

‘No. There’s nothing to suggest it. I repeat, let’s keep to the course of the stream, and then . . .’

‘That’ll do,’ Milva snapped. ‘You’re a townie. Your world is bounded by walls. Perhaps your worldly wisdom is of some use there. Take a look around! The valley’s furrowed by ravines with steep, overgrown banks. How do you think we’ll follow the course of the stream? Down the side of a gorge into thickets and bogs, up the other side and down again and up again, pulling our horses by the reins? After two ravines you’ll be so short of breath you’ll be flat on your back halfway up a slope. We’re leading women and children, Dandelion. And the sun’ll be setting directly.’

‘I noticed. Very well, I’ll keep quiet. And listen to what the experienced forest trackers come up with.’

Zoltan Chivay cuffed the cursing parrot around the head, twisted a tuft of his beard around a finger and tugged it in anger.

‘Percival?’

‘We know the rough direction,’ the gnome said, squinting up at the sun, which was suspended just above the treetops. ‘So the first conception is this: blow the stream, turn back, leave these ravines for dry land and go through Fen Carn, between the rivers, all the way to the Chotla.’

‘And the second conception?’

‘The O’s shallow. Even though it’s carrying more water than usual after the recent rains, it can be forded. We’ll cut off the meanders by wading through the stream each time it blocks our way. By holding a course according to the sun, we’ll come right out at the fork of the Chotla and the Ina.’

‘No,’ the Witcher suddenly broke in. ‘I suggest we drop the second idea right away. Let’s not even think about it. On the far bank we’ll end up in one of the Mealybug Moors sooner or later. It’s a vile place, and I strongly advise we keep well away from it.’

‘Do you know these parts, then? Ever been there before? Do you know how we can get out of here?’

The Witcher remained silent for a while.

‘I’ve only been there once,’ he said, wiping his forehead. ‘Three years ago. But I entered from the other side. I was heading for Brugge and wanted to take a short cut. How I got out I don’t remember. I was carried out on a wagon half-dead.’

The dwarf looked at him for a while, but asked no more questions.

They returned in silence. The women from Kernow had difficulty walking. They were stumbling and using sticks for support, but none of them uttered a word of complaint. Milva rode alongside the Witcher, holding up the girl with the plaits, who was asleep on the saddle in front of her.

‘I think,’ she suddenly began, ‘that you got carved up in that wilderness, three years ago. By some monster, I understand. You have a dangerous job, Geralt.’

‘I don’t deny it.’

‘I remember what happened then,’ Dandelion boasted from behind. ‘You were wounded, some merchant got you out and then you found Ciri in Riverdell. Yennefer told me about it.’

At the sound of that name Milva smiled faintly. It did not escape Geralt’s notice. He decided to give Dandelion a good dressing down at the next camp for his untrammelled chatter. Knowing the poet, he couldn’t count on any results, particularly since Dandelion had probably already blabbed everything he knew.

‘Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea,’ said the archer after a while, ‘that we didn’t cross to the far bank, towards the wilderness. If you found the girl then . . . The elves say that sometimes lightning can strike twice. They call it . . . Bugger, I’ve forgotten. The noose of fate?’

‘The loop,’ he corrected her. ‘The loop of fate.’

‘Uurgh!’ Dandelion said, grimacing. ‘Can’t you stop talking about nooses and loops? A she-elf once divined that I would say farewell to this vale of tears on the scaffold, with the help of the deathsman. Admittedly I don’t believe in that type of tawdry fortune-telling, but a few days ago I dreamed I was being hanged. I awoke in a muck sweat, unable to swallow or catch my breath. So I listen with reluctance to discussions about gibbets.’

‘I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to the Witcher,’ Milva riposted. ‘So don’t flap your ears and nothing horrible will fall into them. Well then, Geralt? What have you got to say about that loop of fate? If we go to the wilderness, perhaps time will repeat itself.’

‘That’s why it’s good we’ve turned back,’ he replied brusquely. ‘I don’t have the slightest desire to repeat that nightmare.’

‘There’s no two ways about it.’ Zoltan nodded, looking around. ‘You’ve led us to a pretty charming place, Percival.’

‘Fen Carn,’ the gnome muttered, scratching the tip of his long nose. ‘Meadow of the Barrows . . . I’ve always wondered how it got its name . . .’

‘Now you know.’

The broad valley in front of them was already shrouded in evening mist from which, as far as the eye could see, protruded thousands of burial mounds and moss-covered monoliths. Some of the boulders were ordinary, shapeless lumps of stone. Others, smoothly hewn, had been sculpted into obelisks and menhirs. Still others, standing closer to the centre of this stone forest, were formed into dolmens, cairns and cromlechs, in a way that ruled out any natural processes.

‘Indeed,’ the dwarf repeated, ‘a charming place to spend the night. An elven cemetery. If my memory doesn’t fail me, Witcher, some time ago you mentioned ghouls. Well, you ought to know, I can sense them among these kurgans. I bet there’s everything here. Ghouls, graveirs, spectres, wights, elven spirits, wraiths, apparitions; the works. They’re hunkered down there and do you know what they’re whispering? “We won’t have to go looking for supper, because it’s come right to us.” ’

‘Perhaps we ought to go back,’ Dandelion suggested in a whisper. ‘Perhaps we should get out of here, while there’s still some light.’

‘That’s what I think too.’

‘The womenfolk can’t go any further,’ Milva said angrily. ‘The kids are ready to drop. The horses have stopped. You were the one driving us on, Zoltan. “Let’s keep going, just another half a mile,” you kept repeating. “Just another furlong,” you said. And now what? Two more furlongs back the way we came? Crap. Cemetery or no cemetery, we’re stopping for the night, the first place we find.’

‘That’s right,’ the Witcher said in support, dismounting. ‘Don’t panic. Not every necropolis is crawling with monsters and apparitions. I’ve never been to Fen Carn before, but if it were really dangerous I’d have heard about it.’

No one, not even Field Marshal Windbag, commented. The women from Kernow retrieved their children and sat down in a tight group, silent and visibly frightened. Percival and Dandelion tethered the horses and let them graze on the lush grass. Geralt, Zoltan and Milva approached the edge of the meadow, to look at the burial ground drowning in the fog and the gathering gloom.

‘To cap it all, the moon’s completely full,’ the dwarf muttered. ‘Oh dear, there’ll be a ghastly feast tonight, I can feel it, oh, the demons will make our lives miserable . . . But what’s that glow to the south? A fire?’

‘What else? Of course it is,’ the Witcher confirmed. ‘Someone’s torched someone else’s roof over their head again. Know what, Zoltan? I think I feel safer here in Fen Carn.’

‘I’ll feel like that too, but only when the sun comes up. As long as the ghouls let us see out the night.’

Milva rummaged in her saddlebag and took out something shiny.

‘A silver arrowhead,’ she said. ‘Kept for just such an occasion. It cost me five crowns at the market. That ought to kill a ghoul, right, Witcher?’

‘I don’t think there are any ghouls here.’

‘You said yourself,’ Zoltan snapped, ‘that ghouls had been chewing that corpse on the oak tree. And where there’s a cemetery, there are ghouls.’

‘Not always.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. You’re a witcher, a specialist; so you’ll defend us, I hope. You chopped up those marauders pretty smartly . . . Is it harder fighting ghouls than marauders?’

‘Incomparably. I said stop panicking.’

‘And will it be any good for a vampire?’ Milva asked, screwing the silver arrowhead onto a shaft and checking it for sharpness with her thumb. ‘Or a spectre?’

‘It may be.’

‘An ancient dwarven incantation in ancient dwarven runes is engraved on my sihil,’ Zoltan growled, drawing his sword, ‘If just one ghoul approaches at a blade’s length, it won’t forget me. Right here, look.’

‘Ah,’ Dandelion, who had just joined them, said with interest. ‘So those are some of the famous secret runes of the dwarves. What does the engraving say?’

‘ “Confusion to the whores’ sons!” ’

‘Something moved among the stones,’ Percival Schuttenbach suddenly yelled. ‘It’s a ghoul, it’s a ghoul!’

‘Where?’

‘Over there! It’s hid itself among the boulders!’

‘One?’

‘I saw one!’

‘He must be seriously hungry, since he’s trying to get his teeth into us before nightfall,’ the dwarf said, spitting on his hands and gripping the hilt of his sihil tightly. ‘Ha! He’ll soon find out gluttony will be his ruin! Milva, you stick an arrow in his arse and I’ll cut his gizzard open!’

‘I can’t see anything there,’ Milva hissed, with the fletchings already touching her chin. ‘Not a single weed between the stones is trembling. Sure you weren’t seeing things, gnome?’

‘Not a chance,’ Percival protested. ‘Do you see that boulder that looks like a broken table? The ghoul hid behind it.’

‘You lot stay here,’ Geralt said, quickly drawing his sword from the scabbard on his back. ‘Guard the womenfolk and keep an eye on the horses. If the ghouls attack, the animals will panic. I’ll go and find out what it was.’

‘You aren’t going by yourself,’ Zoltan firmly stated. ‘Back there in the clearing I let you go alone. I chickened out because of the smallpox. And two nights running I haven’t slept for shame. Never again! Percival, where are you off to? To the rear? You claim to have seen the phantom, so now you’re going in the vanguard. Don’t be afeared, I’m coming with you.’

They headed off cautiously between the barrows, trying not to disturb the weeds – which were knee-high to Geralt and waist-high to the dwarf and the gnome. As they approached the dolmen that Percival had pointed out they artfully split up, cutting off the ghoul’s potential escape route. But the strategy turned out to be unnecessary. As Geralt had expected, his witcher medallion didn’t even quiver; betrayed no sign of anything monstrous nearby.

‘There’s no one here,’ Zoltan confirmed, looking around. ‘Not a soul. You must have imagined it, Percival. It’s a false alarm. You put the wind up us for no reason. You truly deserve my boot up your arse for that.’

‘I saw it!’ the gnome said indignantly. ‘I saw it hopping about among the stones! It was skinny and dressed all in black like a tax collector . . .’

‘Be quiet, you foolish gnome, or I’ll . . .’

‘What’s that strange odour?’ Geralt suddenly asked. ‘Can you smell it?’

‘Indeed,’ the dwarf said, nose extended like a pointer. ‘What a pong.’

‘Herbs,’ Percival said, sniffling with his sensitive, two-inch-long nose. ‘Wormwood, basil, sage, aniseed . . . Cinnamon? What the blazes?’

‘What do ghouls smell of, Geralt?’

‘Rotting corpses,’ the Witcher said, taking a quick look around and searching for footprints in the grass. Then with a few swift steps he returned to the sunken dolmen and tapped gently against the stone with the flat of his sword.

‘Get out,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I know you’re in there. Be quick, or I’ll poke a hole in you.’

A soft scraping could be heard from a cleverly concealed cavity beneath the stones.

‘Get out,’ Geralt repeated. ‘You’re perfectly safe.’

‘We won’t touch a hair on your head,’ Zoltan added sweetly, raising his sihil above the hollow and rolling his eyes menacingly. ‘Out with you!’

Geralt shook his head and made a clear sign for the dwarf to withdraw. Once again there was a scratching from the cavity under the dolmen and once again they were aware of the intense aroma of herbs and spices. A moment later they saw a grizzled head and then a face embellished with a nobly aquiline nose, belonging by no means to a ghoul but to a slim, middle-aged man. Percival hadn’t been wrong. The man did indeed somewhat resemble a tax collector.

‘Is it safe to come out?’ he asked, raising black eyes beneath slightly greying eyebrows towards Geralt.

‘Yes, it is.’

The man scrambled out of the hole, brushed down his black robes – which were tied around the waist with some kind of apron – and straightened a linen bag, causing another wave of the herbal aroma.

‘I suggest you put away your weapons, gentlemen,’ he declared in a measured voice, running his eyes over the group of wanderers surrounding him. ‘They won’t be necessary. I, as you can see, bear no blade. I never do. Neither do I have anything on me that might be termed attractive booty. My name is Emiel Regis. I come from Dillingen. I’m a barber-surgeon.’

‘Indeed,’ Zoltan Chivay grimaced a little. ‘A barber-surgeon, alchemist or herbalist. No offence, my dear sir, but you smell seriously like an apothecary’s shop.’

Emiel Regis smiled strangely, with pursed lips, and spread his arms apologetically.

‘The scent betrayed you, master barber-surgeon,’ Geralt said, replacing his sword in its sheath. ‘Did you have any particular reason to hide from us?’

‘Any particular reason?’ the man asked, turning his black eyes towards him. ‘No. I was just taking general precautions. I was simply afraid of you. These are difficult times.’

‘True.’ The dwarf nodded and pointed towards the glow of fire lighting up the sky. ‘Difficult times. I surmise that you are a fugitive, as we are. It intrigues me, however, that although you’ve fled far from your native Dillingen, you’re hiding all alone among these kurgans. Well, people’s fates are various, particularly during difficult times. We were afraid of you and you of us. Fear makes one imagine things.’

‘You have nothing to fear from me,’ the man who was claiming to be Emiel Regis said, without taking his eyes off them, ‘I hope I can count on reciprocity.’

‘My, my,’ Zoltan said, grinning broadly. ‘You don’t take us for robbers, do you? We, master barber-surgeon, are fugitives. We are travelling to the Temerian border. You may join us if you wish. The more the merrier . . . and safer, and a physician may come in handy. We have women and children in the party. Among the stinking medicaments I can smell about you, would you have a remedy for blisters?’

‘I ought to have something,’ the barber-surgeon said softly. ‘Glad to be of assistance. But as far as travelling together is concerned . . . Thank you for the offer, but I’m not running away, gentlemen. I wasn’t fleeing from Dillingen to escape the war. I live here.’

‘Come again?’ the dwarf said, frowning and taking a step back. ‘You live here? Here, in this burial ground?’

‘In the burial ground? No. I have a cottage not far from here. Apart from my house and shop in Dillingen, you understand. But I spend my summers here every year, from June to September, from Midsummer to the Equinox. I gather healing herbs and roots, from which I distil medicines and elixirs in my cottage . . .’

‘But you know about the war in spite of your reclusive solitude far from the world and people.’ Geralt pointed out. ‘Who do you get your news from?’

‘From the refugees who pass this way. There’s a large camp less than two miles from here, by the River Chotla. A good few hundred fugitives – peasants from Brugge and Sodden – are gathered there.’

‘And what about the Temerian Army?’ Zoltan asked with interest. ‘Are they on the move?’

‘I know nothing about that.’

The dwarf swore and then glowered at the barber-surgeon.

‘So you simply live here, Master Regis,’ he drawled, ‘and stroll among the graves of an evening. Aren’t you afraid?’

‘What ought I to be afraid of?’

‘This here gentleman,’ Zoltan pointed at Geralt, ‘is a witcher. He saw evidence of ghouls not long ago. Corpse eaters, get it? And you don’t have to be a witcher to know that ghouls hang around in cemeteries.’

‘A witcher,’ the barber-surgeon said, and looked at Geralt with obvious interest. ‘A monster killer. Well, well. Fascinating. Didn’t you explain to your comrades, Master Witcher, that this necropolis is over five hundred years old? Ghouls aren’t fussy about what they eat, but they don’t chew five-hundred-year-old bones. There aren’t any ghouls here.’

‘I feel a lot better knowing that,’ Zoltan Chivay said, looking around. ‘Well, master physician, come over to our camp. We have some cold horsemeat. You won’t refuse it, will you?’

Regis looked at him long and hard.

‘My thanks,’ he said finally. ‘But I have a better idea. Come to my place. My summer abode is more of a shack than a cottage, and a small one at that. You’ll have no choice but to sleep under the stars. But there’s a spring nearby and a hearth where you can warm up your horsemeat.’

‘We’ll gladly take you up on your invitation,’ the dwarf said, bowing. ‘Perhaps there really aren’t any ghouls here, but the thought of spending a night in the burial ground doesn’t do much for me. Let’s go, I’ll introduce you to the rest of our company.’

When they reached the camp the horses snorted and stamped their hooves on the ground.

‘Stand a little downwind, Master Regis,’ Zoltan Chivay said, casting the physician a telling glance. ‘The smell of sage frightens our horses, and in my case, I’m ashamed to admit, reminds me unpleasantly of teeth being pulled.’

‘Geralt,’ Zoltan muttered, as soon as Emiel Regis had disappeared behind the flap covering the entrance to the cottage. ‘Let’s keep our eyes open. There’s something fishy about that stinking herbalist.’

‘Anything specific?’

‘I don’t like it when people spend their summers near cemeteries, never mind cemeteries a long way from human dwellings. Do herbs really not grow in more pleasant surroundings? That Regis looks like a grave robber to me. Barber-surgeons, alchemists and the like exhume corpses from boneyards, in order to perform various experiments on them.’

‘Experiments. But fresh corpses are needed for practices of that kind. This cemetery is very old.’

‘True,’ the dwarf said, scratching his chin and watching the women from Kernow making their beds under some hagberry shrubs growing by the barber-surgeon’s shack. ‘So perhaps he steals buried treasure from these barrows?’

‘Ask him,’ Geralt said, shrugging. ‘You accepted the invitation to stay at his homestead at once, without hesitation, and now you’ve suddenly become as suspicious as an old maid being paid a compliment.’

‘Er . . .’ Zoltan mumbled, somewhat tongue-tied. ‘There’s something in that. But I’d like to have a gander at what he keeps in that hovel of his. You know, just to be on the safe side . . .’

‘So follow him in and pretend you want to borrow a fork.’

‘Why a fork?’

‘Why not?’

The dwarf gave Geralt an old-fashioned look and finally made up his mind. He hurried over to the cottage, knocked politely on the door jamb and entered. He remained inside for some little time, and then suddenly appeared in the doorway.

‘Geralt, Percival, Dandelion, step this way. Come and see something interesting. Come on, without further ado, Master Regis has invited us in.’

The interior of the cottage was dark and dominated by a warm, intoxicating aroma that made the nose tickle, mainly coming from the bunches of herbs and roots hanging from all the walls. The only items of furniture were a simple cot – also strewn with herbs – and a rickety table cluttered with innumerable glass, pottery and ceramic vials. The room was illuminated by the dim glow of burning coals in a curious, pot-bellied stove, resembling a bulging hourglass. The stove was surrounded by a spidery lattice of shining pipes of various diameters, bent into curves and spirals. Beneath one of the pipes stood a wooden pail into which a liquid was dripping.

At the sight of the stove Percival Schuttenbach first stared goggle-eyed, then gaped, and finally sighed and leapt up in the air.

‘Ho, ho, ho!’ he called, unable to conceal his delight. ‘What do I see? That’s an absolutely authentic athanor coupled to an alembic! Equipped with a rectifying column and a copper condenser! A beautiful apparatus! Did you build it yourself, master barber-surgeon?’

‘Indeed,’ Emiel Regis admitted modestly. ‘My work involves producing elixirs, so I have to distil, extract the fifth essence, and also . . .’

He broke off, seeing Zoltan Chivay catching a drop falling from the end of the pipe and licking his finger. The dwarf sighed and a look of indescribable bliss appeared on his ruddy face.

Dandelion couldn’t resist and also had a go, tasting and moaning softly.

‘The fifth essence,’ he confirmed, smacking his lips. ‘And I suspect the sixth and even the seventh.’

‘Well . . .’ The barber-surgeon smiled faintly. ‘As I said: a distillate.’

‘Moonshine,’ Zoltan corrected him gently. ‘And what moonshine! Try some, Percival.’

‘But I’m not an expert in organic chemistry,’ the gnome answered absentmindedly, examining the details of the alchemical furnace’s construction. ‘It’s doubtful I would be familiar with the ingredients . . .’

‘It is a distillate of mandrake,’ Regis said, dispelling any doubt. ‘Enriched with belladonna. And fermented starch mass.’

‘You mean mash?’

‘One could also call it that.’

‘May I request a cup of some kind?’

‘Zoltan, Dandelion,’ the Witcher said, folding his arms on his chest. ‘Are you deaf? It’s mandrake. The moonshine is made of mandrake. Leave that copper alone.’

‘But dear Master Geralt,’ the alchemist said, digging a small graduated flask out from between some dust-covered retorts and demijohns, and meticulously polishing it with a rag. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. The mandrake is appropriately seasoned and the proportions carefully selected and precisely weighed out. I only add five ounces of mandrake to a pound of mash, and only half a dram of belladonna . . .’

‘That’s not the point,’ the Witcher said, looking at Zoltan. The dwarf understood at once, grew serious and cautiously withdrew from the still. ‘The point is not how many drams you add, Master Regis, but how much a dram of mandrake costs. It’s too dear a tipple for us.’

‘Mandrake,’ Dandelion whispered in awe, pointing at the small heap of sugar beet-like roots piled up in the corner of the shack. ‘That’s mandrake? Real mandrake?’

‘The female form’ – the alchemist nodded – ‘grows in large clumps in the very cemetery where we chanced to meet. Which is also why I spend my summers here.’

The Witcher looked knowingly at Zoltan. The dwarf winked. Regis gave a half-suppressed smile.

‘Gentlemen, please, I warmly invite you to sample it, if you wish. I appreciate your moderation, but in the current situation there’s little chance of me taking the elixirs to war-torn Dillingen. It all would have gone to waste anyway, so let’s not talk about the price. My apologies, but I only have one drinking vessel.’

‘That should do,’ Zoltan said, picking up the flask and carefully scooping up moonshine from the pail. ‘Your good health, Master Regis. Ooooh . . .’

‘Please forgive me,’ the barber-surgeon said, smiling again. ‘The quality of the distillate probably leaves a lot to be desired . . . It’s actually unfinished.’

‘It’s the best unfinished product I’ve ever tasted,’ Zoltan said, gasping. ‘Your turn, poet.’

‘Aaaah . . . Oh, mother of mine! Excellent! Have a sip, Geralt.’

‘Give it to our host,’ the Witcher said, bowing slightly towards Emiel Regis. ‘Where are your manners, Dandelion?’

‘Please forgive me, gentlemen,’ the alchemist said, acknowledging the gesture, ‘but I never permit myself any stimulants. My health isn’t what it was. I’ve been forced to give up many . . . pleasures.’

‘Not even a sip?’

‘It’s a principle,’ Regis explained calmly. ‘I never break any principles once I’ve adopted them.’

‘I admire and envy you your resoluteness,’ Geralt said, sipping a little from the flask and then, after a moment’s hesitation, draining it in one. The tears trickling from his eyes interfered a little with the taste of the moonshine. An invigorating warmth spread through his stomach.

‘I’ll go and get Milva,’ he offered, handing the flask to the dwarf. ‘Don’t polish it all off before we get back.’

Milva was sitting near the horses, bantering with the freckled girl she had been carrying on her saddle all day. When she heard about Regis’s hospitality she initially shrugged, but in the end didn’t need much persuading.

When they entered the shack they found the company carrying out an inspection of the stored mandrake roots.

‘I’ve never seen it before,’ Dandelion confessed, turning a bulbous root around in his fingers. ‘Indeed, it does somewhat resemble a man.’

‘A man twisted by lumbago, perhaps,’ Zoltan added. ‘And that one’s the spitting image of a pregnant woman. And that one, if you’ll excuse me, looks just like a couple busy bonking.’

‘You lot only think of one thing,’ Milva sneered, boldly drinking from the full flask and then coughing loudly into a fist. ‘Bloody hell . . . Powerful stuff, that hooch! Is it really made from love apples? Ha, so we’re drinking a magic potion! That doesn’t happen every day. Thank you, master barber-surgeon.’

‘The pleasure is all mine.’

The flask, kept topped up, circulated around the company, prompting good humour, verve and garrulousness.

‘The mandrake, I hear, is a vegetable with great magical powers,’ Percival Schuttenbach said with conviction.

‘Yes, indeed,’ Dandelion confirmed. He then emptied the flask, shuddered and resumed talking. ‘There’s no shortage of ballads written on the subject. It’s well known that sorcerers use mandrake in elixirs, which help them preserve their eternal youth and sorceresses make an ointment, which they call glamarye. If an enchantress applies such ointment she becomes so beautiful and enchanting it makes your eyes pop out of your head. You also ought to know that mandrake is a powerful aphrodisiac and is used in love magic, particularly to break down female resistance. That’s the explanation of mandrake’s folk name: love apple. It’s a herb used to pander lovers.’

‘Blockhead,’ Milva commented.

‘And I heard,’ the gnome said, downing the contents of the flask, ‘that when mandrake root is pulled from the ground the plant cries and wails as though it were alive.’

‘Why,’ Zoltan said, filling the flask from the pail, ‘if it only wailed! Mandrake, they say, screams so horribly it can send you up the wall, and moreover it screams out evil spells and showers curses on whoever uproots it. You can pay with your life taking a risk like that.’

‘That sounds like a cloth-headed fairy-tale,’ Milva said, taking the flask from him and drinking deeply. She shuddered and added: ‘It’s impossible for a plant to have such powers.’

‘It’s an infallible truth!’ the dwarf called heatedly. ‘But sagacious herbalists have found a way of protecting themselves. Having found a mandrake, you must tie one end of a rope to the root and the other end to a dog . . .’

‘Or a pig,’ the gnome broke in.

‘Or a wild boar,’ Dandelion added gravely.

‘You’re a fool, poet. The whole point is for the mutt or swine to pull the mandrake out of the ground, for then the vegetable’s curses and spells fall on the said creature, while the herbalist – hiding safely, far away in the bushes – gets out in one piece. Well, Master Regis? Am I talking sense?’

‘An interesting method,’ the alchemist admitted, smiling mysteriously. ‘Interesting mainly for its ingenuity. The disadvantage, however, is its extreme complexity. For in theory the rope ought to be enough, without the draught animal. I wouldn’t suspect mandrake of having the ability of knowing who or what’s pulling the rope. The spells and curses should always fall on the rope, which after all is cheaper and less problematic to use than a dog, not to mention a pig.’

‘Are you jesting?’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. I said I admire the ingenuity. Because although the mandrake, contrary to popular opinion, is incapable of casting spells or curses, it is – in its raw state – an extremely toxic plant, to the extent that even the earth around the root is poisonous. Sprinkling the fresh juice onto the face or on a cut hand, why, even breathing in its fumes, may all have fatal consequences. I wear a mask and gloves, which doesn’t mean I have anything against the rope method.’

‘Mmmm . . .’ the dwarf pondered. ‘But what about that horrifying scream the plucked mandrake makes? Is that true?’

‘The mandrake doesn’t have vocal chords,’ the alchemist explained calmly, ‘which is fairly typical for plants, is it not? However, the toxin secreted by the root has a powerful hallucinogenic effect. The voices, screams, whispers and other sounds are nothing more than hallucinations produced by the poisoned central nervous system.’

‘Ha, I clean forgot,’ Dandelion said, having just drained the flask and letting out a suppressed burp, ‘that mandrake is extremely poisonous! And I was holding it! And now we’re guzzling this tincture with abandon . . .’

‘Only the fresh mandrake root is toxic,’ Regis said, calming him down. ‘Mine is seasoned and suitably prepared, and the distillate has been filtered. There is no need for alarm.’

‘Of course there isn’t,’ Zoltan agreed. ‘Moonshine will always be moonshine, you can even distil it from hemlock, nettles, fish scales and old bootlaces. Give us the glass, Dandelion, there’s a queue forming here.’

The flask, kept topped up, circulated around the company. Everybody was sitting comfortably on the dirt floor. The Witcher hissed and swore, and shifted his position, because the pain shot through his knee again as he sat. He caught sight of Regis looking at him intently. ‘Is that a fresh injury?’

‘Not really. But it’s tormenting me. Do you have any herbs capable of soothing the pain?’

‘That all depends on the class of pain,’ the barber-surgeon said, smiling slightly. ‘And on its causes. I can detect a strange odour in your sweat, Witcher. Were you treated with magic? Were you given magic enzymes and hormones?’

‘They gave me various medicaments. I had no idea they could still be smelled in my sweat. You’ve got a bloody sensitive nose, Regis.’

‘Everybody has their good points. To even out the vices. What ailment did they use magic to treat you with?’

‘I broke my arm and the shaft of my thighbone.’

‘How long ago?’

‘A little over a month.’

‘And you’re already walking? Remarkable. The dryads of Brokilon, I presume?’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Only the dryads have medicaments capable of rebuilding bone tissue so quickly. I can see dark marks on the backs of your hands. They’re the places where the tendrils of the conynhaela and the symbiotic shoots of knitbone entered. Only dryads know how to use conynhaela, and knitbone doesn’t grow outside Brokilon.’

‘Well done. Admirable deduction skills. Though something else interests me. My thighbone and forearm were broken, but the strong pain is in the knee and elbow.’

‘That’s typical,’ the barber-surgeon nodded. ‘The dryads’ magic reconstructed your damaged bone, but simultaneously caused a minor upheaval in your nerve trunks. It’s a side effect, felt most intensely in the joints.’

‘What do you advise?’

‘Unfortunately, nothing. You’ll continue to predict rainy weather unerringly for a long time to come. The pains will grow stronger in the winter. However, I wouldn’t recommend that you take powerful painkilling drugs. Particularly steer clear of narcotics. You’re a witcher and in your case it’s absolutely to be avoided.’

‘I’ll treat myself with your mandrake, then,’ the Witcher said, raising the full flask, which Milva had just handed him. He took a deep swallow and hacked until tears filled his eyes. ‘Bloody hell! I’m feeling better already.’

‘I’m not certain,’ Regis said, smiling through pursed lips, ‘that you’re treating the right illness. I’d also like to remind you that one should treat causes, not symptoms.’

‘Not in the case of this witcher,’ Dandelion snorted, now a little flushed and eavesdropping on their conversation. ‘Booze is just right for him and his worries.’

‘It ought to do you good, too,’ Geralt said, giving the poet a chilling stare. ‘Particularly if it paralyses your tongue.’

‘I wouldn’t especially count on that.’ The barber-surgeon smiled again. ‘Belladonna is one of the preparation’s ingredients, which means a large number of alkaloids, including scopolamine. Before the mandrake puts you to sleep, you’re all sure to give me a display of eloquence.’

‘A display of what?’ Percival asked.

‘Talkativeness. My apologies. Let’s use simpler words.’

Geralt mouth twisted into a fake smile.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘It’s easy to adopt an affected style and start using words like that every day. Then people take the speaker for an arrogant buffoon.’

‘Or an alchemist,’ Zoltan Chivay said, filling the flask from the pail once more.

‘Or a witcher,’ Dandelion snorted, ‘who’s read a lot to impress a certain enchantress. Nothing attracts enchantresses like an elaborate tale, gentlemen. Am I right, Geralt? Go on, spin us a yarn . . .’

‘Sit out your turn, Dandelion,’ the Witcher cut in coldly. ‘The alkaloids in this hooch are acting on you too quickly. They’ve loosened your tongue.’

‘It’s time you gave up your secrets, Geralt,’ Zoltan grimaced. ‘Dandelion hasn’t told us much we didn’t know. You can’t help it if you’re a walking legend. They re-enact stories of your adventures in puppet theatres. Like the story about you and an enchantress by the name of Guinevere.’

‘Yennefer,’ Regis corrected in hushed tones. ‘I saw that one. It was the story of a hunt for a genie, if my memory serves me correctly.’

‘I was present during that hunt,’ Dandelion boasted. ‘We had some laughs, I can tell you . . .’

‘Tell them all,’ Geralt said, getting up. ‘Tell them while you’re sipping the moonshine and embellishing the story suitably. I’m taking a walk.’

‘Hey,’ the dwarf said, nettled. ‘No need to get offended . . .’

‘You misunderstand, Zoltan. I’m going to relieve my bladder. Why, it even happens to walking legends.’

The night was as cold as hell. The horses stamped and snorted, and steam belched from their nostrils. Bathed in moonlight, Regis’s shack seemed utterly as if it could have come from a fairy-tale. It could have been a witch’s cottage. Geralt fastened his trousers.

Milva, who had left soon after him, coughed hesitantly. Her long shadow drew level with his.

‘Why are you delaying going back?’ she asked. ‘Did they really annoy you?’

‘No,’ he replied.

‘Then why the hell are you standing here by yourself in the moonlight?’

‘I’m counting.’

‘Huh?’

‘Twelve days have passed since I set out from Brokilon, during which I’ve travelled around sixty miles. Rumour has it that Ciri’s in Nilfgaard, the capital of the Empire. Which is around two and half thousand miles from here. Simple arithmetic tells me that at this rate I’ll get there in a year and four months. What do you say to that?’

‘Nothing,’ Milva said, shrugging and coughing again. ‘I’m not as good at reckoning as you. I don’t know how to read or write at all. I’m a foolish, simple country girl. No company for you. Nor someone to talk to.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘It’s the truth, though,’ she said, turning away abruptly. ‘Why did you tally up the days and miles? For me to advise you? Cheer you up? Chase away your fear, suppress the remorse that torments you worse than the pain in your broken peg? I don’t know how! You need another. The one Dandelion was talking about. Intelligent, educated. Your beloved.’

‘Dandelion’s a prattler.’

‘That he is. But he occasionally prattles sense. Let’s go back, I want to drink some more.’

‘Milva?’

‘What?’

‘You never told me why you decided to ride with me.’

‘You never asked.’

‘I’m asking now.’

‘It’s too late now. I don’t know any more.’

‘Oh, you’re back at last,’ Zoltan said, pleased to see them, his voice now sounding quite different. ‘And we, just imagine, have decided that Regis will continue on our journey with us.’

‘Really?’ The Witcher looked intently at the barber-surgeon. ‘What’s behind this sudden decision?’

‘Master Zoltan,’ Regis said, without lowering his gaze, ‘has made me aware that Dillingen has been engulfed by a much more serious war than I understood from the refugees’ accounts. A return to those parts is totally out of the question, and remaining in this wilderness doesn’t seem wise. Or travelling alone, for that matter.’

‘And we, although you don’t know us at all, look like people you could travel with safely. Was one glance enough for you?’

‘Two,’ the barber-surgeon replied with a faint smile. ‘One at the women you’re looking after. And the other at their children.’

Zoltan belched loudly and scraped the flask against the bottom of the pail.

‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ he sneered. ‘Perhaps we intend to sell the women into slavery. Percival, do something with this apparatus. Loosen a valve a little or something. We want to drink more and it’s taking for ever to drip out.’

‘The condenser can’t keep up. The liquor will be warm.’

‘Not a problem. The night’s cool.’

The lukewarm moonshine greatly stimulated the conversation. Dandelion, Zoltan and Percival were all ruddy-cheeked, and their voices had altered even more – in the case of the poet and the gnome one could now say that they were almost on the verge of gibbering. Ravenous, the company were chewing cold horsemeat and nibbling horseradish roots they had found in the cottage – which made their eyes water, because the horseradish was as bracing as the hooch. And added passion to the discussion.

Regis gave an expression of astonishment when it turned out that the final destination of the trek was not the enclave of the Mahakam massif, the eternal and secure home of the dwarves. Zoltan, who had become even more garrulous than Dandelion, declared that under no circumstances would he ever return to Mahakam, and unburdened himself of his animosity to its ruling regime, particularly regarding the politics and absolute rule of Brouver Hoog, the Elder of Mahakam and all the dwarven clans.

‘The old fart!’ he roared, and spat into the hearth of the furnace. ‘To look at him you wouldn’t know if he was alive or stuffed. He almost never moves, which is just as well, because he farts every time he does. You can’t understand a word he’s saying because his beard and whiskers are stuck together with dried borscht. But he lords it over everyone and everything, and everyone has to dance to his tune . . .’

‘It would be difficult to claim, however, that Hoog’s policies are poor,’ Regis interrupted. ‘For, owing to his decisive measures, the dwarves distanced themselves from the elves and don’t fight alongside the Scoia’tael any more. And thanks to that the pogroms have ceased. Thanks to that there have been no punitive expeditions to Mahakam. Prudence in their dealings with humans is bearing fruit.’

‘Bollocks,’ Zoltan said, drinking from the flask. ‘In the case of the Squirrels, the old fossil wasn’t interested in prudence, it was because too many youngsters were abandoning work in the mines and the forges and joining the elves to sample freedom and manly adventures in the commandos. When the phenomenon grew to the size of a problem, Brouver Hoog took the punks in hand. He couldn’t care less about the humans being killed by the Squirrels, and he made light of the repression falling on the dwarves because of that – including your infamous pogroms. He didn’t give a damn and doesn’t give a damn about them, because he considers the dwarves who’ve settled in the cities apostates. And as regards punitive expeditions to Mahakam – don’t make me laugh, my dears. There’s no threat and never has been, because none of the kings would dare lay a finger on Mahakam. I’ll go further: even the Nilfgaardians, were they to manage to take control of the valleys surrounding the massif, wouldn’t dare touch Mahakam. Do you know why? I’ll tell you: Mahakam is steel; and not just any old steel. There’s coal there, there’s magnetite ore, boundless deposits. Everywhere else it’s just bog ore.’

‘And they have expertise and technology in Mahakam,’ Percival Schuttenbach interposed. ‘Metallurgy and smelting! Enormous furnaces, not some pathetic smelteries. Trip hammers and steam hammers . . .’

‘There you go, Percival, neck that,’ Zoltan said, handing the gnome the now full flask, ‘before you bore us to death with your technology and engineering. Everyone knows about it. But not everyone knows Mahakam exports steel. To the kingdoms, but to Nilfgaard too. And should anyone lay a finger on us, we’ll wreck the workshops and flood the mines. And then you humans will continue fighting, but with oaken staves, flint blades and asses’ jawbones.’

‘You say you have it in for Brouver Hoog and the regime in Mahakam,’ the Witcher observed, ‘but you’ve suddenly started saying “we”.’

‘I certainly have,’ the dwarf confirmed heatedly. ‘There is something like solidarity, isn’t there? I admit that pride also plays its part, because we’re cleverer than those stuck-up elves. You can’t deny it, can you? For a few centuries the elves pretended there weren’t any humans at all. They gazed up at the sky, smelled the flowers, and at the sight of a human averted their vulgarly bedaubed eyes. But when that strategy turned out to be ineffective they suddenly roused themselves and took up arms. They decided to kill and be killed. And we? The dwarves? We adapted. No, we didn’t subordinate ourselves to you, don’t get that into your heads. We subordinated you. Economically.’

‘To tell the truth,’ Regis chipped in, ‘it was easier for you to adapt than it was for the elves. Land and territory is what integrates elves. In your case it’s the clan. Wherever your clan is, that’s your homeland. Even if an exceptionally short-sighted king were to attack Mahakam, you’d flood the mines and head off somewhere else without any regrets. To other, distant mountains. Or perhaps to human cities instead.’

‘And why not? It’s not a bad life in your cities.’

‘Even in the ghettoes?’ Dandelion asked, gasping after a swig of distillate.

‘And what’s wrong with living in a ghetto? I’d prefer to live among my own. What do I need with assimilation?’

‘As long as they let us near the guilds,’ Percival said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

‘They will eventually,’ the dwarf said with conviction. ‘And if they don’t we’ll just bodge our way through, or we’ll found our own guilds; and healthy competition will decide.’

‘So it would be safer in Mahakam than in the cities, then,’ Regis observed. ‘The cities could go up in flames any second. It would be more judicious to see out the war in the mountains.’

‘Anyone who wishes to can do just that,’ Zoltan said, replenishing the flask from the pail. ‘Freedom is dearer to me, and you won’t find that in Mahakam. You have no idea how the old bugger governs. He recently took it upon himself to regulate what he calls “community issues”. For example: whether you can wear braces or not. Whether you should eat carp right away or wait until the jelly sets. Whether playing the ocarina is in keeping with our centuries-old dwarven traditions or is a destructive influence of rotten and decadent human culture. How many years you have to work before submitting an application for a permanent wife. Which hand you should wipe your arse with. How far away from the mines you’re allowed to whistle. And other issues of vital importance. No, boys, I’m not going to return to Mount Carbon. I have no desire to spend my life at the coalface. Forty years underground, assuming firedamp doesn’t blow you up first. But we’ve got other plans now, haven’t we, Percival? We’ve already secured ourselves a future . . .’

‘A future, a future . . .’ the gnome said and emptied the graduated flask. He cleared his nose and looked at the dwarf with a now slightly glazed expression. ‘Don’t count our chickens, Zoltan. Because they might still nab us and then our future’s the gibbet . . . Or Drakenborg.’

‘Shut your trap,’ the dwarf snapped, looking menacingly at him. ‘You’re blabbing!’

‘Scopolamine,’ Regis mumbled softly.

The gnome was rambling. Milva was gloomy. Zoltan, having forgotten that he’d already done so, told everyone about Hoog, the old fart and the Elder of Mahakam. Geralt listened, having forgotten he’d already heard it once. Regis also listened and even added comments, utterly unperturbed by the fact that he was the only sober individual in a now very drunk party. Dandelion strummed away on his lute and sang.

No wonder that comely ladies are all so stuck-up

For the taller the tree, the harder it is to get up.

‘Idiot,’ Milva commented. Dandelion was undeterred.

Simply treat a maiden as you would a tree

Whip out your chopper and one-two-three . . .

‘A cup . . .’ Percival Schuttenbach jabbered. ‘A goblet, I mean . . . Carved from a single piece of milk opal . . . This big. I found it on the summit of Montsalvat. Its rim was set with jasper and the base was of gold. A sheer marvel . . .’

‘Don’t give him any more spirits,’ Zoltan Chivay said.

‘Hold on, hold on,’ Dandelion said, becoming interested, also slurring his words somewhat. ‘What happened to that legendary goblet?’

‘I exchanged it for a mule. I needed a mule, in order to transport a load . . . Corundum and crystalline carbon. I had . . . Err . . . Lots of it . . . Hic . . . A load, I mean, a heavy load, couldn’t have moved it without a mule . . . Why the hell did I need that goblet?’

‘Corundum? Carbon?’

‘Yeah, what you call rubies and diamonds. Very . . . hic . . . handy . . .’

‘So I imagine.’

‘. . . for drill bits and files. For bearings. I had lots of them . . .’

‘Do you hear, Geralt?’ Zoltan said. He waved a hand and although seated, almost fell over. ‘He’s little, so he got pissed quickly. He’s dreaming about a shitload of diamonds. Careful now, Percival, that your dream doesn’t come true! Or at least half. And I don’t mean the half about diamonds!’

‘Dreams, dreams,’ Dandelion mumbled once more. ‘And you, Geralt? Have you dreamed of Ciri again? Because you ought to know, Regis, that Geralt has prophetic dreams! Ciri is the Child of Destiny, and Geralt is bound to her by bonds of fate, which is why he sees her in his dreams. You also ought to know that we’re going to Nilfgaard to take back Ciri from Imperator Emhyr, who abducted her and wants to marry her. But he can whistle for it, the bastard, because we’ll rescue her before he knows it! I’d tell you something else, boys, but it’s a secret. A dreadful, deep, dark secret . . . Not a word, understood? Not one!’

‘I haven’t heard anything,’ Zoltan assured him, looking impudently at the Witcher. ‘I think an earwig crawled into my ear.’

‘There’s a veritable plague of earwigs,’ Regis agreed, pretending to be poking around in his ear.

‘We’re going to Nilfgaard . . .’ Dandelion said, leaning against the dwarf to keep his balance, which turned out to be a bad idea. ‘Which is a secret, just like I told you. It’s a secret mission!’

‘And ingeniously concealed indeed,’ the barber-surgeon nodded, glancing at Geralt, who was now white with rage. ‘Not even the most suspicious individual would ever guess the aim of your journey by analysing the direction you are headed.’

‘Milva, what is it?’

‘Don’t talk to me, you drunken fool.’

‘Hey, she’s crying! Hey, look . . .’

‘Go to hell, I said!’ the archer raised her voice, wiping away the tears. ‘Or I’ll smack you between the eyes, you fucking poetaster . . . Give me the glass, Zoltan . . .’

‘I’ve mislaid it . . .’ the dwarf mumbled. ‘Oh, here it is. Thanks, master barber-surgeon . . . And where the hell is Schuttenbach?’

‘He went outside. Some time ago. Dandelion, I recall you promised you’d tell me the story of the Child of Destiny.’

‘All right, all right, Regis. I’ll just have a swig . . . and I’ll tell you everything . . . About Ciri, and about the Witcher . . . In detail . . .’

‘Confusion to the whores’ sons!’

‘Be quiet, dwarf! You’ll wake up the kids outside the cottage!’

‘Calm down, archeress. There you go, drink that.’

‘Ah, well.’ Dandelion looked around the shack with a slightly vacant stare. ‘If the Countess de Lettenhove could see me like this . . .’

‘Who?’

‘Never mind. Bloody hell, this moonshine really does loosen the tongue . . . Geralt, shall I pour you another one? Geralt!’

‘Leave him be,’ Milva said. ‘Let him sleep.’

The barn on the edge of the village was pounding with music. The rhythm seized them before they arrived, filling them with excitement. They began to sway involuntarily in their saddles as their horses walked up, firstly to the rhythm of the dull boom of the drum and double bass, and then, when they were closer, to the beat of the melody being played by the fiddles and the pipes. The night was cold, the moon shone full and in its glow the barn, illuminated by the light shining through gaps in the planks, looked like a fairy-tale enchanted castle.

A clamour and a bright glow, broken up by the shadows of cavorting couples, flooded out from the doorway of the barn.

When they entered the music fell silent, dissolving in a long-drawn-out discord. The dancing, sweating peasants parted, leaving the dirt floor, and grouped together by the walls and posts. Ciri, walking alongside Mistle, saw the eyes of the young women, wide with fear; noticed the hard, determined glances of the men and lads, ready for anything. She heard the growing whispering and growling, louder than the cautious skirling of the bagpipes, than the fading insect-like droning of violins and fiddles. Whispering. The Rats . . . The Rats . . . Robbers . . .

‘Fear not,’ Giselher said loudly, chucking a plump and chinking purse towards the dumbstruck musicians. ‘We’ve come here to make merry. The village fair is open to anyone, isn’t it?’

‘Where’s the beer?’ Kayleigh asked, shaking a pouch. ‘And where’s the hospitality?’

‘And why is it so quiet here?’ Iskra asked, looking around. ‘We came down from the mountains for a dance. Not for a wake!’

One of the peasants finally broke the impasse, and walked over to Giselher with a clay mug overflowing with froth. Giselher took it with a bow, drank from it, and courteously and decorously thanked him. Several peasants shouted enthusiastically. But the others remained silent.

‘Hey, fellows,’ Iskra called again. ‘I see that you need livening up!’

A heavy oak table, laden with clay mugs, stood against one wall of the barn. The she-elf clapped her hands and nimbly jumped onto it. The peasants quickly gathered up the mugs. With a vigorous kick Iskra cleared the ones they were too slow to remove.

‘Very well, musicians,’ she said, putting her fists on her hips and shaking her hair. ‘Show me what you can do. Music!’

She quickly tapped out a rhythm with her heels. The drum repeated the rhythm and the double bass and oboe followed. The pipes and fiddles took up the tune, quickly embellishing it, challenging Iskra to adjust her steps and tempo. The she-elf, gaudily dressed and as light as a butterfly, adapted to it with ease and began moving rhythmically. The peasants began to clap.

‘Falka!’ Iskra called, narrowing her eyes, which were intensified by heavy make-up. ‘You’re swift with a sword! And in the dance? Can you keep step with me?’

Ciri freed herself from Mistle’s arm, untied the scarf from around her neck and took off her beret and jacket. With a single bound she was on the table beside the she-elf. The peasants cheered enthusiastically, the drum and double bass boomed and the bagpipes wailed plaintively.

‘Play, musicians!’ Iskra yelled. ‘With verve! And passion!’

With her hands on her hips and an upturned head, the she-elf tapped her feet, cut a caper, and beat out a quick, rhythmic staccato with her heels. Ciri, bewitched by the rhythm, copied the steps. The she-elf laughed, hopped and changed the tempo. Ciri shook her hair from her forehead with a sudden jerk of her head and copied Iskra’s movements perfectly. The two girls stepped in unison, each the mirror image of the other. The peasants yelled and applauded. The fiddles and violins sang a piercing song, tearing the measured, solemn rumbling of the double bass and keening of the bagpipes to shreds.

They danced, both as straight as a poker, arms akimbo, touching each other’s elbows. The iron on their heels beat out the rhythm, the table shook and trembled, and dust whirled in the light of tallow candles and torches.

‘Faster!’ Iskra urged on the musicians. ‘Look lively!’

It was no longer music, it was a frenzy.

‘Dance, Falka! Abandon yourself to it!’

Heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, step forward and jump, shoulders swinging, fists on hips, heel, heel. The table shakes, the light shimmers, the crowd sways, everything sways, the entire barn is dancing, dancing, dancing . . . The crowd yells, Giselher yells, Asse yells, Mistle laughs, claps, everyone claps and stamps, the barn shudders, the earth shudders, the world is shaken to its foundations. The world? What world? There’s no world now, there’s nothing, only the dance, the dance . . . Heel, toe, heel . . . Iskra’s elbow . . . Fever pitch, fever pitch . . . Only the wild playing of the fiddles, pipes, double bass and bagpipes, the drummer raises and lowers his drumsticks but he is now superfluous, they beat the rhythm out by themselves. Iskra and Ciri, their heels, until the table booms and rocks, the entire barn booms and rocks . . . The rhythm, the rhythm is them, the music is them, they are the music. Iskra’s dark hair flops on her forehead and shoulders. The fiddles’ strings play a passionate tune, reaching fever pitch. Blood pounds in their temples.

Abandon. Oblivion.

I am Falka. I have always been Falka! Dance, Iskra! Clap, Mistle! The violins and pipes finish the melody on a strident, high chord, and Iskra and Ciri mark the end of the dance with a simultaneous bang of their heels, their elbows still touching. They are both panting, quivering, het up, they suddenly cling to each other, they hug, they share their sweat, their heat and their happiness with each other. The barn explodes with one great bellow and the clapping of dozens of hands.

‘Falka, you she-devil,’ Iskra pants. ‘When we grow tired of robbery, we’ll go out into the world and earn a living as dancers . . .’

Ciri also pants. She is unable to say a single word. She just laughs spasmodically. A tear runs down her cheek.

A sudden shout in the crowd, a disturbance. Kayleigh shoves a burly peasant hard, the peasant shoves Kayleigh back, the two of them are caught in the press, raised fists fly. Reef jumps in and a dagger flashes in the light of a torch.

‘No! Stop!’ Iskra cries piercingly. ‘No brawling! This is a night of dance!’ She takes Ciri by the hand. They drop from the table to the floor. ‘Musicians, play! Whoever wants to show us their paces, join us! Well, who’s feeling brave?’

The double bass booms monotonously, the long-drawn-out wailing of the bagpipes cuts in, to be joined by the high, piercing song of the fiddles. The peasants laugh, nudge one another, overcoming their reserve. One – broad-shouldered and fair-haired – seizes Iskra. A second – younger and slimmer – bows hesitantly in front of Ciri. Ciri haughtily tosses her head, but soon smiles in assent. The lad closes his hands around her waist and Ciri places her hands on his shoulders. The touch shoots through her like a flaming arrowhead, filling her with throbbing desire.

‘Look lively, musicians!’

The barn shudders from the noise, vibrates with the rhythm and the melody.

Ciri dances.

A vampire, or upir, is a dead person brought to life by Chaos. Having lost its first life, a v. enjoys its second life during the night hours. It leaves its grave by the light of the moon and only under its light may it act, assailing sleeping maidens or young swains, who it wakes not, but whose blood it sucks.

Physiologus

The peasants consumed garlic in great abundance and for greater certainty hung strings of garlic around their necks. Some, womenfolk in particular, stopped up their orifices with whole bulbs of garlic. The whole hamlet stank of garlic horrendus, so the peasants believed they were safe and that the vampire was incapable of doing them harm. Mighty was their astonishment, however, when the vampire who flew to their hamlet at midnight was not in the least afraid and simply began to laugh, gnashing his teeth in delight and jeering at them.

‘It is good,’ he said, ‘that you have spiced yourselves, for I shall soon devour you and seasoned meat is more to my taste. Apply also salt and pepper to yourselves, and forget not the mustard.’

Sylvester Bugiardo, Liber Tenebrarum, or The Book of Fell but Authentic Cases never Explained by Science

The moon shines bright,

The vampire alights

Swish, swish goes his cloak . . .

Maiden, are you not afeared?

Folk song

CHAPTER FOUR

As usual, the birds filled the grey and foggy dawn with an explosion of chirruping in anticipation of the sunrise. As usual, the first members of the party ready to set off were the taciturn women from Kernow and their children. Emiel Regis turned out to be equally swift and energetic, joining the others with a travelling staff and a leather bag over one shoulder. The rest of the company, who had drained the still during the night, were not quite so lively. The cool of the morning roused and revived the revellers, but failed to thwart the effects of the mandrake moonshine. Geralt awoke in a corner of the shack with his head in Milva’s lap. Zoltan and Dandelion lay in each other’s arms on a pile of mandrake roots, snoring so powerfully that they were making the bundles of herbs hanging on the walls flutter. Percival was discovered outside, curled up in a ball under a hagberry bush, covered by the straw mat Regis normally used to wipe his boots on. The five of them betrayed distinct – but varied – symptoms of fatigue and they all went to soothe their raging thirst at the spring.

However, by the time the mists had dissipated and the red ball of the sun was blazing in the tops of the pines and larches of Fen Carn the company were already on their way, marching briskly among the barrows. Regis took the lead, followed by Percival and Dandelion, who kept each other’s spirits up by singing a two-part ballad about three sisters and an iron wolf. After them trudged Zoltan Chivay, leading the chestnut colt by the reins. The dwarf had found a knobbly ashen staff in the barber-surgeon’s yard, which he was now using to whack all the menhirs they passed and wish the long-deceased elves eternal rest, while Field Marshal Windbag – who was sitting on his shoulder – puffed up his feathers and occasionally squawked; reluctantly, indistinctly and somewhat half-heartedly.

Milva turned out to be the least tolerant to the mandrake distillate. She marched with visible difficulty, was sweaty, pale and acted like a bear with a sore head, not even responding to the twittering of the little girl with the plaits who was riding in the black’s saddle. Geralt thus made no attempt to strike up a conversation, not being in the best of shape himself.

The fog and the adventures of the iron wolf sung in loud – though somewhat morning-after – voices meant that they happened upon a small group of peasants suddenly and without warning. The peasants, however, had heard them much earlier and were waiting, standing motionless among the monoliths sunk into the ground, their grey homespun coats camouflaging them perfectly. Zoltan Chivay barely avoided whacking one of them with his staff, having mistaken him for a tombstone.

‘Yo-ho-ho!!’ he shouted. ‘Forgive me, good people! I didn’t notice you. A good day to you! Greetings!’

The dozen peasants murmured an answer to his greeting in an incoherent chorus, grimly scrutinising the company. The peasants were clutching shovels, picks and six-foot pointed stakes.

‘Greetings,’ the dwarf repeated. ‘I presume you’re from the camp by the Chotla. Am I right?’

Rather than answering, one of the peasants pointed out Milva’s horse to the rest of them.

‘That black one,’ he said. ‘See it?’

‘The black,’ affirmed another and licked his lips. ‘Oh, yes, the black. Should do the job.’

‘Eh?’ Zoltan said, noticing their expressions and gestures. ‘Are you referring to our black steed? What about it? It’s a horse, not a giraffe, there’s nothing to be astonished about. What are you up to, my good fellows, in this burial ground?’

‘And you?’ the peasant asked, looking askance at the company. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘We’ve bought this land,’ the dwarf said, looking him straight in the eye and hitting a menhir with his staff, ‘and we’re pacing it out, to check we haven’t been swindled on the acreage.’

‘And we’re hunting a vampire!’

‘What?’

‘A vampire,’ the oldest peasant repeated emphatically, scratching his forehead beneath a felt cap stiff with grime. ‘He must have his lair somewhere here, curse him. We have sharpened these here aspen stakes, and now we shall find the scoundrel and run him through, so he will never rise again!’

‘And we’ve holy water in a pot the priest gave us!’ another peasant called cheerfully, pointing to the vessel. ‘We’ll sprinkle it on the bloodsucker, make things hot for him!’

‘Ha, ha,’ Zoltan Chivay said, with a smile. ‘I see it’s a proper hunt; full scale and well organised. A vampire, you say? Well, you’re in luck, good fellows. We have a vampire specialist in our company, a wi . . .’

He broke off and swore under his breath, because the Witcher had kicked him hard in the ankle.

‘Who saw the vampire?’ Geralt asked, hushing his companions with a telling glance. ‘Why do you think you should be looking for him here?’

The peasants whispered among themselves.

‘No one saw him,’ the peasant in the felt cap finally admitted. ‘Or heard him. How can you see him when he flies at night, in the dark? How can you hear him when he flies on bat’s wings, without a sound?’

‘We didn’t see the vampire,’ added another, ‘but there are signs of his ghastly practices. Ever since the moon’s been full, the fiend’s murdered one of our number every night. He’s already torn two people apart, ripped them to shreds. A woman and a stripling. Horrors and terrors! The vampire tore the poor wretches to ribbons and drank all their blood! What are we to do? Stand idly by for a third night?’

‘But who says the culprit is a vampire, and not some other predator? Whose idea was it to root around in this burial ground?’

‘The venerable priest told us to. He’s a learned and pious man, and thanks be to the Gods he arrived in our camp. He said at once that a vampire was plaguing us. As punishment, for we’ve neglected our prayers and church donations. Now he’s reciting prayers and carrying out all kinds of exorcismums in the camp, and ordered us to search for the tomb where the undead fiend sleeps during the day.’

‘What, here?’

‘And where would a vampire’s grave be, if not in a burial ground? And anyway it’s an elven burial ground and every toddler knows that elves are a rotten, godless race, and every second elf is condemned to damnation after death! Elves are to blame for everything!’

‘Elves and barber-surgeons,’ said Zoltan, nodding his head seriously. ‘That’s true. Every child knows that. That camp you were talking about, is it far from here?’

‘Why, no . . .’

‘Don’t tell them too much, Father,’ said an unshaven peasant with a shaggy fringe, the one who had previously been unfriendly. ‘The devil only knows who they are; they’re a queer-looking band. Come on, let’s get to work. Let them give us the horse and they can go on their way.’

‘Right you are,’ the older peasant said. ‘Let’s not dilly-dally, time’s getting on. Hand over the horse. That black one. We need it to search for the vampire. Get that kid off the saddle, lassie.’

Milva, who had been staring at the sky with a blank expression all along, looked at the peasant and her features hardened dangerously.

‘Talking to me, yokel?’

‘What do you think? Give us the black, we need it.’

Milva wiped her sweaty neck and gritted her teeth, and the expression in her tired eyes became truly ferocious.

‘What’s this all about, good people?’ the Witcher asked, smiling and trying to defuse the tense situation. ‘Why do you need this horse? The one you are so politely requesting?’

‘How else are we going to find the vampire’s grave? Everybody knows you have to ride around a cemetery on a black colt, as it will stop by the vampire’s grave and will not be budged from it. Then you have to dig up the vampire and stab him with an aspen stake. Don’t argue with us, for we’re desperate. It’s a matter of life and death here. We have to have that black horse!’

‘Will another colour do?’ Dandelion asked placatingly, holding out Pegasus’s reins to the peasant.

‘Not a chance.’

‘Pity for you, then,’ Milva said through clenched teeth. ‘Because I’m not giving you my horse.’

‘What do you mean you won’t? Didn’t you hear what we said, wench? We have to have it!’

‘You might. But I don’t have to give it to you.’

‘We can solve this amicably,’ Regis said in a kind voice. ‘If I understand rightly, Miss Milva is reluctant to hand over her horse to a stranger . . .’

‘You could say that,’ the archer said, and spat heartily. ‘I cringe at the very thought.’

‘Both the wolves have eaten much and the sheep have not been touched,’ the barber-surgeon recited calmly. ‘Let Miss Milva mount the horse herself and carry out the necessary circuit of the necropolis.’

‘I’m not going to ride around the graveyard like an idiot!’

‘And no one’s asking you to, wench!’ said the one with the shaggy fringe. ‘This requires a bold and strong blade; a maid’s place is in the kitchen, bustling around the stove. A wench may come in handy later, true enough, because a virgin’s tears are very useful against a vampire; for if you sprinkle a vampire with them he burns up like a firebrand. But the tears must be shed by a pure and untouched wench. And you don’t quite look the part, love. So you’re not much use for anything.’

Milva took a quick step forward and her right fist shot out as fast as lightning. There was a crack and the peasant’s head lurched backwards, which meant his bristly throat and chin created an excellent target. The girl took another step and struck straight ahead with the heel of her open hand, increasing the force of the blow with a twist of her hips and shoulders. The peasant staggered backwards, tripped over his own feet and keeled over, banging the back of his head with an audible thud against the menhir.

‘Now you see what use I am,’ the archer said, in a voice trembling with fury, rubbing her fist. ‘Who’s the blade now, and whose place is in the kitchen? Truly, there’s nothing like a fist-fight, which clears everything up. The bold and strong one is still on his feet, and the pussy and the milksop is lying on the ground. Am I right, yokels?’

The peasants didn’t hurry to answer, but looked at Milva with their mouths wide open. The one in the felt cap knelt down by the one on the ground and slapped him gently on his cheek. In vain.

‘Killed,’ he wailed, raising his head. ‘Dead. How could you, wench? How could you just up and kill a man?’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ Milva whispered, lowering her hands and blenching frightfully. And then she did something no one expected.

She turned away, staggered, rested her forehead against the menhir and vomited violently.

‘What’s up with him?’

‘Slight concussion,’ the barber-surgeon replied, standing up and fastening his bag. ‘His skull’s in one piece. He’s already regained consciousness. He remembers what happened and he knows his own name. That’s a good sign. Miss Milva’s intense reaction was, fortunately, groundless.’

The Witcher looked at the archer, who was sitting at the foot of the menhir with her eyes staring into the distance.

‘She isn’t a delicate maiden, prone to that sort of emotion,’ he muttered. ‘I’d be more inclined to blame yesterday’s hooch.’

‘She’s puked before,’ Zoltan broke in softly. ‘The day before yesterday, at the crack of dawn. While everyone was still asleep. I think it’s because of those mushrooms we scoffed in Turlough. My guts gave me grief for two days.’

Regis looked at the Witcher from under his greying eyebrows with a strange expression on his face, smiled mysteriously, and wrapped himself in his black, woollen cloak. Geralt went over to Milva and cleared his throat.

‘How do you feel?’

‘Rough. How’s the yokel?’

‘He’ll be fine. He’s come round. But Regis won’t let him get up. The peasants are making a cradle and we’ll carry him to the camp between two horses.’

‘Take mine.’

‘We’re using Pegasus and the chestnut. They’re more docile. Get up, it’s time we hit the road.’

The enlarged company now resembled a funeral procession and crawled along at a funereal pace.

‘What do you think about this vampire of theirs?’ Zoltan Chivay asked the Witcher. ‘Do you believe their story?’

‘I didn’t see the victims. I can’t comment.’

‘It’s a pack of lies,’ Dandelion declared with conviction. ‘The peasants said the dead had been torn apart. Vampires don’t do that. They bite into an artery and drink the blood, leaving two clear fang marks. The victim quite often survives. I’ve read about it in a respectable book. There were also illustrations showing the marks of vampire bites on virgins’ swanlike necks. Can you confirm that, Geralt?’

‘What do you want me to confirm? I didn’t see those illustrations. I’m not very clued up about virgins, either.’

‘Don’t scoff. You can’t be a stranger to vampire bite marks. Ever come across a case of a vampire ripping its victim to shreds?’

‘No. That never happens.’

‘In the case of higher vampires – never, I agree,’ Emiel Regis said softly. ‘From what I know alpors, katakans, moolas, bruxas and nosferats don’t mutilate their victims. On the other hand, fleders and ekimmas are pretty brutal with their victims’ remains.’

‘Bravo,’ Geralt said, looking at him in genuine admiration. ‘You didn’t leave out a single class of vampire. Nor did you mention any of the imaginary ones, which only exist in fairy-tales. Impressive knowledge indeed. You must also know that ekimmas and fleders are never encountered in this climate.’

‘What happened, then?’ Zoltan snorted, swinging his ashen staff. ‘Who mutilated that woman and that lad in this climate, then? Or did they mutilate themselves in a fit of desperation?’

‘The list of creatures that may have been responsible is pretty long. Beginning with a pack of feral dogs, quite a common affliction during times of war. You can’t imagine what dogs like that are capable of. Half the supposed victims of chaotic monsters can actually be chalked up to packs of wild farmyard curs.’

‘Does that mean you rule out monsters?’

‘Not in the least. It may have been a striga, a harpy, a graveir, a ghoul . . .’

‘Not a vampire?’

‘Unlikely.’

‘The peasants mentioned some priest or other,’ Percival Schuttenbach recalled. ‘Do priests know much about vampires?’

‘Some are expert on a range of subjects, to quite an advanced level, and their opinions are worth listening to, as a rule. Sadly, that doesn’t apply to all of them.’

‘Particularly the kind that roam around forests with fugitives,’ the dwarf snorted. ‘He’s most probably some kind of hermit, an illiterate anchorite from the wilderness. He dispatched a peasant expedition to your burial ground, Regis. Have you never noticed a single vampire while you were gathering mandrake there? Not even a tiny one? A teeny-weeny one?’

‘No, never,’ the barber-surgeon gave a faint smile. ‘But no wonder. A vampire, as you’ve just heard, flies in the dark on bat’s wings, without making a sound. He’s easy to miss.’

‘And easy to see one where it isn’t and has never been,’ Geralt confirmed. ‘When I was younger, I wasted my time and energy several times chasing after delusions and superstitions which had been seen and colourfully described by an entire village, including the headman. Once I spent two months living in a castle which was supposedly haunted by a vampire. There was no vampire. But they fed me well.’

‘No doubt, however, you have experienced cases when the rumours about vampires were well founded,’ Regis said, not looking at the Witcher. ‘In those cases, I presume, your time and energy were not wasted. Did the monsters die by your sword?’

‘It has been known.’

‘In any event,’ Zoltan said, ‘the peasants are in luck. I think we’ll wait in that camp for Munro Bruys and the lads, and a rest won’t do you any harm either. Whatever killed the woman and the boy, I don’t fancy its chances when the Witcher turns up in the camp.’

‘While we’re at it,’ Geralt said, pursing his lips, ‘I’d rather you didn’t bruit who I am and what my name is. That particularly applies to you, Dandelion.’

‘As you wish,’ the dwarf nodded. ‘You must have your reasons. Lucky you’ve forewarned us, because I can see the camp.’

‘And I can hear it,’ Milva added, breaking a lengthy silence. ‘They’re making a fearful racket.’

‘The sound we can hear,’ Dandelion said, playing the wiseacre, ‘is the everyday symphony of a refugee camp. As usual, scored for several hundred human throats, as well as no fewer bovine, ovine and anserine ones. The solo parts are being performed by women squabbling, children bawling, a cock crowing and, if I’m not mistaken, a donkey, who someone’s poked in the backside with a thistle. The title of the symphony is: A human community fights for survival.’

‘The symphony, as usual, can be heard and smelled,’ Regis observed, quivering the nostrils of his noble nose. ‘This community – as it fights for survival – gives off the delicious fragrance of boiled cabbage, a vegetable without which survival would apparently be impossible. The characteristic olfactory accent is also being created by the effects of bodily functions, carried out in random places, most often on the outskirts of the camp. I’ve never understood why the fight for survival manifests itself in a reluctance to dig latrines.’

‘To hell with your smart-arsed chatter,’ said Milva in annoyance. ‘Three dozen fancy words when three will do: it stinks of shit and cabbage!’

‘Shit and cabbage always go hand in hand,’ Percival Schuttenbach said pithily. ‘One drives the other. It’s perpetuum mobile.’

No sooner had they set foot in the noisy and foul-smelling camp, among the campfires, wagons and shelters, than they became the centre of interest of all the fugitives gathered there, of which there must have been at least two hundred, possibly even more. The interest bore fruit quickly and remarkably; someone suddenly screamed, someone else suddenly bellowed, someone suddenly flung their arms around someone else’s neck, someone began to laugh wildly, and someone else to sob wildly. There was a huge commotion. At first it was difficult to work out what was happening among the cacophony of men, women and children screaming, but finally all was explained. Two of the women from Kernow who had been travelling with them had found, respectively, a husband and a brother, whom they had believed to be dead or to missing without trace in the turmoil of war. The delight and tears seemed to be never-ending.

‘Something so banal and melodramatic,’ Dandelion said with conviction, indicating the moving scene, ‘could only happen in real life. If I tried to end one of my ballads like that, I would be ribbed mercilessly.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Zoltan confirmed. ‘Nonetheless, banalities like these gladden the heart, don’t they? One feels more cheerful when fortune gives one something, rather than only taking. Well, we’ve got rid of the womenfolk. We guided them and guided them and finally got them here. Come on, no point hanging around.’

For a moment, the Witcher felt like suggesting they delay their departure. He was counting on one of the women deciding it would be fitting to express a few words of gratitude and thanks to the dwarf. He abandoned that idea, though, when he saw no sign of it happening. The women, overjoyed at being reunited with their loved ones, had completely forgotten about Geralt and his company.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Zoltan said, looking at him keenly. ‘To be covered in blossom out of gratitude? Or anointed with honey? Let’s clear off; there’s nothing for us here.’

‘You’re absolutely right.’

They didn’t get far. A squeaky little voice stopped them in their tracks. The freckle-faced little girl with the plaits had caught them up. She was out of breath and had a large posy of wild flowers in her hand.

‘Thank you,’ she squeaked, ‘for looking after me and my little brother and my mummy. For being kind to us and all that. I picked these flowers for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Zoltan Chivay said.

‘You’re kind,’ the little girl added, sticking the end of her plait into her mouth. ‘I don’t believe what auntie said at all. You aren’t filthy little burrowing midgets. And you aren’t a grey-haired misfit from hell. And you, Uncle Dandelion, aren’t a gobbling turkey. Auntie wasn’t telling the truth. And you, Auntie Maria, aren’t a slapper with a bow and arrow. You’re Auntie Maria and I like you. I picked the prettiest flowers for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Milva said in a slightly altered voice.

‘We all thank you,’ Zoltan echoed. ‘Hey, Percival, you filthy little burrowing midget, give the child some token as a farewell present. A souvenir. Have you got a spare stone in one of your pockets?’

‘I have. Take this, little miss. It’s beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate, popularly known as . . .’

‘An emerald,’ the dwarf finished off the sentence. ‘Don’t confuse the child, she won’t remember anyway.’

‘Oh, how pretty! And how green! Thank you very, very much!’

‘Enjoy it and may it bring you fortune.’

‘And don’t lose it,’ Dandelion muttered. ‘Because that little pebble’s worth as much as a small farm.’

‘Get away,’ Zoltan said, adorning his cap with the cornflowers the girl had given him. ‘It’s only a stone, nothing special. Take care of yourself, little miss. Let’s go and sit down by the ford to wait for Bruys, Yazon Varda and the others. They ought to stroll by any time now. Strange they haven’t shown up yet. I forgot to get the bloody cards off ’em. I bet they’re sitting somewhere and playing Barrel!’

‘The horses need feeding,’ Milva said. ‘And watering. Let’s go towards the river.’

‘Perhaps we’ll happen upon some home-cooked fare,’ Dandelion added. ‘Percival, take a gander around the camp and put your hooter to use. We’ll eat where the food is tastiest.’

To their slight amazement, the way down to the river was fenced off and under guard. The peasants guarding the watering place were demanding a farthing per horse. Milva and Zoltan were incandescent, but Geralt, hoping to avoid a scene and the publicity it would lead to, calmed them down, while Dandelion contributed a few coins he dug from the depths of his pocket.

Soon after Percival Schuttenbach showed up, dour and cross.

‘Found any grub?’

The gnome cleared his nose and wiped his fingers on the fleece of a passing sheep.

‘Yes. But I don’t know if we can afford it. They expect to be paid for everything here and the prices will take your breath away. Flour and barley groats are a crown a pound. A plate of thin soup’s two nobles. A pot of weatherfish caught in the Chotla costs the same as a pound of smoked salmon in Dillingen . . .’

‘And fodder for the horses?’

‘A measure of oats costs a thaler.’

‘How much?’ the dwarf yelled. ‘How much?’

‘How much, how much,’ Milva snapped. ‘Ask the horses how much. They’ll peg it if we make them nibble grass! And there isn’t any here anyway.’

There was no way of debating self-evident facts. Attempts at hard bargaining with the peasant selling oats didn’t achieve anything either. He relieved Dandelion of the last of his coins, and was also treated to a few insults from Zoltan, which didn’t bother him in the slightest. But the horses enthusiastically stuck their muzzles into the nosebags.

‘Daylight bloody robbery!’ the dwarf yelled, unloading his anger by aiming blows of his staff at the wheels of passing wagons. ‘Incredible that they let us breathe here for nothing, and don’t charge a ha’penny for each inhalation! Or a farthing for a dump!’

‘Higher physiological needs,’ Regis declared in utter seriousness, ‘have a price. Do you see the tarpaulin stretched between those sticks? And the peasant standing alongside? He’s peddling the charms of his own daughter. Price open to negotiation. A moment ago I saw him accepting a chicken.’

‘I predict a bad end for your race, humans,’ Zoltan Chivay said grimly. ‘Every sentient creature on this earth, when it falls into want, poverty and misfortune, usually cleaves to his own. Because it’s easier to survive the bad times in a group, helping one another. But you, humans, you just wait for a chance to make money from other people’s mishaps. When there’s hunger you don’t share out your food, you just devour the weakest ones. This practice works among wolves, since it lets the healthiest and strongest individuals survive. But among sentient races selection of that kind usually allows the biggest bastards to survive and dominate the rest. Come to your own conclusions and make your own predictions.’

Dandelion forcefully protested, giving examples of even greater scams and self-seeking among the dwarves, but Zoltan and Percival drowned him out, simultaneously and loudly imitating with their lips the long-drawn-out sounds which accompany farting, by both races considered an expression of disdain for one’s adversary’s arguments in a dispute.

The sudden appearance of a small group of peasants led by their friend the vampire hunter, the old chap in the felt cap, brought an end to the quarrel.

‘It’s about Cloggy,’ one of the peasants said.

‘We aren’t buying anything,’ the dwarf and the gnome snapped in unison.

‘The one whose head you split open,’ another peasant quickly explained. ‘We were planning to get him married off.’

‘We’ve got nothing against that,’ Zoltan said angrily. ‘We wish him and his new bride all the best. Good health, happiness and prosperity.’

‘And lots of little Cloggies,’ Dandelion added.

‘Just a moment,’ the peasant said. ‘You may laugh, but how are we to get him hitched? For ever since you whacked him in the head he’s been totally dazed, and can’t tell day from night.’

‘It isn’t that bad,’ Milva grunted, eyes fixed on the ground. ‘He seems to be doing better. That is, much better than he was early this morning.’

‘I’ve got no idea how Cloggy was early this morning,’ the peasant retorted. ‘But I just saw him standing in front of an upright thill saying what a beauty she was. But never mind. I’ll say it briefly: pay up the blood money.’

‘What?’

‘When a knight kills a peasant he must pay blood money. So says the law.’

‘I’m not a knight!’ Milva yelled.

‘That’s one thing,’ Dandelion said in her defence. ‘And for another, it was an accident. And for a third, Cloggy’s alive, so blood money’s out of the question. The most you can expect is compensation, namely redress. But for a fourth, we’re penniless.’

‘So hand over your horses.’

‘Hey,’ Milva said, her eyes narrowing malevolently. ‘You must be out of your mind, yokel. Mind you don’t go too far.’

‘Motherrfuccckkerr!’ Field Marshal Windbag squawked.

‘Ah, the bird’s hit the nail on the head,’ Zoltan Chivay drawled, tapping his axe, which was stuck into his belt. ‘You ought to know, tillers of the soil, that I also don’t have the best opinion about the mothers of individuals who think of nothing but profit, even if they plan to make money out of their mate’s cracked skull. Be off with you, people. If you go away forthwith, I promise I won’t come after you.’

‘If you don’t want to pay, let the authorities arbitrate.’

The dwarf ground his teeth and was just reaching for his battle-axe when Geralt seized him by the elbow.

‘Calm down. How do you want to solve this problem? By killing them all?’

‘Why kill them right away? It’s enough to cripple them good and proper.’

‘That’s enough, darn it,’ the Witcher hissed, and then turned to the peasant. ‘These authorities you were talking about; who are they?’

‘Our camp elder, Hector Laabs, the headman from Breza, one of the villages that was burnt down.’

‘Lead us to him, then. We’ll come to some agreement.’

‘He’s busy at present,’ the peasant announced. ‘He’s sitting in judgement on a witch. There, do you see that crowd by the maple? They’ve caught a hag who was in league with a vampire.’

‘Here we go again,’ Dandelion snorted, spreading his arms. ‘Did you hear that? When they aren’t digging up cemeteries they’re hunting witches, supposedly vampires’ accomplices. Folks, perhaps instead of ploughing, sowing and harvesting, you’ll become witchers.’

‘Joke as much as you like,’ the peasant said, ‘and laugh all you want, but there’s a priest here and priests are more trustworthy than witchers. The priest said that vampires always carry out their practices in league with witches. The witch summons the vampire and points out the victim to him, then blinds everyone’s eyes so they won’t see anything.’

‘And it turned out it was indeed like that,’ a second one added. ‘We were harbouring a treacherous hag among us. But the priest saw through her witchcraft and now we’re going to burn her.’

‘What else,’ the Witcher muttered. ‘Very well, we’ll take a look at your court. And we’ll talk to the elder about the accident that befell the unfortunate Cloggy. We’ll think about suitable compensation. Right, Percival? I’ll wager that we’ll find another pebble in one of your pockets. Lead on, good people.’

The procession set off towards a spreading maple. The ground beneath it was indeed teeming with excited people. The Witcher, having purposely slowed his pace, tried to strike up a conversation with one of the peasants, who looked reasonably normal.

‘Who’s this witch they’ve captured? Was she really engaged in black magic?’

‘Well, sir,’ the peasant mumbled, ‘I couldn’t say. That wench is a waif, a stranger. To my mind, she’s not quite right in the head. Grown-up, but still only plays with the nippers, as if she was a child herself; ask her something and she won’t say a word. Everyone says she consorted with a vampire and hexed people.’

‘Everyone except the suspect,’ said Regis, who until then had been walking quietly beside the Witcher. ‘Because she, if asked, wouldn’t utter a word. I’m guessing.’

There was not enough time for a more detailed investigation, because they were already under the maple. They made their way through the crowd, not without the help of Zoltan and his ashen staff.

A girl of about sixteen had been tied to the rack of a wagon laden with sacks, her arms spread wide apart. The girl’s toes barely reached the ground. Just as they arrived, her shift and blouse were torn away to reveal thin shoulders. The captive reacted by rolling her eyes and loosing a foolish combination of giggling and sobbing.

A fire had been started directly alongside the wagon. Someone had fanned the coals well and someone else had used pincers to place some horseshoes in the glowing embers. The excited cries of the priest rose above the crowd.

‘Vile witch! Godless female! Confess the truth! Ha, just look at her, people, she’s overindulged in some devilish herbs! Just look at her! Witchery is written all over her countenance!’

The priest who spoke those words was thin and his face was as dark and dry as a smoked fish. His black robes hung loosely on his skinny frame. A sacred symbol glistened on his neck. Geralt didn’t recognise which deity it represented, and anyway he wasn’t an expert. The pantheon, which in recent times had been growing quickly, did not interest him much. The priest must, however, have belonged to one of the newer religious sects. The older ones were concerned with more useful matters than catching girls, tying them to wagons and inciting superstitious mobs against them.

‘Since the dawn of time woman has been the root of all evil! The tool of Chaos, the accomplice in a conspiracy against the world and the human race! Woman is governed only by carnal lust! That is why she so willingly serves demons, in order to slake her insatiable urges and her unnatural wantonness!’

‘We’ll soon learn more about women,’ Regis muttered. ‘This a phobia, in a pure clinical form. The devout man must often dream about a vagina dentata.’

‘I’ll wager it’s worse,’ Dandelion murmured. ‘I’m absolutely certain that even when he’s awake he dreams about a regular toothless one. And the semen has affected his brain.’

‘But it’s this feeble-minded girl who will have to pay for it.’

‘Unless we can find someone,’ Milva growled, ‘who’ll stop that black-robed ass.’

Dandelion looked meaningfully and hopefully at the Witcher, but Geralt avoided his gaze.

‘And of what, if not female witchery, are our current calamities and misfortunes the result?’ the priest continued to yell. ‘For no one else but the sorceresses betrayed the kings on the Isle of Thanedd and concocted the assassination of the King of Redania! Indeed, no one else but the elven witch of Dol Blathanna is sending Squirrels after us! Now you see to what evil the familiarity with sorceresses has led us! And the tolerance of their vile practices! Turning a blind eye to their wilfulness, their impudent hubris, their wealth! And who is to blame? The kings! The vainglorious kings renounced the Gods, drove away the priests, took away their offices and seats on councils, and showered the loathsome sorceresses with honours and gold! And now we all suffer the consequences!’

‘Aha! There lies the rub,’ Dandelion said. ‘You were wrong, Regis. It was all about politics and not vaginas.’

‘And about money,’ Zoltan Chivay added.

‘Verily,’ the priest roared, ‘I say unto you, before we join battle with Nilfgaard, let us first purge our own house of these abominations! Scorch this abscess with a white-hot iron! Subject it to a baptism of fire! We shall not allow any woman who dabbles in witchcraft to live!’

‘We shall not allow it! Burn her at the stake!’ yelled the crowd.

The girl who was bound to the wagon laughed hysterically and rolled her eyes.

‘All right, all right, easy does it,’ said a lugubrious peasant of immense size who until that moment had been silent, and around whom was gathered a small group of similarly silent men and several grim-faced women. ‘We’ve only heard squawking so far. Everyone’s capable of squawking, even crows. We expect more from you, venerable father, than we would from a crow.’

‘Do you refute my words, Elder Laabs? The words of a priest?’

‘I’m not refitting anything,’ the giant replied, then he spat on the ground and hitched up a pair of coarse britches. ‘That wench is an orphan and a stray, no family of mine. If it turns out that she is in league with a vampire, take her and kill her. But while I’m the elder of this camp, only the guilty will be punished here. If you want to punish her, first establish her guilt.’

‘That I shall!’ the priest screamed, giving a sign to his stooges, the same ones who had previously put the horseshoes into the fire. ‘I’ll show you incontrovertibly! You, Laabs, and everyone else present here!’

His stooges brought out a small, blackened cauldron with a curved handle from behind the wagon and set it on the ground.

‘Here is the proof!’ the priest roared, kicking the cauldron over. A thin liquid spilt onto the ground, depositing some small pieces of carrots, some strips of unrecognisable greens and several small bones onto the sand. ‘The witch was brewing a magic concoction! An elixir which enabled her to fly through the air to her vampire-lover. To have immoral relations with him and hatch more iniquities! I know the ways and deeds of sorcerers and I know what that decoct is made of! The witch boiled up a cat alive!’

The crowd oohed and aahed in horror.

‘Ghastly,’ Dandelion said, shuddering. ‘Boiling a creature alive? I felt sorry for the girl, but she went a bit too far . . .’

‘Shut your gob,’ Milva hissed.

‘Here is the proof!’ the priest yelled, holding up a small bone he had removed from the steaming puddle. ‘Here is the irrefutable proof! A cat’s bone!’

‘That’s a bird’s bone,’ Zoltan Chivay said coldly, squinting. ‘It’s a jay’s, I would say, or a pigeon’s. The girl cooked herself some broth, and that’s that!’

‘Silence, you pagan imp!’ the priest roared. ‘Don’t blaspheme, or the Gods will punish you at the hands of the pious! The brew came from a cat, I tell you!’

‘From a cat! Without doubt a cat!’ the peasants surrounding the priest yelled. ‘The wench had a cat! A black cat! Everyone knew she did! It followed her around everywhere! And where is that cat now? It’s gone! Gone into the pot!’

‘Cooked! Boiled up as a potion!’

‘Right you are! The witch has cooked up the cat into a potion!’

‘No other proof is needed! Into the fire with the witch! But first torture her! Let her confess everything!’

‘’Kin’ ’ell!’ Field Marshal Windbag squawked.

‘It’s a shame about that cat,’ Percival Schuttenbach suddenly said in a loud voice. ‘It was a fine beast, sleek and fat. Fur shining like anthracite, eyes like two chrysoberyls, long whiskers, and a tail as thick as a mechanical’s tool! Everything you could want in a cat. He must have caught plenty of mice!’

The peasants fell silent.

‘And how would you know, Master Gnome?’ someone asked. ‘How do you know what the cat looked like?’

Percival Schuttenbach cleared his nose and wiped his fingers on a trouser leg.

‘Because he’s sitting over there on a cart. Right behind you.’

The peasants all turned around at once, muttering as they observed the cat sitting on a pile of bundles. The cat, meanwhile, utterly unconcerned about being the centre of attention, stuck a hind leg up in the air and got down to licking his rump.

‘Thus it has turned out,’ Zoltan Chivay said, breaking the silence, ‘that your irrefutable proof is a load of crap, reverend. What will the next proof be? Perhaps a she-cat? That would be good. Then we’ll put them together, they’ll produce a litter and not a single rodent will come within half an arrow’s shot of the granary.’

Several peasants snorted, and several others, including Elder Laabs, cackled openly. The priest turned purple with rage.

‘I will remember you, blasphemer!’ he roared, pointing a finger at the dwarf. ‘O heathen kobold! O creature of darkness! How did you come to be here? Perhaps you are in collusion with the vampire? Just wait; we’ll punish the witch and then we’ll interrogate you! But first we’ll try the witch! Horseshoes have already been put on the coals, so we’ll see what the sinner reveals when her hideous skin starts to sizzle! I tell you she will confess to the crimes of witchcraft herself. And what more proof is there than a confession?’

‘Oh, she will, she will,’ Hector Laabs said. ‘And were red-hot horseshoes placed against the soles of your feet, reverend, you would surely even confess to immoral coition with a mare. Ugh! You’re a godly man, but you sound like a rascal!’

‘Yes, I’m a godly man!’ the priest bellowed, outshouting the intensifying murmurs of the peasants. ‘I believe in divine judgement! And in a divine trial! Let the witch face trial by ordeal . . .’

‘Excellent idea,’ the Witcher interrupted loudly, stepping out from the crowd.

The priest glared at him. The peasants stopped muttering and stared at him with mouths agape.

‘Trial by ordeal,’ Geralt repeated to complete silence from the crowd, ‘is utterly certain and utterly just. The verdicts of trial by ordeal are also accepted by secular courts and have their own principles. These rules say that in the case of a charge against a woman, child, old or otherwise enfeebled person a defence counsel may represent them. Am I right, Elder Laabs? So, I hereby offer myself in that role. Mark off the circle. Whomsoever is certain of the girl’s guilt and is not afraid of trial of ordeal should step forward and do battle with me.’

‘Ha!’ the priest called, still glaring at him. ‘Don’t be too cunning, noble stranger. Throwing down the gauntlet? It’s clear at once you are a swordsman and a killer! You wish to conduct a trial of ordeal with your criminal sword?’

‘If the sword doesn’t suit you, your reverence,’ Zoltan Chivay announced in a drawling voice, standing alongside Geralt, ‘and if you object to this gentleman, perhaps I would be more suitable. By all means, may the girl’s accuser take up a battle-axe against me.’

‘Or challenge me at archery,’ Milva said, narrowing her eyes and also stepping forward. ‘A single arrow each at a hundred paces.’

‘Do you see, people, how quickly defenders of the witch are springing up?’ the priest screamed, and then turned away and contorted his face into a cunning smile. ‘Very well, you good-for-nothings, I invite all three of you to the trial by ordeal which will soon take place. We shall establish the hag’s guilt, and test your virtue at one and the same time! But not using swords, battle-axes, lances or arrows! You know, you say, the rules? I also know them! See the horseshoes in the coals, glowing white-hot? Baptism of fire! Come, O minions of witchcraft! Whomsoever removes a horseshoe from the fire, brings it to me and betrays no marks of burning, will have proven that the witch is innocent. If, though, the trial of ordeal reveals something else, then it shall be death to all of you and to her! I have spoken!’

The hostile rumble of Elder Laabs and his group was drowned out by the enthusiastic cries of most of the people gathered behind the priest. The mob had already scented excellent sport and entertainment. Milva looked at Zoltan, Zoltan at the Witcher, and the Witcher first at the sky and then at Milva.

‘Do you believe in the Gods?’ he asked in hushed tones.

‘Yes, I do,’ the archer snapped back softly, looking at the glowing coals. ‘But I don’t think they’ll want to be bothered by red-hot horseshoes.’

‘It’s no more than three paces from the fire to that bastard,’ Zoltan hissed through clenched teeth. ‘I’ll get through it somehow, I worked in a foundry . . . But if you wouldn’t mind praying to your Gods for me. . .’

‘One moment,’ Emiel Regis said, placing a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. ‘Please withhold your prayers.’

The barber-surgeon walked over to the fire, bowed to the priest and the audience, then stooped rapidly and put his hand into the hot coals. The crowd screamed as one, Zoltan cursed and Milva dug her fingers into Geralt’s arm. Regis straightened up, calmly looked down at the white-hot horseshoe he was holding, and walked unhurriedly over to the priest. The priest took a step back, bumping into the peasants standing behind him.

‘This was the idea, if I’m not mistaken, your reverence.’ Regis said, holding up the horseshoe. ‘Baptism of fire? If so, I believe the divine judgement is unambiguous. The girl is innocent. Her defenders are innocent. And I, just imagine, am also innocent.’

‘Sh . . . sh . . . show me your hand . . .’ the priest mumbled. ‘Is it not burnt?’

The barber-surgeon smiled his usual smile, with pursed lips, then moved the horseshoe to his left hand, and showed his right hand, totally unharmed, first to the priest, and then, holding it up high, to everyone else. The crowd roared.

‘Whose horseshoe is it?’ Regis asked. ‘Let the owner take it back.’

No one came forward.

‘It’s a devilish trick!’ the priest bellowed. ‘You are a sorcerer yourself, or the devil incarnate!’

Regis threw the horseshoe onto the ground and turned around.

‘Carry out an exorcism on me then,’ he suggested coldly. ‘You are free to do so. But the trial of ordeal has taken place. I have heard, though, that to question its verdict is heresy.’

‘Perish. Be gone!’ the priest shrieked, waving an amulet in front of the barber-surgeon’s nose and tracing cabbalistic signs with his other hand. ‘Be gone to the abyss of hell, devil! May the earth be riven asunder beneath you . . .’

‘That is enough!’ Zoltan shouted angrily. ‘Hey, people! Elder Laabs! Do you intend to stand and watch this foolishness any longer? Do you intend . . . ?’

The dwarf’s voice was drowned out by a piercing cry.

‘Niiiilfgaaaaaard!’

‘Cavalry from the west! Horsemen! Nilfgaard are attacking! Every man for himself!’

In one moment the camp was transformed into total pandemonium. The peasants charged towards their wagons and shelters, knocking each other down and trampling on each other. A single, great cry rose up into the sky.

‘Our horses!’ Milva yelled, making room around herself with punches and kicks. ‘Our horses, Witcher! Follow me, quickly!’

‘Geralt!’ Dandelion shouted. ‘Save me!’

The crowd separated them, scattered them like a great wave and carried Milva away in the blink of an eye. Geralt, gripping Dandelion by the collar, didn’t allow himself to be swept away, for just in time he caught hold of the wagon which the girl accused of witchcraft was tied to. The wagon, however, suddenly lurched and moved off, and the Witcher and the poet fell to the ground. The girl jerked her head and began to laugh hysterically. As the wagon receded the laughter became quieter and was then lost among the uproar.

‘They’ll trample us!’ Dandelion shouted from the ground. ‘They’ll crush us! Heeeelp!’

‘’Kiiin’ ’ell!’ Field Marshal Windbag squawked from somewhere out of sight.

Geralt raised his head, spat out some sand and saw a chaotic scene.

Only four people did not panic, although to tell the truth one of them simply had no choice. That was the priest, unable to move owing to his neck being held in the iron grip of Hector Laabs. The two other individuals were Zoltan and Percival. The gnome lifted up the priest’s robe at the back with a rapid movement, and the dwarf, armed with the pincers, seized a red-hot horseshoe from the fire and dropped it down the saintly man’s long johns. Freed from Laabs’s grip, the priest shot straight ahead like a comet with a smoking tail, but his screams were drowned in the roar of the crowd. Geralt saw Laabs, the gnome and the dwarf about to congratulate one another on a successful ordeal by fire when another wave of panic-stricken peasants descended upon them. Everything disappeared in clouds of dust. The Witcher could no longer see anything, though neither did he have time to watch since he was busy rescuing Dandelion, whose legs had been swept from under him again by a stampeding hog. When Geralt bent down to lift the poet up, a hay rack was thrown straight on his back from a wagon rattling past. The weight pinned him to the ground, and before he was able to throw it off a dozen people ran across it. When he finally freed himself, another wagon overturned with a bang and a crash right alongside, and three sacks of wheaten flour – costing a crown a pound in the camp – fell onto him. The sacks split open and the world vanished in a white cloud.

‘Get up, Geralt!’ the troubadour yelled. ‘Get on your blasted feet!’

‘I can’t,’ the Witcher groaned, blinded by the precious flour, seizing in both hands his knee, which had been shot through by an overwhelming pain. ‘Save yourself. Dandelion . . .’

‘I won’t leave you!’

Gruesome screams could be heard from the western edge of the camp, mixed up with the thud of iron-shod hooves and the neighing of horses. The screaming and tramping of hooves intensified suddenly, and the ringing, clanging and banging of metal striking against metal joined it.

‘It’s a battle!’ the poet shouted. ‘It’s war!’

‘Who’s fighting who?’ Geralt asked, trying desperately to clean the flour and chaff from his eyes. Not far away something was on fire, and they were engulfed by a wave of heat and a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. The hoofbeats rose in their ears and the earth shuddered. The first thing he saw in the cloud of dust were dozens of horses’ fetlocks crashing up and down. All around him. He fought off the pain.

‘Get under the wagon! Hide under the wagon, Dandelion, or they’ll trample us!’

‘Let’s stay still . . .’ the poet whimpered, flattened against the ground. ‘Let’s just lie here . . . I’ve heard a horse will never tread on a person lying on the ground . . .’

‘I’m not sure,’ Geralt exhaled, ‘if every horse has heard that. Under the wagon! Quickly!’

At that moment one of the horses, unaware of human proverbs, kicked him in the side of the head as it thundered by. Suddenly all the constellations of the firmament flashed red and gold in the Witcher’s eyes, and a moment later the earth and the sky were engulfed in impenetrable darkness.

The Rats sprang up, awoken by a long-drawn-out scream that boomed with an intensifying echo around the walls of the cave. Asse and Reef seized their swords and Iskra swore loudly as she banged her head on a rocky protrusion.

‘What is it?’ Kayleigh yelled. ‘What’s happening?’

It was dark in the cave even though the sun was shining outside – the Rats had been sleeping off a night spent in the saddle, fleeing from pursuers. Giselher shoved a brand into the glowing embers, lit it, held it up and walked over to where Ciri and Mistle were sleeping, as usual away from the rest of the gang. Ciri was sitting with her head down and Mistle had her arm around her.

Giselher lifted the flaming brand higher. The others also approached. Mistle covered Ciri’s naked shoulders with a fur.

‘Listen, Mistle,’ the leader of the Rats said gravely. ‘I’ve never interfered with what you two do in a single bed. I’ve never said a nasty or mocking word. I always try to look the other way and not notice. It’s your business and your tastes, and nobody else’s, as long as you do it discreetly and quietly. But this time you went a little too far.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Mistle exploded. ‘Are you trying to say that . . . ? She was screaming in her sleep! It was a nightmare!’

‘Don’t yell. Falka?’

Ciri nodded.

‘Was your dream so dreadful? What was it about?’

‘Leave her in peace!’

‘Give it a rest, Mistle. Falka?’

‘Someone, someone I once knew,’ Ciri stammered, ‘was being trampled by horses. The hooves . . . I felt them crushing me . . . I felt his pain . . . In my head and knee . . . I can still feel it. I’m sorry I woke you up.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Giselher said, looking at Mistle’s stern expression. ‘You two deserve the apology. Forgive me. And the dream? Why, anybody could have dreamed that. Anybody.’

Ciri closed her eyes. She wasn’t certain if Giselher was right.

He was awoken by a kick.

He was lying with his head against a wheel of the overturned cart, with Dandelion hunched up alongside him. He had been kicked by a foot soldier in a padded jacket and a round helmet. A second stood beside him. They were both holding the reins of horses, the saddles of which were hung with crossbows and shields.

‘Bloody millers or what?’

The other soldier shrugged. Geralt saw that Dandelion couldn’t take his eyes off the shields. Geralt himself had already noticed that there were lilies on them. The emblem of the Kingdom of Temeria. Other mounted crossbowmen – who were swarming around nearby – also bore the same arms. Most of them were busy catching horses and stripping the dead. The latter mainly wore black Nilfgaardian cloaks.

The camp was still a smoking ruin after the attack, but peasants who had survived and hadn’t fled very far were beginning to reappear. The mounted crossbowmen with Temerian lilies were rounding them up with loud shouts.

Neither Milva, Zoltan, Percival nor Regis were anywhere to be seen.

The hero of the recent witchcraft trial, the black tomcat, sat alongside the cart, dispassionately looking at Geralt with his greenish-golden eyes. The Witcher was a little surprised, since ordinary cats couldn’t bear his presence. He had no time to reflect on this unusual phenomenon, since one of the soldiers was prodding him with the shaft of his lance.

‘Get up, you two! Hey, the grey-haired one has a sword!’

‘Drop your weapon!’ the other one shouted, attracting the attention of the rest. ‘Drop your sword on the ground. Right now, or I’ll stick you with my glaive.’

Geralt obeyed. His head was ringing.

‘Who are you?’

‘Travellers,’ Dandelion said.

‘Sure you are,’ the soldier snorted. ‘Are you travelling home? After fleeing from your standard and throwing away your uniforms? There are plenty of travellers like that in this camp, who’ve taken fright at Nilfgaard and lost the taste for army bread! Some of them are old friends of ours. From our regiment!’

‘Those travellers can expect another trip now,’ his companion cackled. ‘A short one! Upwards on a rope!’

‘We aren’t deserters!’ the poet yelled.

‘We’ll find out who you are. When you account for yourselves to the officer.’

A unit of light horse led by several armoured cavalrymen with splendid plumes on their helmets emerged from the ring of mounted crossbowmen.

Dandelion looked closely at the knights, brushed the flour off himself and tidied up his clothing, then spat on a hand and smoothed down his dishevelled hair.

‘Geralt, keep quiet,’ he forewarned. ‘I’ll parley with them. They’re Temerian knights. They defeated the Nilfgaardians. They won’t do anything to us. I know how to talk to the knighthood. You have to show them they aren’t dealing with commoners, but with equals.’

‘Dandelion, for the love of . . .’

‘Never fear, everything will be fine. I have a lot of experience in talking to the knighthood and the nobility; half of Temeria know me. Hey, out of our way, servants, step aside! I wish to speak with your superiors!’

The soldiers looked on hesitantly, and then raised their couched lances and made room. Dandelion and Geralt moved towards the knights. The poet strode proudly, bearing a lordly expression which was somewhat out of place considering his frayed and flour-soiled tunic.

‘Stop!’ one of the armoured men yelled at him. ‘Not another step! Who are you?’

‘Who should I tell?’ Dandelion said, putting his hands on his hips. ‘And why? Who are these well-born lords, that they oppress innocent travellers?’

‘You don’t ask the questions, riffraff! You answer them!’

The troubadour inclined his head and looked at the coats of arms on the knights’ shields and tabards.

‘Three red hearts on a golden field,’ he observed. ‘That means you are an Aubry. There’s a three-pointed label on the shield’s chief, so you must be the eldest son of Anzelm Aubry. I know your pater well, good Sir Knight. And you, strident Sir Knight, what do you have on your silver shield? A black stripe between two gryphons’ heads? The Papebrock family’s coat of arms, if I’m not mistaken, and I am rarely mistaken in matters of this kind. The stripe, they say, illustrates the acuity possessed by that family’s members.’

‘Will you bloody stop,’ Geralt groaned.

‘I’m the celebrated poet Dandelion!’ the bard said, puffing himself up and paying no attention to the Witcher. ‘No doubt you’ve heard of me? Lead me, then, to your commander, to the seigneur, for I’m accustomed to speaking with equals!’

The knights did not react, but their facial expressions became more and more uncongenial and their iron gloves gripped their decorated bridles more and more tightly. Dandelion clearly hadn’t noticed.

‘Well, what’s the matter with you?’ he asked haughtily. ‘What are you staring at? Yes, I’m talking to you, Sir Black Stripe! Why are you making faces? Did someone tell you that if you narrow your eyes and stick your lower jaw out you look manly, doughty, dignified and menacing? Well, they deceived you. You look like someone who hasn’t had a decent shit for a week!’

‘Seize them!’ yelled the eldest son of Anzelm Aubry – the bearer of the shield with three hearts – to the foot soldiers. The Black Stripe from the Papebrock family spurred his steed.

‘Seize them! Bind the blackguards!’

They walked behind the horses, pulled by ropes attaching their wrists to the pommels. They walked and occasionally ran, because the horsemen spared neither their mounts nor their captives. Dandelion fell over twice and was dragged along on his belly, yelling pathetically. He was stood up again and urged on roughly with the lance shaft. And then driven on once more. The dust choked and blinded them, making their eyes water and their noses tingle. Thirst parched their throats.

Only one thing was encouraging; the road they were being driven along was heading south. Geralt was thus journeying in the right direction at last and pretty quickly, at that. He wasn’t happy, though. Because he had imagined the journey would be altogether different.

They arrived at their destination just as Dandelion had made himself hoarse from curses peppered with cries for mercy, while the pain in Geralt’s elbow and knee had become sheer torment – so severe that the Witcher had begun to consider taking radical, or even desperate measures.

They reached a military camp organised around a ruined, half-burnt stronghold.

Beyond the ring of guards, hitching bars and smoking campfires they saw knights’ tents adorned with pennants, surrounding a large and bustling field beyond a ruined and charred stockade. The field marked the end of their forced trek.

Seeing a horse trough, Geralt and Dandelion strained against their bonds. The horsemen were initially disinclined to let them go anywhere near the water, but Anzelm Aubry’s son evidently recalled the supposed acquaintance of Dandelion and his father and deigned to be kind. They forced their way between the horses, and drank and washed their faces using their bound hands. A tug of the ropes soon brought them back to reality.

‘Who’ve you brought me this time?’ said a tall, slim knight in enamelled, richly gilded armour, rhythmically striking a mace against an ornamented tasset. ‘Don’t tell me it’s more spies.’

‘Spies or deserters,’ Anzelm Aubry’s son stated. ‘We captured them in the camp by the Chotla, when we wiped out the Nilfgaardian foray. Clearly a suspicious element!’

The knight in the gilded armour snorted, looked intently at Dandelion, and then his young – but austere – face suddenly lit up.

‘Nonsense. Untie them.’

‘They’re Nilfgaardian spies!’ Black Stripe of the Papebrocks said indignantly. ‘Particularly this one here, as insolent as a country cur. Says he’s a poet, the rogue!’

‘And he speaks the truth,’ the knight in the gilded armour smiled. ‘It’s the bard Dandelion. I know him. Remove his bonds. And free the other one too.’

‘Are you sure, My Lord?’

‘That was an order, Knight Papebrock.’

‘Didn’t realise I could come in useful, did you?’ said Dandelion to Geralt, while he rubbed his wrists, which were numb from the bonds. ‘So now you do. My fame goes before me, I’m known and esteemed everywhere.’

Geralt didn’t comment, being busy massaging his own wrists, his sore elbow and knee.

‘Please forgive the overzealousness of these youngsters,’ said the knight who had been addressed as a member of the nobility. ‘They see Nilfgaardian spies everywhere, bring back a few suspicious-looking types every time they’re sent out. I mean anybody who in any way stands out from the fleeing rabble. And you, Master Dandelion, stand out, after all. How did you end up by the Chotla, among those fugitives?’

‘I was travelling from Dillingen to Maribor,’ the poet lied with ease, ‘when we were caught up in this hell, me and my . . . confrere. You’re sure to know him. His name is . . . Giraldus.’

‘But of course I do, I’ve read him,’ the knight bragged. ‘It’s an honour for me, Master Giraldus. I am Daniel Etcheverry, Count of Garramone. Upon my word, Master Dandelion, much has changed since the times you sang at King Foltest’s court.’

‘Much indeed.’

‘Who would have thought,’ the count said, his face darkening, ‘that it would come to this. Verden subjugated to Emhyr, Brugge practically defeated, Sodden in flames . . . And we’re in retreat, in constant retreat . . . My apologies, I meant to say we are “executing tactical withdrawals”. Nilfgaard are burning and pillaging everywhere. They have almost reached the banks of the Ina, have almost completed the sieges of the fortresses of Mayena and Razwan, and the Temerian Army continues its “tactical withdrawals”. . .’

‘When I saw the lilies on your shields by the Chotla,’ Dandelion said, ‘I thought the offensive was here.’

‘A counter-attack,’ Daniel Etcheverry corrected him, ‘and reconnaissance in force. We crossed the Ina, put to the sword a few Nilfgaardian forays and Scoia’tael commandos who were lighting fires. You can see what remains of the garrison in Armeria, who we managed to free. But the forts in Carcano and Vidort were burnt to the ground . . . The entire south is soaked in blood, afire and dense with smoke . . . Oh, but I’m boring you. You know only too well what’s happening in Brugge and Sodden. After all, you ended up wandering with fugitives from there. And my brave boys took you for spies! Please accept my apologies one more time. And my invitation to dinner. Some of the noblemen and officers will be delighted to meet you, Master Poets.’

‘It is a genuine honour, My Lord,’ said Geralt, bowing stiffly. ‘But time is short. We must be away.’

‘Oh, please don’t be shy,’ Daniel Etcheverry said, smiling. ‘A standard, modest soldier’s repast. Venison, grouse, sterlet, truffles . . .’

‘To decline,’ Dandelion said, swallowing and giving the Witcher a telling glance, ‘would be a serious affront. Let us go without delay, My Lord. Is that your tent, the sumptuous one, in blue and gold?’

‘No. That is the commander-in-chief’s. Azure and gold are the colours of his fatherland.’

‘Really?’ Dandelion said in astonishment. ‘I thought this was the Temerian Army. And that you were in command.’

‘This is a regiment assigned to the Temerian Army. I am King Foltest’s liaison officer, and a goodly number of the Temerian nobility are serving here with detachments, which bear lilies on their shields as a formality. But the main part of this corps consists of the subjects of another kingdom. Do you see the standard in front of the tent?’

‘Lions,’ Geralt said, stopping. ‘Golden lions on a blue field. That’s . . . That’s the emblem . . .’

‘Of Cintra,’ the count averred. ‘They are emigrants from the Kingdom of Cintra, at present occupied by Nilfgaard. Under the command of Marshal Vissegerd.’

Geralt turned back, intending to announce to the count that urgent matters were nonetheless compelling him to decline the venison, sterlet and truffles. He wasn’t quick enough. He saw some men approaching, led by a well-built, big-bellied, grey-haired knight in a blue cloak with a gold chain over his armour.

‘Here, Master Poets, is Marshal Vissegerd in person,’ Daniel Etcheverry said. ‘Allow me, Your Lordship, to introduce you to . . .’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Marshal Vissegerd interrupted hoarsely, looking piercingly at Geralt. ‘We have already been introduced. In Cintra, at the court of Queen Calanthe. On the day of Princess Pavetta’s betrothal. It was fifteen years ago, but I have a good memory. And you, you rogue of a witcher? Do you remember me?’

‘Indeed, I do,’ Geralt said nodding, obediently holding out his hands for the soldiers to bind.

Daniel Etcheverry, Count of Garramone, had tried to vouch for them when the infantrymen were sitting the trussed-up Geralt and Dandelion down on stools in the tent, and now, after the soldiers had left on the orders of Marshal Vissegerd, the count renewed his efforts.

‘That is the poet and troubadour Dandelion, marshal,’ he repeated. ‘I know him. The whole world knows him. I consider it unfitting to treat him thus. I pledge my knightly word he is not a Nilfgaardian spy.’

‘Don’t make such rash pledges,’ Vissegerd snarled, without taking his eyes off the captives. ‘Perhaps he is a poet, but if he was captured in the company of that blackguard, the Witcher, I wouldn’t vouch for him. It seems to me you still have no idea what kind of bird we’ve ensnared.’

‘The Witcher?’

‘Indeed. Geralt, also known as the Wolf. The very same good-for-nothing who claimed the right to Cirilla, the daughter of Pavetta and the granddaughter of Calanthe; the very same Ciri about whom everyone is talking at present. You are too young, My Lord, to remember the time when that scandal was being widely discussed at many courts. But I, as it happens, was an eyewitness.’

‘But what could link him to Princess Cirilla?’

‘That scoundrel there,’ Vissegerd said, pointing at Geralt, ‘played his part in giving Pavetta, the daughter of Queen Calanthe, in marriage to Duny, a totally unknown stranger from the south. From that mongrel union was subsequently born Cirilla, the subject of their reprehensible conspiracy. For you ought to know that Duny, the bastard, had promised the girl to the Witcher in advance, as payment for facilitating his marriage. The Law of Surprise, do you see?’

‘Not entirely. But speak on, My Lord Marshal.’

‘The Witcher,’ Vissegerd said, pointing a finger at Geralt once again, ‘wanted to take the girl away after Pavetta’s death, but Calanthe did not permit him, and drove him away. But he waited for a timely moment. When the war with Nilfgaard broke out and Cintra fell, he kidnapped Ciri, exploiting the confusion. He kept the girl hidden, although he knew we were searching for her. And finally he grew tired of her and sold her to Emhyr!’

‘Those are lies and calumny!’ Dandelion yelled. ‘There is not a word of truth in it!’

‘Quiet, fiddler, or I’ll have you gagged. Put two and two together, My Lord. The Witcher had Cirilla and now Emhyr var Emreis has her. And the Witcher gets captured in the vanguard of a Nilfgaardian raid. What does that signify?’

Daniel Etcheverry shrugged his shoulders.

‘What does it signify?’ Vissegerd repeated, bending over Geralt. ‘Well, you rascal? Speak! How long have you been spying for Nilfgaard, cur?’

‘I do not spy for anybody.’

‘I’ll have your hide tanned!’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Master Dandelion,’ the Count of Garramone suddenly interjected. ‘It would probably be better if you set about explaining. The sooner, the better.’

‘I would have done so before,’ the poet exploded, ‘but My Lord Marshal here threatened to gag me! We are innocent; those are all outright fabrications and vile slanders. Cirilla was kidnapped from the Isle of Thanedd, and Geralt was seriously wounded defending her. Anybody can confirm that. Every sorcerer who was on Thanedd. And Redania’s secretary of state, Sigismund Dijkstra . . .’

Dandelion suddenly fell silent, recalling that Dijkstra was in no way suitable as a defence witness in the case; and neither were references to the mages of Thanedd likely to improve the situation to any great degree.

‘What utter nonsense it is,’ he continued loudly and quickly, ‘to accuse Geralt of kidnapping Ciri in Cintra! Geralt found the girl when she was wandering around in Riverdell after the city had been sacked, and hid her, not from you, but from the Nilfgaardian agents who were pursuing her! I myself was captured by those agents and submitted to torture so that I would betray where Ciri was concealed! But I didn’t breathe a word and those agents are now six feet under. They didn’t know who they were up against!’

‘Your valour,’ the count interrupted, ‘was in vain, however. Emhyr finally has Cirilla. As we are all aware, he means to marry her and make her Imperatrice of Nilfgaard. For the moment he has proclaimed her Queen of Cintra and the surrounding lands, causing us some problems by so doing.’

‘Emhyr,’ the poet declared, ‘could place whoever he wanted on the Cintran throne. Ciri, whichever way you look at it, has a right to the throne.’

‘A right?’ Vissegerd bellowed, spraying Geralt with spittle. ‘What fucking right? Emhyr may marry her; that is his choice. He may give her and the children he sires with her endowments and titles according to his whims and fancies. Queen of Cintra and the Skellige Islands? Duchess of Brugge? Countess Palatine of Sodden? By all means. Let us all bow down! And why not, I humbly ask, why not the Queen of the Sun and the Suzerain of the Moon? That accursed, tainted blood has no right to the throne! The entire female line of that family is accursed, all rotten vipers, beginning with Riannon! Like Cirilla’s great-grandmother, Adalia, who lay with her own cousin; like her great-great-grandmother, Muriel the Impure, who debased herself with everyone! Incestuous bastards and mongrels emerge from that family on the distaff side, one after the other!’

‘Speak more softly, My Lord Marshal,’ Dandelion advised haughtily. ‘The standard with the golden lions flutters before your tent, and you are prepared at any moment to proclaim Ciri’s grandmother, Calanthe, the Lioness of Cintra, in whose name the majority of your soldiers shed blood at the Battles of Marnadal and Sodden, a bastard. I would not be sure of the loyalty of your army, were you to do so.’

Vissegerd covered the distance separating him from Dandelion in two paces, seized the poet by the ruff and lifted him up from his chair. The marshal’s face, which a moment before had only been flecked with red spots, now assumed the colour of deep, heraldic red. Geralt was just beginning to seriously worry about his friend when luckily an aide-de-camp burst into the tent, informing the marshal in an excited voice about urgent and important news brought by the scouts. Vissegerd shoved Dandelion back down onto the stool and exited.

‘Phew . . .’ the poet snuffled, twisting his head and neck around. ‘Much more of that and he’d have throttled me . . . Could you loosen my bonds somewhat, My Lord?’

‘No, Master Dandelion. I cannot.’

‘Do you give credence to this balderdash? That we are spies?’

‘My credence is neither here nor there. You will remain bound.’

‘Very well,’ Dandelion said, clearing his throat. ‘What’s got into your marshal? Why did he suddenly assault me like a falcon swooping on a woodcock?’

Daniel Etcheverry smiled wryly.

‘When you alluded to the soldiers’ loyalty you unwittingly rubbed salt in the wound, Master Poet.’

‘What do you mean? What wound?’

‘These soldiers sincerely lamented Cirilla’s passing, when news of her death reached them. And then new information got out. It turned out that Calanthe’s granddaughter was alive. That she was in Nilfgaard, in the good graces of Imperator Emhyr. Which led to mass desertion. Bear in mind that these men left their homes and families, and fled to Sodden and Brugge, and to Temeria, because they wanted to fight for Cintra, for Calanthe’s blood. They wanted to liberate their country, to drive the invader from Cintra, so that Calanthe’s descendant would regain the throne. And what has happened? Calanthe’s blood is returning to the Cintran throne in triumph and glory . . .’

‘As a puppet in the hands of Emhyr, who kidnapped her.’

‘Emhyr will marry her. He wants to place her beside him on the imperial throne and validate her titles and fiefs. Is that how puppets are treated? Cirilla was seen at the imperial court by envoys from Kovir. They maintain that she did not give the impression of someone who had been kidnapped. Cirilla, the only heiress to Cintra’s throne, is returning to that throne as an ally of Nilfgaard. That is the news that has spread among the soldiery.’

‘Circulated by Nilfgaardian agents.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ The count nodded. ‘But the soldiers aren’t. When we catch deserters, we stretch their necks, but I understand them a little. They’re Cintrans. They want to fight for their own – not Temerian – homes. Under their own banner. Under their own command, not the command of Temeria. They see that here, in this army, their golden lions have to bow the knee before the Temerian lilies. Vissegerd had eight thousand men, of which five thousand were native Cintrans; the rest consisted of Temerian reserve units and volunteer chivalry from Brugge and Sodden. At this moment the corps numbers six thousand. And all the deserters have been from Cintra. Vissegerd’s army has been decimated even before the battle has begun. Do you understand what that means for him?’

‘A serious loss of face. And maybe position.’

‘Precisely. Should another few hundred desert, King Foltest will deprive him of his baton. Right now it’s hard to call this corps “Cintran”. Vissegerd is vacillating, wanting to put an end to the defection, which is why he’s spreading rumours about the doubtful – but most certainly unlawful – descent of Cirilla and her ancestors.’

‘Which you,’ Geralt said, unable to stop himself, ‘listen to with evident distaste, My Lord.’

‘Have you noticed?’ Daniel Etcheverry said, smiling faintly. ‘Why, Vissegerd doesn’t know my lineage . . . In short, I’m related to this Cirilla. Muriel, Countess of Garramone, known as the Beautiful Impure, Cirilla’s great-great-grandmother, was also my great-great-grandmother. Legends about her love affairs circulate in the family to this day. However, I listen with distaste as Vissegerd imputes incestuous tendencies and promiscuity to my ancestor. But I do not react. Because I’m a soldier. Do you understand me sufficiently, gentlemen?’

‘Yes,’ Geralt said.

‘No,’ Dandelion said.

‘Vissegerd is the commander of this corps, which forms part of the Temerian Army. And Cirilla in Emhyr’s hands is a threat to the corps, and thus to the army, not to mention my king and my country. I have no intention of refuting the rumours being circulated about Cirilla by Vissegerd nor of challenging my commanding officer’s authority. I even intend to support him in proving that Cirilla is a bastard with no rights to the throne. Not only will I not challenge the marshal – not only will I not question his decisions or orders – I shall actually support them. And execute them when necessary.’

The Witcher’s mouth contorted into a smile.

‘I think you understand now, don’t you, Dandelion? Not for a moment did the count consider us spies, or he would not have given us such a thorough explanation. The count knows we’re innocent. But he will not lift a finger when Vissegerd sentences us.’

‘You mean . . . You mean we’re . . .’

The count looked away.

‘Vissegerd,’ he said softly, ‘is furious. You were unlucky to fall into his hands. Particularly you, Master Witcher. As for Master Dandelion, I shall try to . . .’

He was interrupted by the return of Vissegerd, still red-faced and panting like a bull. The marshal walked over to the table, slammed his mace onto the maps spread over it, then turned towards Geralt and bored his eyes into him. The Witcher did not avert his gaze.

‘The wounded Nilfgaardian the scouts captured,’ Vissegerd drawled, ‘managed to tear his dressing off and bled to death on the way. He preferred to die, rather than contribute to the defeat and death of his countrymen. We wanted to use him, but he escaped, slipped through our fingers, leaving nothing on them but blood. He’d been well schooled. It’s a pity that witchers don’t instil such customs in royal children when they take them to be raised.’

Geralt remained silent, but still did not lower his eyes.

‘Well, you monster. You freak of nature. You hell spawn. What did you teach Cirilla after kidnapping her? How did you bring her up? Everyone can see how! That snake-in-the-grass is alive, and is lounging on the Nilfgaardian throne, as if it were nothing! And when Emhyr takes her to his bed she’s sure to spread her legs willingly, as if it were nothing too, the slut!’

‘Your anger is getting the better of you,’ Dandelion mumbled. ‘Is it chivalrous, marshal, to blame a child for everything? A child that Emhyr took by force?’

‘There are also ways against force! Chivalrous ones, noble ones! Were she really of royal blood, she would have found a way! She would have found a knife! A pair of scissors, a piece of broken glass. Why, even a bodkin! The bitch could have torn open the veins in her wrists with her own teeth! Or hanged herself with her own stockings!’

‘I don’t want to listen to you any longer, marshal,’ Geralt said softly. ‘I don’t want to listen to you any longer.’

Vissegerd ground his teeth audibly and leant over.

‘You don’t want to,’ he said, in a voice trembling with fury. ‘That is fortunate, because I don’t have anything more to say to you. Apart from one thing. Back then, in Cintra, fifteen years ago, a great deal was said about destiny. At the time I thought it was nonsense. But it turned out to be your destiny, Witcher. Ever since that night your fate has been sealed, written in black runes among the stars. Ciri, daughter of Pavetta, is your destiny. And your death. Because of Ciri, daughter of Pavetta, you shall hang.’

The Brigade joined Operation Centaur as a unit assigned to the 4th Horse Cavalry. We received reinforcements in the form of three squads of Verdenian light horse, which I assigned to the Vreemde Battle Group. Following the example of the campaign in Aedirn, I created two more battle groups from the rest of the brigade, naming them Sievers and Morteisen, each comprising four squadrons.

We set out from the concentration area near Drieschot on the night of the fourth of August. The Groups’ orders ran: Capture the Vidort-Carcano-Armeria territory; seize the crossing over the Ina; destroy any hostile troops encountered, but avoid significant points of resistance. Start fires, particularly at night, to light the way for the 4th Horse Cavalry. Induce panic among civilians and use their flight to block all of the arterial routes to the enemy’s rear. Feign encirclement to drive the retreating enemy forces towards the actual encirclements. Carry out the elimination of selected groups of the civilian population and prisoners of war to cause terror, intensify panic, and undermine the enemy’s morale.

The Brigade carried out the above mission with great soldierly devotion.

Elan Trahe,

For Imperator and Fatherland. The glorious trail of fire of the 7th Daerlanian Cavalry Brigade

CHAPTER FIVE

Milva did not have time to reach the horses and save them. She was a witness to their theft, but a helpless one. First she was swept along by the frantic, panic-stricken crowd, then the road was obstructed by careering wagons, and finally she became stuck in a woolly, bleating flock of sheep, through which she had to force her way as though it were a snowdrift. Later, by the Chotla, only a leap into the tall rushes growing in the marshes by the bank saved her from the Nilfgaardians’ swords as they ruthlessly cut down the fugitives crowded by the river, showing no mercy either to women or children. Milva jumped into the water and reached the other bank, partly wading and partly swimming on her back among the corpses being carried by the current.

And she took up the hunt. She remembered the direction in which the peasants who had stolen Roach, Pegasus, the chestnut colt and her own black had fled. And her priceless bow was still attached to her saddle. Tough luck, she thought, feet squelching in her wet boots as she ran, the others will have to cope without me for now. I must get my damn bow and horse back!

She freed Pegasus first. The poet’s horse was ignoring the heels digging into his sides. He was paying no heed to the urgent shouts of the inexperienced rider and had no intention of galloping; instead he trotted slowly through the birch wood. The poor fellow was being left a long way behind the other horse thieves. When he heard and then saw Milva over his shoulder, he jumped off without a second thought and bolted into the undergrowth, holding up his britches with both hands. Milva did not pursue him, overcoming her seething desire to exact some serious revenge. She leapt into the saddle in full flight, landing heavily and making the strings of the lute fastened to the saddlebags twang. A skilled horsewoman, she managed to force the gelding to gallop. Or rather, to the lumbering canter that Pegasus considered a gallop.

But even this pseudo-gallop was enough, for the horse thieves’ escape had been slowed by another tricky mount. The Witcher’s skittish Roach, the infuriating, sulky bay mare Geralt had so often sworn he’d exchange for another steed, whether it be an ass, a mule or even a billy goat. Milva caught up with the thieves just as Roach, irritated by a clumsy tug of the reins, had thrown her rider to the ground. The rest of the peasants had dismounted and were trying to get the frisky and excitable mare under control. They were so busy they only noticed Milva when she rode among them on Pegasus and kicked one of them in the face, breaking his nose. When he fell to the ground, howling and calling upon the Gods, she recognised him. It was Cloggy. A peasant who clearly had no luck in his dealings with people. Or, more particularly, with Milva.

Unfortunately, luck deserted Milva too. To be precise, it wasn’t her luck that was to blame, more her own conceit and her conviction – based on shaky practical evidence – that she could beat up any brace of peasants she happened to meet, in whatever manner she chose. When she dismounted she was punched in the eye and found herself on the ground. She drew her knife, ready to spill some guts, but was hit over the head with a stout stick so hard that it broke, blinding her with bark and rotten wood. Stunned and blinded, she still managed to grab the knee of the peasant beating her with the remains of the stick, when he unexpectedly howled and keeled over. The other yelled too, bringing both hands up to protect his head. Milva rubbed her eyes and saw that he was protecting himself from a rain of blows from a knout, dealt by a man riding a grey horse. She sprang up, dealing a powerful kick to the neck of the prostrate peasant. The rustler wheezed and flailed his legs, leaving his loins unprotected. Milva took advantage of that at once, channelling all her anger into a well-aimed kick. The peasant curled up in a ball, clamped his hands on his crotch and howled so loudly leaves fell from the birch trees.

Meanwhile, the horseman on the grey was busy with Cloggy, whose nose was streaming blood, and with the other peasant – he chased them away into the trees with blows from the knout. He returned in order to thrash the one on the ground, but reined in his horse; Milva had managed to catch her black and was holding her bow with an arrow already nocked. The bowstring was only pulled halfway back, but the arrowhead was pointing directly at the horseman’s chest.

For a moment, they looked at each other: the horseman and the young woman. Then, with a slow movement, he pulled an arrow with long fletchings from his belt and threw it down at Milva’s feet.

‘I knew I’d have the chance to give you back your arrow, elf,’ he said calmly.

‘I’m not an elf, Nilfgaardian.’

‘And I’m not a Nilfgaardian. Put that bow down, will you? If I wished you ill, I could have just stood by and watched those peasants kick you around.’

‘The devil only knows,’ she said through her teeth, ‘who you are and what you wish for me. But thanks for saving me. And for my arrow. And for dealing with that good-for-nothing I didn’t hit properly the other day.’

The roughed-up horse thief, still curled up in a ball, choked back his sobs, his face buried in the leaf litter. The horseman didn’t even look at him. He looked at Milva.

‘Catch the horses,’ he said. ‘We have to get away from the river, and fast too; the army’s combing the forests on both banks.’

‘We have to?’ she said, grimacing and lowering her bow. ‘Together? Since when were we comrades? Or a company?’

‘I’ll explain,’ he said, steering his horse and grabbing the chestnut’s reins, ‘if you give me time.’

‘The point is, I don’t have any time. The Witcher and the others—’

‘I know. But we won’t save them by letting ourselves get killed or captured. Catch the horses and we’ll flee into the forest. Hurry!’

His name’s Cahir, Milva recalled, glancing at her companion, with whom she was now sitting in the pit left by a fallen tree. A strange Nilfgaardian, who says he isn’t a Nilfgaardian. Cahir.

‘We thought they’d killed you,’ she muttered. ‘The riderless chestnut came running past us . . .’

‘I had a minor adventure,’ he answered drily, ‘with three brigands, as shaggy as werewolves. They ambushed me. The horse got away. The brigands didn’t, but then they were on foot. Before I managed to get a new mount, I’d fallen far behind you. I only managed to catch up with you this morning. Right by the camp. I crossed the river down in the gully and waited on the far bank. I knew you’d head east.’

One of the horses concealed in the alder wood snorted and stamped its hooves. Dusk was falling. Mosquitoes whined annoyingly around their ears.

‘It’s quiet in the forest,’ Cahir said. ‘The armies have gone, the battle is over.’

‘The slaughter’s over, you mean.’

‘Our cavalry . . .’ he stammered and cleared his throat. ‘The imperial cavalry attacked the camp, and then troops appeared from the south. I think it was the Temerian Army.’

‘If the battle’s over, we should go back. We should search for the Witcher, Dandelion and the others.’

‘It would be better to wait until nightfall.’

‘There’s something horrible about this place,’ she said softly, tightening her grip on the bow. ‘It’s such a bleak wilderness. It gives me the shivers. Apparently quiet, but there’s always something rustling in the bushes . . . The Witcher said ghouls are attracted to battlefields . . . And the peasants were telling stories about a vampire . . .’

‘You aren’t alone,’ he replied under his breath. ‘It’s much more frightening when you’re alone.’

‘Indeed.’ She nodded, empathising with him. ‘After all you’ve been following us for almost a fortnight, all alone. You’ve been trudging after us, while surrounded by your people— You might say you’re not a Nilfgaardian, but they're still yours, aren’t they. Devil take me if I understand it; instead of going back to your own you’re tracking the Witcher. Why?’

‘It’s a long story.’

When the tall Scoia’tael leant over him Struycken, who was bound to a pole, blinked in fear. It was said there was no such thing as an ugly elf, that every single one of them was comely, that they were born beautiful. And perhaps the legendary commander of the Squirrels had been born beautiful. But now that his face was gashed by a hideous diagonal scar deforming his forehead, eyebrow, nose and cheek, nothing remained of his elven good looks.

The elf with the disfigured physiognomy sat down on a fallen tree trunk.

‘I am Isengrim Faoiltiarna,’ he said, leaning over the captive once again. ‘I’ve been fighting humans for four years and leading a commando for three. I have buried my brother, who fell in combat, four cousins and more than four hundred brothers in arms. In my struggle, I treat your imperator as my ally, as I have proved several times by passing intelligence to your spies, helping your agents and eliminating individuals selected by you.’

Faoiltiarna fell silent and made a sign with his gloved hand. The Scoia’tael standing alongside picked up a small birchbark canteen. The canteen gave off a sweet aroma.

‘I considered and consider Nilfgaard an ally,’ the elf with the scar repeated, ‘which is why I did not, initially, believe my informant when he warned that a trap was being laid for me. That I would receive instructions for a private meeting with a Nilfgaardian emissary, and that I would be captured then. I didn’t believe but, being cautious by nature, I turned up for the rendezvous a little earlier than expected and not alone. Much to my surprise and dismay, instead of the said emissary, there were six thugs waiting with a fishing net, ropes, a leather mask with a gag, and a straitjacket fastened with straps and buckles. Standard equipment used by your secret service during abductions I would say. Nilfgaard wanted to capture me, Faoiltiarna, alive, and transport me somewhere, gagged and securely fastened in a straitjacket. A curious affair, I would say. And one requiring some elucidation. I’m delighted that I managed to take alive at least one of the thugs who had been set on me – no doubt their leader – who will be able to furnish me with that elucidation.’

Struycken gritted his teeth and turned his head away, in order not to look at the elf’s disfigured face. He preferred to look at the birchbark canteen, and the two wasps buzzing around it.

‘And now,’ Faoiltiarna continued, wiping his sweaty neck with a scarf, ‘let’s have a little chat, Master Kidnapper. To make the conversation flow, let me clarify a few points. There is maple syrup in the canteen. Should our little chat not proceed in a spirit of mutual understanding and complete frankness, we shall copiously anoint your head with the aforementioned syrup, paying very close attention to your eyes and ears. Then we shall place you on an anthill, this one here to be precise, over which these charming, hardworking insects are scurrying. Let me add that this method has already proved its worth in the case of several Dh’oine and an’givare who evinced great stubbornness and a lack of candour.’

‘I am in the imperial service!’ the spy screamed, blanching. ‘I am an officer of the imperial military intelligence, a subordinate of Lord Vattier de Rideaux, Viscount of Eiddon! My name is Jan Struycken! I protest—’

‘What awful luck,’ the elf interrupted him, ‘that these red ants, greedy for maple syrup, have never heard of the viscount. Let us begin. I shall not ask who gave the order for my abduction, because it is obvious. So my first question shall be: where was I to be taken?’

The Nilfgaardian spy struggled against the ropes and jerked his head, for it seemed to him the ants were already crawling over his cheeks. But he remained silent.

‘Too bad,’ Faoiltiarna said, breaking the silence and gesturing to the elf with the canteen. ‘Apply the syrup.’

‘I was to transport you to Nastrog Castle in Verden!’ Struycken yelled. ‘On the orders of Viscount de Rideaux!’

‘Thank you. And what awaited me there?’

‘An interrogation . . .’

‘What was I to be asked about?’

‘About the events on Thanedd! Untie me, I beg you! I’ll tell you everything!’

‘Of course you will,’ the elf sighed, stretching. ‘Particularly since we’ve already made a start, and in matters like these that’s usually the most difficult part. Continue.’

‘I was ordered to make you confess where Vilgefortz and Rience are hiding! And Cahir Mawr Dyffryn, son of Ceallach!’

‘How comical. A trap laid to ask me about Vilgefortz and Rience? Whatever would I know about them? What could link me with them? And Cahir? That’s even more comical. I sent him to you, did I not? Just as you requested. In fetters. Are you saying the package didn’t arrive?’

‘The unit which was sent to the designated rendezvous point was slaughtered . . . Cahir was not among the dead . . .’

‘Ah. And Lord Vattier de Rideaux became suspicious? But instead of sending another emissary to the commando and asking for an explanation, he immediately laid a trap for me. And ordered me dragged to Nastrog in chains and interrogated about the incidents on Thanedd.’

The spy said nothing.

‘Didn’t you get it?’ the elf said and bent his head, bringing his hideous face towards Struycken. ‘That was a question. And it ran: what’s this all about?’

‘I don’t know . . . I don’t know, I swear . . .’

Faoiltiarna beckoned with a hand and pointed. Struycken howled, thrashed around, swore on the Great Sun, pleaded his innocence, wept, tossed his head about and spat out the syrup, which had been thickly smeared over his face. Only when he was carried over to the anthill by four Scoia’tael did he decide to talk – although the consequences of speaking were potentially more dreadful than the ants.

‘Sire . . . Should anyone find out about this, I’m dead meat . . . But I shall disclose it to you . . . I’ve seen confidential orders. I’ve eavesdropped . . . I’ll tell you everything . . .’

‘Of course you will.’ The elf nodded. ‘The record on the anthill is an hour and forty minutes, and belongs to a certain officer from King Demavend’s special forces. But even he talked in the end. Very well, begin. Quickly, coherently and to the point.’

‘The Imperator is certain he was betrayed on Thanedd. The traitor is Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, a sorcerer, and his assistant Rience. But mostly Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach. Vattier . . . Viscount Vattier is not certain whether you Scoia’tael also had a hand in the treachery, if only unwittingly . . . Which is why he ordered you to be seized and delivered in secret to Nastrog Castle . . . Lord Faoiltiarna, I’ve been working in the secret service for twenty years . . . Vattier de Rideaux is my third boss . . .’

‘More coherently, please. And stop shaking. If you’re frank with me, you’ll still be able to serve a few more bosses.’

‘Although it was kept absolutely confidential, I knew . . . I knew who Vilgefortz and Cahir were supposed to capture on the island. And it looked like they had succeeded. Because they brought that . . . you know . . . that princess from Cintra to Loc Grim. I thought they'd pulled it off and that Cahir and Rience would become barons, and that sorcerer a count at least . . . But instead the Imperator summoned Tawny Owl – I mean, Lord Skellen – and ordered him and Lord Vattier to capture Cahir . . . And Rience, and Vilgefortz . . . Anyone who might know anything about Thanedd and that incident was to be tortured . . . Including you . . . It didn’t take much to guess, you know, that it was treachery. That a sham princess had been brought to Loc Grim . . .’

The spy struggled to breathe, nervously gasping for air through lips covered with maple syrup.

‘Untie him,’ Faoiltiarna ordered his Squirrels. ‘And let him wash his face.’

The order was carried out immediately. A moment later the mastermind of the unsuccessful ambush was standing with head lowered before the legendary Scoia’tael commander. Faoiltiarna looked at him indifferently.

‘Scrape the syrup thoroughly from your ears,’ he finally said. ‘Then prick them up and listen carefully, as befits a spy with many years’ experience. I shall give you proof of my loyalty to the Imperator. I shall give you a thorough account of the matters that interest him. And you will repeat everything, word for word, to Vattier de Rideaux.’

The spy nodded eagerly.

‘In the middle of Blathe, which according to your reckoning is the beginning of June,’ the elf began, ‘I was contacted by Enid an Gleanna, the sorceress also known as Francesca Findabair. Soon after, on her orders, a certain Rience came to my commando. He was said to be the factotum of Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, also a sorcerer. A plan of action was drawn up in utter secrecy, with the aim of eliminating a number of mages during the conclave on the Isle of Thanedd. The plan was presented as one having the full support of Imperator Emhyr, Vattier de Rideaux and Stephan Skellen; otherwise I should not have agreed to collaborate with Dh’oine – sorcerers or not – for I have seen too many entrapments in my life. The involvement of the Empire was confirmed by the arrival of a ship at Cape Bremervoord. On board was Cahir, son of Ceallach, equipped with special authorisation and orders. According to those orders I selected a special squad from the commando, which would be answerable only to Cahir. I was aware that they were trusted to capture and remove a . . . certain individual . . . from the island.’

‘We sailed to Thanedd,’ Faoiltiarna began again after a pause, ‘on the ship which had brought Cahir. Rience had some amulets and he used them to surround the ship with a magical fog. We sailed into the caverns beneath the island. From there we proceeded to the catacombs under Garstang. There we realised at once that something wasn’t right. Rience had received some telepathic signals from Vilgefortz. We knew we’d have to start fighting any minute. Fortunately, we were ready, because the moment we left the catacombs we were plunged into hell.’

The elf contorted his mutilated face, as though the recollection pained him.

‘After our initial successes, matters became complicated. We were unable to eliminate all the royal sorcerers, and we took heavy casualties. Several mages who were party to the conspiracy also perished, while others began to save their skins and teleport away. All of a sudden Vilgefortz vanished, then Rience, and Enid an Gleanna soon followed suit. I treated that final disappearance as the conclusive signal for our withdrawal. I did not, however, give the order, but waited for the return of Cahir and his squad, who had set off at once to carry out their mission. When they did not return, we began to search for them.’

‘No one,’ Faoiltiarna said, looking the Nilfgaardian spy in the eyes, ‘survived from that squad; they were all brutally slaughtered. We found Cahir on the steps leading to Tor Lara, a tower which exploded during the battle and ended up as a heap of rubble. He was wounded and unconscious; it was clear he had not accomplished the mission he had been assigned. There was no sign of his target anywhere and royal troops were already pouring out of Aretuza and Loxia. I knew there was no way Cahir could fall into their hands, because it would have been proof of Nilfgaard’s active involvement in the operation. So we took him with us and fled back to the catacombs and then the caverns. We boarded the ship and sailed away. Twelve remained of my commando, most of them wounded.’

‘The wind was at our backs. We landed to the west of Hirundum and hid in the forest. Cahir was trying to tear off his bandages and was yelling something about an insane girl with green eyes, about the Lion Cub of Cintra, about a witcher who had massacred his men, about the Tower of Gulls and a mage who flew like a bird. He demanded a horse and ordered us to return him to the island, citing the imperial orders, which under the circumstances I had to treat as the ravings of a madman. As we knew, war was already raging in Aedirn, so I considered it more important to swiftly rebuild my depleted commando and resume the fight against the Dh’oine.’

‘Cahir was still with us when I found your secret order in a dead drop. I was astonished. Although Cahir had clearly not completed his mission, there was nothing to suggest he was guilty of treachery. But I did not ponder over it for long, judging that it was your business and that you ought to clear it up. Cahir put up no resistance to being tied up, he was calm and resigned. I ordered him to be placed in a coffin and with the help of a hawker acquaintance delivered to the location designated in the letter. I was not, I admit, inclined to further deplete my commando by providing an escort. I don’t know who murdered your men at the rendezvous point. But only I knew where it was. So if this version of the totally random extermination of your unit doesn’t suit you, search for traitors among your own, because only you and I knew the time and place.’

Faoiltiarna stood up.

‘That is all. All the information I have given here is true. I would not supply you with anything more in the dungeons of Nastrog. The lies and confabulations with which I might try to satisfy the investigating officer and his torturers would actually do more harm than good. I do not know anything more. In particular I don’t know Vilgefortz and Rience’s whereabouts, and neither do I know if your suspicions of betrayal are justified. I also emphatically declare that I know nothing about the princess from Cintra, the genuine or the sham one. I have told you everything I know. I trust that neither Lord de Rideaux nor Stephan Skellen will want to set any more traps for me. The Dh’oine have been trying to capture and kill me for a long, long time, so I have adopted the custom of ruthless extermination of all trap setters. I shall not, in the future, investigate to check if one of the trap setters is, by chance, a subordinate of Vattier or Skellen. I do not have the time nor the desire to make such an investigation. Do I make myself clear?’

Struycken nodded and swallowed.

‘Now take a horse, spy, and get the hell out of my forest.’

‘You mean they were delivering you to the gallows?’ Milva mumbled. ‘Now I understand some of it, but not everything. Why, instead of holing up somewhere, are you following the Witcher? He’s really got it in for you . . . And he’s spared your life twice . . .’

‘Three times.’

‘I saw two of them. Though you weren’t the one who beat the shit out of the Witcher on Thanedd, as I first thought, I don’t think you ought to get in the way of his sword again. There’s a lot about your feud I don’t understand, but you saved me and you’ve got an honest face . . . So I’ll tell you, Cahir, bluntly: when the Witcher talks about the men who took his Ciri to Nilfgaard, he grinds his teeth until sparks fly. And if you spat on him, he would steam.’

‘Ciri,’ he repeated. ‘Sounds nice.’

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘No. My people always called her Cirilla or the Lion Cub of Cintra . . . And when she was with me – for she was once . . . she didn’t say a single word. Even though I saved her life.’

‘Only the devil himself could grasp all this,’ Milva said, exasperated. ‘Your fates are all entangled, Cahir, knotted and mixed up. It’s too much for my head.’

‘And what’s your name?’ he suddenly asked.

‘Milva . . . Maria Barring. But call me Milva.’

‘The Witcher’s heading the wrong way, Milva,’ he offered a moment later. ‘Ciri isn’t in Nilfgaard. The kidnappers didn’t take her to Nilfgaard. If it was a kidnap at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘By the Great Sun,’ Fringilla said, standing in the doorway, tilting her head and looking in astonishment at her friend. ‘What have you done to your hair, Assire?’

‘I washed it,’ Assire var Anahid replied coldly. ‘And styled it. Come in and sit down. Get out of that chair, Merlin. Shoo!’

The sorceress sat down in the chair the black cat had reluctantly vacated, her eyes still fixed on her friend’s coiffure.

‘Stop staring,’ Assire said, touching her bouffant and glistening curls. ‘I decided to make a few changes. Why, I just took your lead.’

‘I was always taken as an oddball and a rebel,’ Fringilla Vigo chuckled. ‘But when they see you in the academy or at court . . .’

‘I’m seldom at court,’ Assire cut her off, ‘and the academy will have to get used to it. This is the thirteenth century. It’s high time we challenged the superstition that dressing up is proof of an enchantress’s flightiness and the superficiality of her mind.’

‘Fingernails too,’ Fringilla said, slightly narrowing her green eyes, which never, ever, missed anything. ‘Whatever next, darling? I hardly recognise you.’

‘A simple spell,’ the enchantress replied coolly, ‘ought to be enough to prove it’s me and no doppelgänger. Cast the spell, if you must. And then let’s move on to the matter in hand. I asked something of you . . .’

Fringilla Vigo stroked the cat, which was rubbing himself against her calf, purring and arching his back, pretending it was a gesture of friendship and not a veiled hint that the black-haired sorceress should get up from the armchair.

‘The same thing Seneschal Ceallach aep Gruffyd asked of you,’ she said, without raising her head.

‘Indeed,’ Assire confirmed in hushed tones, ‘Ceallach visited me, distraught, and asked me to intercede to save his son. Emhyr has ordered him to be captured, tortured and executed. Who else could he turn to except a relative? Mawr, Ceallach’s wife and Cahir’s mother, is my niece, my sister’s youngest daughter. In spite of all that I didn’t promise him anything. Because my hands are tied. Certain circumstances took place recently which do not permit me to draw attention to myself. I shall elucidate. But only after you’ve given me the information I asked you to gather.’

Fringilla Vigo furtively sighed with relief. She had been afraid her friend would want to get involved in the case of Cahir, son of Ceallach, which had ‘gallows’ written all over it. And equally afraid she would be asked for help she couldn’t refuse.

‘Around the middle of July,’ she began, ‘the entire court at Loc Grim had the opportunity to marvel at a fifteen-year-old girl, supposedly the Princess of Cintra, whom Emhyr insisted on referring to as “Your Majesty” during the audience and was treated so kindly there were even rumours of a quick marriage.’

‘So I heard,’ Assire said, stroking the cat, which had given up on Fringilla and was trying to occupy her own armchair instead. ‘This doubtlessly political marriage is still talked about.’

‘But more discreetly and not so often. For the Cintran was moved to Darn Rowan. Prisoners of state, as you know, are often kept in Darn Rowan. Potential imperatrices much less often.’

Assire didn’t comment. She waited patiently, examining her freshly filed and varnished fingernails.

‘You must remember,’ Fringilla Vigo continued, ‘how Emhyr summoned us all three years ago and ordered us to establish the whereabouts of a certain individual. Within the Northern Kingdoms. You must also recall how furious he became when we failed. Albrich – who explained it was impossible to detect anything from such a distance, never mind bypassing protective screens – was severely reprimanded. But that’s not all. A week after the aforementioned audience in Loc Grim, when victory at Aldersberg was being celebrated, Emhyr noticed myself and Albrich in the castle chamber. And graced us with his conversation. The gist of his speech, only somewhat trivialising it, was: “You’re all of you leeches, spongers and idlers. Your conjuring tricks cost me a fortune and there’s nothing to show for it. The task which your entire lamentable academy failed to achieve was carried out in four days by an ordinary astrologist.’

Assire var Anahid snorted disdainfully and continued to stroke the cat.

‘It was easy to discover,’ Fringilla Vigo went on, ‘that the miracle worker was none other than the infamous astrologist Xarthisius.’

‘I take it the subject of the search was the Cintran candidate for the position of Imperatrice. Xarthisius found her. And then what? Was he appointed Secretary of State? Head of the Department of Unfeasible Affairs?’

‘No. He was thrown into a dungeon the following week.’

‘I fear I fail to understand what this has to do with Cahir, son of Ceallach.’

‘Patience. Don’t make me get ahead of myself. This is crucial.’

‘I beg your pardon. Go on.’

‘Do you remember what Emhyr gave us when we began our search three years ago?’

‘A lock of hair.’

‘Precisely,’ Fringilla said, reaching for a small, leather purse. ‘And this is it. A few blonde hairs belonging to a six-year-old girl. I kept the remnants. And it’s worth your knowing that Stella Congreve, Countess of Liddertal, is looking after the Cintran princess who is being kept in isolation in Darn Rowan. Stella happens to be indebted to me for various reasons, so it was easy for me to come by a second lock of hair. And this is it. Somewhat darker, but hair darkens with age. Nonetheless, the locks belong to two totally different people. I’ve examined them and there is no doubt in this respect.’

‘I had expected a revelation of this kind,’ Assire var Anahid admitted, ‘when I heard that the Cintran had been shut up in Darn Rowan. The astrologer either fouled up completely or is implicated in a conspiracy that planned to supply Emhyr with a bogus individual. A conspiracy which will cost Cahir aep Ceallach his head. Thank you, Fringilla. Everything is clear.’

‘Not everything,’ the sorceress said and shook her head of black hair. ‘First of all, it wasn’t Xarthisius who found the Cintran or took her to Loc Grim. The astrologist started on his horoscopes and astromancy after Emhyr realised he had a bogus princess and begun an intensive search for the real one. And the old fool ended up in the dungeon because of a simple mistake in his art or fraud. For he had established the whereabouts of the person Emhyr sought with a radial tolerance of approximately one hundred miles. And that region turned out to be a desert, a savage wilderness somewhere beyond the Tir Tochair massif and the riverhead of the Velda. Stephan Skellen, who was sent there, found nothing but scorpions and vultures.’

‘I wouldn’t have expected much more from Xarthisius. But that won’t affect Cahir’s fate. Emhyr is quick-tempered, but he never sentences anyone to torture or death just like that, without evidence. Someone, as you said yourself, made sure the bogus princess was taken to Loc Grim in place of the real one. Someone came up with a double. So there was a conspiracy and Cahir became mixed up in it. Possibly unwittingly. Which means he was used.’

‘If that was the case, he would have been used until the goal was reached. He would personally have delivered the double to Emhyr. But Cahir has vanished without a trace. Why? His disappearance was sure to have aroused suspicions. Did he fear Emhyr would notice the deception at first glance? For he did. He couldn’t fail to, after all he had a—’

‘A lock of hair,’ Assire cut in. ‘A lock of hair from a six-year-old girl. Fringilla, Emhyr hasn’t been hunting for that girl for three years, but for much longer. It looks as though Cahir has become embroiled in something very nasty, something which began when he was still riding a stick horse and pretending to be a knight. Mmm . . . Leave me those strands of hair. I’d like to test them both thoroughly.’

Fringilla Vigo nodded slowly and narrowed her green eyes.

‘I will. But be cautious, Assire. Don’t get mixed up in any dirty business, because it might draw attention to you. And at the beginning of the conversation you hinted that attention would be inconvenient to you. And promised you’d reveal why.’

Assire var Anahid stood up, walked over to the window and stared at the spires and pinnacles of Nilfgaard – the capital of the Empire, called the City of the Golden Towers – shimmering in the setting sun.

‘You once told me and I remembered it,’ she said, without turning around, ‘that no borders should ever divide magic. That magic should have the highest values, be above all divisions. That what was needed was some kind of . . . secret organisation . . . Something like a convent or a lodge . . .’

‘I am ready,’ said Fringilla Vigo, Nilfgaardian sorceress, breaking the short silence. ‘My mind is made up and I am ready. Thank you for your trust and the distinction. When and where will this lodge meet, my mysterious and enigmatic friend?’

Assire var Anahid, Nilfgaardian sorceress, turned away. The hint of a smile played on her lips.

‘Soon,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain everything to you soon. But first, before I forget . . . Give me the address of your milliner, Fringilla.’

‘There isn’t a single fire,’ Milva whispered, staring at the dark bank beyond the river, gleaming in the moonlight, ‘or a living soul there, I reckon. There were two hundred refugees in the camp. Has no one got off scot-free?’

‘If the imperial troops won, they took them all captive,’ Cahir whispered back. ‘If your boys got the upper hand, they took the refugees with them when they moved on.’

They neared the riverbank and the reeds covering the marsh. Milva trod on something and sprang back, suppressing a scream, at the sight of a stiff arm, covered in leeches, sticking out of the mud.

‘It’s just a dead body,’ Cahir muttered, grabbing her hand. ‘One of ours. A Daerlanian.’

‘Who is he?’

‘One of the Seventh Daerlanian Cavalry Brigade. See the silver scorpion on his sleeve . . .’

‘By the Gods. . .’ The girl shuddered and gripped her bow tightly in her sweating fist. ‘Did you hear that noise? What was it?’

‘A wolf.’

‘Or a ghoul . . . Or some other hell spawn. There must be a whole load of dead bodies in the camp . . . A pox on it, I’m not crossing that river at night!’

‘Fine, we’ll wait until dawn . . . Milva? What’s that strange . . . ?’

‘Regis . . .’ the archer said, stifling a shout at the scent of wormwood, sage, coriander and aniseed. ‘Regis? Is that you?’

‘Yes, it’s me,’ the barber-surgeon replied, noiselessly emerging from the gloom, ‘I was worried about you. But you’re not alone, I see.’

‘Aye.’ Milva released Cahir’s arm, noticing he had already drawn his sword. ‘I’m not alone and he’s not alone any more. But that’s a long story, as some people would say. Regis, what about the Witcher? And Dandelion? And the others? Do you know what’s happened to them?’

‘Indeed I do. Do you have horses?’

‘Yes, they’re hidden in the willows . . .’

‘Then let’s head southwards, down the Chotla. Without delay. We must reach Armeria before midnight.’

‘What about the Witcher and the poet? Are they alive?’

‘Yes. But they’re in a bit of difficulty.’

‘What kind of difficulty?’

‘It’s a long story.’

Dandelion groaned, trying to turn around and get into a slightly more comfortable position. It was, however, an impossible task for someone lying trussed up like a ham to be smoked in a pile of soft wood shavings and sawdust.

‘They didn’t hang us right away,’ he grunted. ‘There’s hope for us still. We aren’t done for yet . . .’

‘Would you mind shutting up?’ the Witcher said, lying back calmly and looking up at the moon, visible through a hole in the roof of the woodshed. ‘Do you know why Vissegerd didn’t hang us right away? Because we’re to be executed publicly, at dawn, while the entire corps are mustered before moving out. For propaganda purposes.’

Dandelion did not respond to that. Geralt only heard him panting with worry.

‘You still have a chance of dodging the drop,’ he added, trying to reassure the poet. ‘Vissegerd simply wants to exact his own private revenge on me; he hasn’t got anything against you. Your friend the count will get you out of trouble, you’ll see.’

‘That’s crap,’ the bard replied, to the Witcher’s astonishment calmly and quite reasonably. ‘Crap, crap, crap. Don’t treat me like a child. For one thing, two hanged men are better for propaganda purposes than one. For another, you don’t let a witness to private revenge live. No, brother, they’ll stretch us both.’

‘That’s enough, Dandelion. Lie there quietly and think up a plan.’

‘What bloody plan?’

‘Any bloody plan.’

The poet’s idle chatter prevented the Witcher from gathering his thoughts, and he had no time to waste. He expected that men from Temerian military intelligence – some of whom must have been present in Vissegerd’s corps – would burst into the woodshed at any moment. Intelligence officers would surely be interested in asking him about various aspects of the events in Garstang on the Isle of Thanedd. Geralt hardly knew any of the details, but he was confident that he would be feeling very, very poorly indeed before the agents accepted this. All his hopes depended on Vissegerd, blinded by the lust for revenge, not having made the Witcher’s capture public. Intelligence officers might want to free the captives from the clutches of the furious marshal in order to take them to headquarters. Or, to be more precise, take whatever was left of them after the first round of interrogation.

The poet, meanwhile, had come up with a plan.

‘Geralt! Let’s pretend we know something important. That we really are spies or something like that. Then—’

‘Dandelion, please.’

‘No? So we could try to bribe the sentries. I have some money hidden away. Doubloons, sewn into the lining of my boot. For a rainy day . . . We’ll summon the sentries . . .’

‘Who’ll take all you have and then beat you up for good measure.’

The poet grumbled, but stopped talking. From the field they heard shouts, the patter of hooves and – what was worse – the smell of army pea soup. At that moment, Geralt would have given all the sterlets and truffles in the world for a bowl of it. The sentries standing outside the shed were talking lazily, chuckling and, from time to time, hawking up and spitting. The sentries were professional soldiers, which could be discerned by their remarkable ability to communicate using sentences constructed entirely of pronouns and coarse expletives.

‘Geralt?’

‘What?’

‘I wonder what’s happened to Milva . . . And Zoltan, and Percival and Regis . . . Did you see them?’

‘No. We can’t rule out their being hacked to death or trampled by horses during the skirmish. The camp was knee-deep in corpses.’

‘I can’t believe,’ Dandelion declared resolutely and with a note of hope in his voice, ‘I can’t believe that crafty buggers like Zoltan and Percival . . . Or Milva . . .’

‘Stop deluding yourself. Even if they did survive, they won’t help us.’

‘Why not?’

‘For three reasons. Firstly, they have their own problems. Secondly, we’re lying tied up in a shed in the middle of a camp of several thousand soldiers.’

‘And the third reason? You mentioned three.’

‘Thirdly,’ the Witcher replied in a tired voice, ‘the monthly quota on miracles was used up when the woman from Kernow found her missing husband.’

‘Over there,’ the barber-surgeon said, indicating the small dots of campfires, ‘is Fort Armeria, at present the camp of the Temerian Army concentrated at Mayena.’

‘Are the Witcher and Dandelion being held prisoner there?’ Milva asked, standing up in her stirrups. ‘Ha, then things are bad . . . There must be hordes of armed men and guards everywhere. Won’t be easy sneaking in there.’

‘You won’t have to,’ Regis responded, dismounting from Pegasus. The gelding gave a long snort and pulled his head away, clearly disgusted by the barber-surgeon’s herbal odour, which made his nostrils tingle.

‘You won’t have to sneak in,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll take care of it. You’ll be waiting with the horses where the river’s sparkling, do you see? Beneath the brightest star in the Seven Goats. The Chotla flows into the Ina there. Once I’ve got the Witcher out of trouble I’ll point him in that direction. And that’s where you’ll meet.’

‘How arrogant is that?’ Cahir muttered to Milva when they came close to each other, dismounting. ‘He’ll get them out of trouble by himself, without anyone’s help. Did you hear that? Who is he?’

‘In truth, I don’t know,’ Milva muttered back. ‘But when it comes to impossible tasks, I believe him. Yesterday, in front of my very eyes, he got a red-hot horseshoe out of a fire with his bare hands . . .’

‘Is he a sorcerer?’

‘No,’ Regis answered from behind Pegasus, demonstrating his exceptionally sensitive hearing. ‘But does it really matter who I am? After all, I haven’t asked for your personal details.’

‘I am Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.’

‘I thank you and am full of admiration.’ The barber-surgeon’s voice had a slight note of scorn. ‘I heard almost no Nilfgaardian accent when you pronounced your Nilfgaardian surname.’

‘I’m not—’

‘Enough!’ Milva cut him off. ‘This isn’t the time for arguing or hesitating. Regis, the Witcher’s waiting to be rescued.’

‘Not before midnight,’ the barber-surgeon said coldly, looking up at the moon. ‘So we have some time to talk. Who is this person, Milva?’

‘That person,’ the archer replied, a little angry and standing up for Cahir, ‘rescued me from a tight spot. That person will tell the Witcher, when he meets him, that he’s going in the wrong direction. Ciri’s not in Nilfgaard.’

‘A revelation indeed,’ the barber-surgeon said, his voice softening. ‘And its source, Sir Cahir, son of Ceallach?’

‘It’s a long story.’

Dandelion had been silent for a long time when one of the sentries suddenly stopped talking in the middle of a curse and the other rasped, or possibly groaned. Geralt knew there had been three on guard, so he listened intently, but the third didn’t utter even the slightest sound.

The Witcher waited, holding his breath, but what came to his ears a moment later was not the creaking of the door to the woodshed being opened by their rescuers. Not in the least. He heard even, soft, choral snoring. The sentries were quite simply asleep on duty.

He breathed out, swore silently, and was just about to lose himself in thoughts about Yennefer when medallion around the Witcher’s neck suddenly vibrated and the air was filled with the scent of wormwood, basil, coriander, sage, aniseed, and the devil only knew what else.

‘Regis?’ he whispered in disbelief, ineffectually trying to lift his head from the wood shavings.

‘Regis,’ Dandelion whispered back, moving around and rustling. ‘No one else reeks like that . . . Where are you? I can’t see you—’

‘Be quiet!’

The medallion stopped vibrating, Geralt heard the poet’s relieved sigh and immediately after the soft hiss of a blade cutting his ropes. A moment later Dandelion gave a moan of pain as his circulation returned, but dutifully tried to suppress it by sticking his fist into his mouth.

‘Geralt,’ the barber-surgeon said, his vague, wavering shadow materialising at the Witcher’s side, and immediately began to cut his bonds. ‘You’ll have to get past the camp guard yourselves. Head towards the east and the brightest star in the Seven Goats. Straight to the Ina. Milva’s waiting for you there with the horses.’

‘Help me get up . . .’

He stood first on one leg and then on the other, biting his fist. Dandelion’s circulation was already back to normal. A moment later the Witcher was also ready for action.

‘How are we going to get out?’ the poet suddenly asked. ‘The sentries at the door are snoring, but they may . . .’

‘No, they won’t,’ Regis interrupted in a whisper. ‘But be careful when you leave. It’s a full moon and the field’s lit by campfires. In spite of it being night the entire camp is bustling, but perhaps that’s a good thing. The corporals of the guard are bored of challenging the sentries. Out you go. Good luck.’

‘What about you?’

‘Don’t worry about me. Don’t wait for me and don’t look back.’

‘But—’

‘Dandelion,’ the Witcher hissed. ‘You’ve been told not to worry about him, got it?’

‘Out you go,’ Regis repeated. ‘Good luck. Until the next time, Geralt.’

The Witcher turned around.

‘Thank you for rescuing us,’ he said. ‘But it would be best if we never met again. Am I making myself clear?’

‘Absolutely. Don’t waste time.’

The sentries were sleeping as they had fallen, snoring and smacking their lips. Not one of them even twitched when Geralt and Dandelion squeezed out through the slightly open door. Neither did any of them react when the Witcher unceremoniously pulled the thick homespun capes from two of them.

‘That’s no ordinary sleep,’ Dandelion whispered.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ Geralt said. Hidden in the dark of the woodshed’s shadow, he looked around.

‘I see.’ The poet sighed. ‘Is Regis a sorcerer?’

‘No. No, not a sorcerer.’

‘He took that horseshoe from the fire. Put the sentries to sleep . . .’

‘Stop wittering and concentrate. We aren’t free yet. Wrap that cape around you and let’s cross the field. If anyone stops us we’re pretending to be soldiers.’

‘Right. If anything happens I’ll say—’

‘We’re pretending to be stupid soldiers. Let’s go.’

They crossed the field, keeping their distance from the soldiers crowded around glowing braziers and campfires. Soldiers were roaming about here and there; two more weren’t conspicuous. They didn’t arouse anyone’s suspicions; no one questioned them or stopped them. They passed beyond the stockade quickly and without any difficulty.

Everything went smoothly; in fact, too smoothly. Geralt became anxious, since he instinctively sensed danger and his anxiety was growing – rather than diminishing – the further they moved from the centre of the camp. He repeated to himself that there was nothing strange in that: they hadn’t drawn attention to themselves in the middle of a military camp that was busy even at night, and the only danger had been that of the alarm being raised, should someone notice the sleeping sentries at the door to the woodshed. Now, however, they were approaching the perimeter, where the sentries had – by necessity – to be vigilant. The fact that they were heading away from the centre of the camp could not be helping them. The Witcher recalled the plague of desertion in Vissegerd’s corps and was certain the guards had orders to watch carefully for anyone trying to abandon the camp.

The moon was shining brightly enough for Dandelion not to have to grope his way. This amount of light meant the Witcher could see as well as during the day, which enabled them to avoid two sentry posts and wait in the bushes for a mounted patrol to pass. There was an alder grove directly in front of them, apparently outside the ring of sentry posts. Everything was still going smoothly. Too smoothly.

Their ignorance of military customs proved to be their undoing.

They were tempted by the low, dark clump of alders, because of the cover it offered. But since time immemorial there have always been soldiers who lie in the bushes when it is their turn to be on guard duty, while the ones who aren’t asleep keep an eye both on the enemy and on their own bloody-minded officers, should any of the latter descend on them with an unexpected inspection.

Geralt and Dandelion had barely reached the alder grove before several dark shapes – and spear blades – loomed up in front of them.

‘Password?’

‘Cintra!’ Dandelion blurted out without hesitation.

The soldiers chuckled as one.

‘Really, boys,’ one of them said, ‘is that the best you can do? If only someone would come up with something original. But no, nothing but “Cintra”. Missing home, are we? Well, the fee’s the same as yesterday.’

Dandelion audibly ground his teeth. Geralt weighed up the situation and their chances. His assessment: decidedly crap.

‘Come on,’ the soldier said, hurrying them. ‘If you want to get through, pay up and we’ll turn a blind eye. And quickly, because the corporal of the guard will be here any second.’

‘’Owd on,’ the poet said, changing his accent and mode of speech. ‘I’ll just sit down and get me boot off, because there’s. . .’

He didn’t manage to say anything else. Four soldiers threw him to the ground. Then two of them, each one seizing one of his legs between theirs, pulled off his boots. The one who’d asked for the password tore the lining from the inside of a bootleg. Something scattered around with a jingle.

‘Gold!’ the leader yelled. ‘Pull the boots off the other one! And summon the corporal!’

However, there was no one to do any boot-pulling or summoning, because half the guard dropped on their knees to search for the doubloons scattered among the leaves while the other half immediately began fighting furiously over Dandelion’s second boot. It’s now or never, Geralt thought, punching the leader in the jaw and then kicking him in the side of his head as he fell. The soldiers who were searching for gold didn’t even notice. Dandelion needed no encouragement to spring up and dash through the bushes, his footwraps flapping. Geralt ran after him.

‘Help! Help!’ the leader of the watch bellowed from the ground, his voice soon after joined by his comrades. ‘Cooorporaaal!’

‘You swine!’ Dandelion yelled back as he fled. ‘Knaves! You stole my money!’

‘Save your breath, dolt! See that forest? Make for it.’

‘Stop them! Stop theeem!’

They ran. Geralt swore furiously, hearing shouts, whistles, neighing and the thudding of hooves. Behind them. And in front of them. His astonishment didn’t last long; one careful look was enough. What he had taken for a forest and a safe haven was an approaching wall of cavalry, surging towards them like a wave.

‘Stop, Dandelion!’ he shouted, then turned back to the patrol galloping in their direction and whistled piercingly through his fingers.

‘Nilfgaard!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Nilfgaard are coming! Back to the camp! Get back to the camp, you fools! Sound the alarm! Nilfgaard!’

The leading rider of the patrol pursuing them reined his horse to a rapid stop, looked towards where Geralt had pointed, screamed in terror and was about to turn back. But Geralt decided he had already done enough for the Cintran lions and Temerian lilies. He leapt at the soldier and dragged him from the saddle with a dextrous tug.

‘Jump on, Dandelion! And hold tight!’

The poet didn’t need to be told twice. The horse sagged a little under the weight of an extra rider, but spurred on by two pairs of heels was soon galloping hard. The approaching swarm of Nilfgaardians now represented a much greater threat than Vissegerd and his corps, so they galloped along the ring of sentry posts, trying to escape from the area where the two armies would clash at any moment. The Nilfgaardians were close, however, and had seen them. Dandelion yelled, then Geralt looked around and saw the dark wall of Nilfgaardian troops beginning to extend black tentacles of pursuit. Without hesitating he steered the horse towards the camp, overtaking the fleeing guards. Dandelion yelled once again, but this time there was no need. The Witcher could also see the cavalry charging at them from the camp. Having been alerted, Vissegerd’s corps had mounted at admirable speed. And Geralt and Dandelion were caught in a trap.

There was no way out. The Witcher changed the direction of their flight once more and urged from the horse all the speed it could muster, trying to slip out of the dangerously narrowing gap between hammer and anvil. When hope dawned that they might just make it, the night air suddenly sang with a whistle of fletchings. Dandelion yelled, this time very loudly indeed, and dug his fingers into Geralt’s sides. The Witcher felt something warm dripping onto his neck.

‘Hold on!’ he shouted, catching the poet by his elbow and drawing him closer to his own back. ‘Hold on, Dandelion!’

‘They’ve killed me!’ the poet howled, impressively loudly for a dead man. ‘I’m bleeding! I’m dying!’

‘Hold on!’

The hail of arrows and quarrels, which was raining down on both armies and had proved to be so disastrous for Dandelion, was also their salvation. The armies under fire seethed and lost momentum, and the gap between the front lines which had been about to draw together remained open just long enough for the heavily snorting horse to whisk the two riders out of the trap. Geralt mercilessly forced his steed to ride hard, for although the trees and safety were looming up in front of them, hooves continued to thunder behind them. The horse grunted and stumbled, but did not stop and they might have escaped had not Dandelion suddenly groaned and lurched backwards, dragging the Witcher out of the saddle with him. Geralt unintentionally tugged on the reins, the horse reared, and the two men tumbled to the ground among some very low pines. The poet thudded onto the dirt and lay still, groaning pathetically. His head and left shoulder were covered in blood, which glistened black in the moonlight.

Behind them, the armies collided with thuds, clangs and screams. But despite the raging battle, their Nilfgaardian pursuers hadn’t forgotten about them. Three cavalrymen were galloping towards them.

The Witcher sprang up, feeling a swelling wave of cold fury and hatred inside him. He jumped out to meet their pursuers, drawing the horsemen’s attention away from Dandelion. But not because he wanted to sacrifice himself for his friend. He wanted to kill.

The leading rider, who had pulled ahead, flew at him with a raised battle-axe, but had no way of knowing he was attacking a witcher. Geralt dodged the blow effortlessly and seized the Nilfgaardian leaning over in the saddle by his cloak, while the fingers of his other hand caught the soldier’s broad belt. He pulled the rider from the saddle with a powerful wrench and fell on him, pinning him to the ground. Only then did Geralt realise he had no weapon. He caught the man by the throat, but couldn’t throttle him because of his iron gorget. The Nilfgaardian struggled, hit him with an armoured gauntlet and gashed his cheek. The Witcher smothered his opponent with his entire body, groped for the misericord in the broad belt, and jerked it out of its sheath. The man on the ground felt it and howled. Geralt fended off the arm with the silver scorpion on the sleeve that was still hitting him and raised the dagger to strike.

The Nilfgaardian screamed.

The Witcher plunged the misericord into his open mouth. Up to the hilt.

When he got to his feet, he saw horses without riders, bodies and a cavalry unit heading away towards the battle. The Cintrans from the camp had dispatched their Nilfgaardian pursuers, and had not even noticed the poet or the two men fighting on the ground in the gloom among the low pine trees.

‘Dandelion! Where were you hit? Where’s the arrow?’

‘In my head . . . It’s stuck in my head . . .’

‘Don’t talk nonsense! Bloody hell, you were lucky . . . It only grazed you . . .’

‘I’m bleeding . . .’

Geralt removed his jerkin and tore off a shirtsleeve. The point of the quarrel had caught Dandelion above the ear, leaving a nasty-looking gash extending to his temple. The poet kept bringing his shaking hand up to the wound and then looking at the blood, which was profusely spattering his hands and cuffs. His eyes were vacant. The Witcher realised he was dealing with a person who, for the first time in his life, had been wounded and was in pain. Who, for the first time in his life, was seeing his own blood in such quantities.

‘Get up,’ he said, wrapping the shirtsleeve quickly and clumsily around the troubadour’s head. ‘It’s nothing. Dandelion, it’s only a scratch . . . Get up, we have to get out of here fast . . .’

The battle on the field raged on in the dark; the clatter of steel, neighing of horses and screams grew louder and louder. Geralt quickly caught two Nilfgaardian steeds, but it turned out one was sufficient. Dandelion managed to get up, but immediately sat down again, groaned and sobbed pitifully. The Witcher lifted him to his feet, shook him back to consciousness and hauled him into the saddle.

Geralt mounted behind the wounded poet and spurred the horse east, to where – above the already visible pale blue streaks of the dawn – hung the brightest star of the Seven Goats constellation.

‘Dawn will be breaking soon,’ Milva said, looking not at the sky but at the glistening surface of the river. ‘The catfish are tormenting the small fry. But there’s neither hide nor hair of the Witcher or Dandelion. Oh, I hope Regis didn’t mess up—’

‘Don’t tempt fate,’ Cahir muttered, adjusting the girth of the recovered chestnut colt.

Milva looked around for a piece of wood to knock on.

‘. . . But it does seem to be like that . . . Whoever encounters your Ciri, it’s as though they’ve put their head on the block . . . That girl brings misfortune . . . Misfortune and death.’

‘Spit that out, Milva.’

She spat obediently, as superstition demanded.

‘There’s such a chill, I’m shivering . . . And I’m thirsty, but I saw another rotting corpse in the river near the bank. Phooey . . . I feel sick . . . I think I’m going to throw up . . .’

‘There you go,’ Cahir said, handing her a canteen. ‘Drink that. And sit down close to me, I’ll keep you warm.’

Another catfish struck a shoal of minnows in the shallows and they scattered near the surface in a silver hail. A bat or nightjar flashed past in a beam of moonlight.

‘Who knows,’ Milva muttered pensively, cuddling up to Cahir, ‘what tomorrow will bring. Who’ll cross that river and who’ll perish.’

‘What will be, will be. Drive those thoughts away.’

‘Aren’t you afraid?’

‘I am. What about you?’

‘I feel sick.’

There was a lengthy pause.

‘Tell me, Cahir, when did you meet Ciri?’

‘For the first time? Three years ago. During the fight for Cintra. I got her out of the city. I found her, beset by fire. I rode through the fire, through the flames and smoke, holding her in my arms. And she was like a flame herself.’

‘And?’

‘You can’t hold a flame in your hands.’

‘If it isn’t Ciri in Nilfgaard,’ she said after a long silence, ‘then who is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

Drakenborg, the Redanian fortress converted into an internment camp for elves and other subversive elements, had some grim traditions, which had evolved during its three years of operation. One of those traditions was dawn hangings. Another was gathering all those under death sentences in a large, common cell, from which they were led out to the gallows at daybreak.

About a dozen of the condemned were grouped together in the cell, and every morning two, three – or occasionally four – of them were hanged. The others waited their turn. A long time. Sometimes as long as a week. The condemned were called Clowns. Because the mood around the death cell was always jolly. Firstly, at meals prisoners were served very thin, sour wine nicknamed ‘Dijkstra Dry’ in the camp, as it was no secret that they could enjoy it at the behest of the head of the Redanian secret service. Secondly, no one was dragged to the sinister, underground Wash House to be interrogated any longer, nor were the warders allowed to maltreat the convicts.

The tradition was also observed that night. It was merry in the cell being occupied by six elves, a half-elf, a halfling, two humans and a Nilfgaardian. Dijkstra Dry was poured onto a single, shared tin plate and lapped up without the use of the arms, since that method gave the greatest chance of at least some intoxication by the gnat’s piss. Only one of the elves, a Scoia’tael from Iorweth’s defeated commando, recently severely tortured in the Wash House, retained his composure and dignity and was busy carving the words ‘Freedom Or Death’ on a post. There were several hundred similar inscriptions on the posts around the cell. The remaining condemned convicts, also in keeping with tradition, sang the Clowns’ Anthem over and over again, a song composed in Drakenborg by an unknown author. Every convict learned the words in the barracks, as the song drifted to them at night from the condemned cell, knowing that the day would come when they would join the choir.

The Clowns dance on the scaffold

Rhythmically twitching and jerking

They sing their song

Of sadness and beauty

And the Clowns have all the fun

Every corpse will recall

When the stool’s kicked away

And his eyes roll up to the sun.

The bolt rattled, the key grated in the lock and the Clowns stopped singing. Warders entering at dawn could only mean one thing: in a moment the choir would be depleted by several voices. The only question was: whose?

The warders entered together. All were carrying ropes to tie the hands of the convicts being led to the scaffold. One sniffed, shoved his cudgel under his arm, unrolled a scroll of parchment and cleared his throat.

‘Echel Trogelton!’

‘Traighlethan,’ the elf from Iorweth’s commando corrected him softly. He looked at the carved slogan once more and struggled to his feet.

‘Cosmo Baldenvegg!’

The halfling swallowed loudly. Nazarian knew Baldenvegg had been imprisoned on charges of acts of sabotage, carried out on the instructions of the Nilfgaardian secret service. However, Baldenvegg had not admitted his guilt and stubbornly maintained he had stolen both cavalry horses on his own initiative to make some money, and that Nilfgaard had nothing to do with it. He had clearly not been believed.

‘Nazarian!’

Nazarian stood up obediently and held his hands out for the warders to bind. When the three of them were being led out, the rest of the Clowns took up the song.

The Clowns dance on the scaffold

Merrily twitching and jerking

And the wind carries their song

The chorus echoing all around . . .

The dawn glowed purple and red, heralding a beautiful, sunny day.

The Clowns’ Anthem, thought Nazarian, was misleading. They could not dance a jaunty jig, since they were not hanged from a gibbet with a cross beam, but from ordinary posts sunk into the ground. They didn’t have stools kicked from under them, but practical, low birch blocks, bearing the marks of frequent use. The song’s anonymous author, who had been executed the previous year, could not have known that when he composed it. Like all the other convicts, he was only acquainted with the details shortly before his death. In Drakenborg the executions were never carried out in public. They were a just punishment and not sadistic vengeance. Those words were also attributed to Dijkstra.

The elf from Iorweth’s commando shook the warders’ hands off, stepped onto the block without hesitation and allowed the noose to be placed around his neck.

‘Long li—’

The block was kicked out from under his feet.

The halfling required two blocks, which were placed one on top of the other. The alleged saboteur did not bother with any grandiloquent cries. His short legs kicked vigorously and then sagged against the post. His head lolled slackly on his shoulder.

When the warders seized Nazarian he suddenly changed his tune.

‘I’ll talk!’ he croaked. ‘I’ll testify! I have important information for Dijkstra!’

‘Bit late for that,’ said Vascoigne, the deputy commander for political affairs at Drakenborg, who was assisting at the execution, doubtingly. ‘The sight of the noose rouses the imagination in every second one of you!’

‘I’m not making it up!’ Nazarian appealed, struggling in the executioners’ arms. ‘I’ve got information!’

Less than an hour later Nazarian was sitting in a seclusion cell, delighting in the beauty of life. A messenger stood at readiness beside his horse, scratching his groin vigorously, and Vascoigne was reading and checking the report which was about to be sent to Dijkstra.

I humbly inform Your Lordship, that the felon by the name of Nazarian, sentenced for an assault on a royal official, has testified to the following: that acting on the orders of a certain Ryens, on the day of the July new moon this year, with two of his accomplices, the elven half-breed Schirrú and Millet, he did take part in the murder of the jurists Codringher and Fenn in the city of Dorian. Millet was killed there, but the half-breed Schirrú murdered the two jurists and set their house on fire. The felon Nazarian shifts all the blame onto the said Schirrú, denies and refutes any suggestion that he committed the murders, but that is probably owing to fear of the gallows. What may interest Your Lordship, however, is that prior to the crime against the jurists being committed, the said malefactors (that is Nazarian, the half-elf Schirrú and Millet) were hunting a witcher, a certain Gerald of Rivia, who had been holding secret meetings with the jurist Codringher. To what end, the felon Nazarian does not know, because neither the aforementioned Ryens, nor the half-elf Schirrú, did divulge the secret to him. But when Ryens was given the report concerning their collusions, he ordered the jurists to be destroyed.

The felon Nazarian further testified that his accomplice Schirrú stole some documents from the jurists, which were later delivered to Ryens at an inn called the Sly Fox in Carreras. What Ryens and Schirrú conversed about there is not known to Nazarian, but the following day the criminal trio travelled to Brugge where, on the fourth day after the new moon, they committed the abduction of a maiden from a red-brick house, on the door of which a pair of brass shears were affixed. Ryens drugged her with a magic potion, and the malefactors Schirrú and Nazarian conveyed her in great haste by carriage to the stronghold of Nastrog in Verden. And now a matter which I commend to Your Lordship’s close attention: the malefactors handed the abducted maid over to the stronghold’s Nilfgaardian commandant, assuring him that the said individual was Cyryla of Cintra. The commandant, as testified by the felon Nazarian, was greatly content with these tidings.

I dispatch the above in strict confidence to Your Lordship by messenger. I shall likewise send an exhaustive report of the interrogation, when the scribe has made a fair copy. I humbly request instructions from Your Lordship as to what to do with the felon Nazarian. Whether to order him stung with a bullwhip, so that he remembers more, or hang him according to regulations.

Your loyal servitor.

Vascoigne signed the report with a flourish, affixed a seal and summoned the messenger.

Dijkstra was acquainted with the contents of the report that evening; Philippa Eilhart by noon of the following day.

By the time the horse carrying the Witcher and Dandelion emerged from the riverside alders, Milva and Cahir were extremely agitated. They had heard the battle, as the water of the Ina carried the sounds a great distance.

As she helped lift the poet down from the saddle, Milva saw Geralt stiffening at the sight of the Nilfgaardian. However, she did not say anything – and neither did the Witcher – for Dandelion was moaning desperately and swooning. They laid him down on the sand, placing a folded-up cloak beneath his head. Milva had just set about changing the blood-soaked makeshift dressing when she felt a hand on her shoulder and smelled the familiar scent of wormwood, aniseed and other herbs. Regis, as was his custom, had appeared unexpectedly, out of thin air.

‘Let me,’ he said, pulling instruments and other paraphernalia from his sizeable medical bag, ‘I’ll take it from here.’

When the barber-surgeon peeled the dressing from the wound, Dandelion groaned pitifully.

‘Relax,’ Regis said, cleansing the wound. ‘It’s nothing. Only blood. Only a little blood . . . Your blood smells nice, poet.’

At precisely that moment the Witcher did something Milva would never have expected. He walked over to the horse and drew a long Nilfgaardian sword from the scabbard fastened under the saddle flap.

‘Move away from him,’ he snarled, standing over the barber-surgeon.

‘The blood smells nice,’ Regis repeated, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the Witcher. ‘I can’t detect in it the smell of infection, which with a head wound could have disastrous consequences. The main arteries and veins are intact . . . This will sting a little.’

Dandelion groaned and took a sharp intake of breath. The sword in the Witcher’s hand vibrated and glistened with light reflected from the river.

‘I’ll put in a few stitches,’ Regis said, continuing to ignore both the Witcher and his sword. ‘Be brave, Dandelion.’

Dandelion was brave.

‘Almost done here,’ Regis said, setting about bandaging the victim’s head. ‘Don’t you worry, Dandelion, you’ll be right as rain. The wound’s just right for a poet, Dandelion. You’ll look like a war hero, with a proud bandage around your head, and the hearts of the maidens looking at you will melt like wax. Yes, a truly poetic wound. Unlike an abdominal wound for instance. Liver all cut up, kidneys and guts mangled, stomach contents and faeces pouring out, peritonitis . . . Right, that's done. Geralt, I’m all yours.’

He stood and the Witcher brought the sword up against his throat, as quick as lightning.

‘Move away,’ he snapped at Milva. Regis didn’t twitch, even though the point of the sword was pressing gently against his neck. The archer held her breath, seeing the barber-surgeon’s eyes glowing in the dark with a strange, cat-like light.

‘Go on,’ Regis said calmly. ‘Thrust it in.’

‘Geralt,’ Dandelion spoke from the ground, totally alert. ‘Are you utterly insane? He saved us from the gallows . . . And patched me up . . .’

‘He saved us and the girl in the camp,’ Milva recalled softly.

‘Be quiet, all of you. You don’t know what he is.’

The barber-surgeon did not move. And Milva suddenly saw what she ought to have seen long before: Regis did not cast a shadow.

‘Indeed,’ he said slowly. ‘You don’t know what I am. And it’s time you did. My name is Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy. I have lived on this earth for four hundred and twenty-eight years according to your reckoning, or six hundred and forty-two years by the elven calendar. I’m the descendant of survivors, unfortunate beings imprisoned here after the cataclysm you call the Conjunction of the Spheres. I’m regarded, to put it mildly, as a monster. As a blood-sucking fiend. And now I’ve encountered a witcher, who earns his living eliminating creatures such as I. And that’s it.’

‘And that is enough,’ Geralt said, lowering the sword. ‘More than enough. Now scram, Emiel Regis Whatever-It-Was. Get out of here.’

‘Astonishing.’ Regis sneered. ‘You’re permitting me to leave? Me, who represents a danger to people? A witcher ought to make use of every opportunity to eliminate dangers of this kind.’

‘Get lost. Make yourself scarce and do it fast.’

‘To which far-flung corner should I make myself scarce?’ Regis asked slowly. ‘You’re a witcher, after all. You know about me. When you’ve dealt with your problem, when you’ve sorted out whatever you need to sort out, you’ll probably return to these parts. You know where I live, where I spend my time, how I earn my keep. Will you come after me?’

‘It’s possible. If there’s a bounty. I am a witcher.’

‘I wish you luck,’ Regis said, fastening his bag and spreading his cape. ‘Farewell. Ah, one more thing. How high would the price on my head have to be in order for you to bother? How high do you value me?’

‘Bloody high.’

‘You tickle my vanity. To be precise?’

‘Fuck off, Regis.’

‘I’m going. But first put a value on me. If you please.’

‘I’ve usually taken the equivalent of a good saddle horse for an ordinary vampire. But you, after all, are not ordinary.’

‘How much?’

‘I doubt,’ the Witcher said, his voice as cold as ice, ‘I doubt whether anyone could afford it.’

‘I understand and thank you,’ the vampire said, smiling. This time he bared his teeth. At the sight, Milva and Cahir stepped back and Dandelion stifled a cry of horror.

‘Farewell. Good luck.’

‘Farewell, Regis. Same to you.’

Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy shook his cape, wrapped himself up in it with a flourish and vanished. He simply vanished.

‘And now,’ Geralt said, spinning around, the unsheathed sword still in his hand, ‘it’s your turn, Nilfgaardian . . .’

‘No,’ Milva interrupted angrily. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of this. To horse, let’s get out of here! Shouts carry over the water and before we know it someone will be hot on our trail!’

‘I’m not going any further in his company.’

‘Go on alone then!’ she yelled, furious. ‘The other way! I’m up to here with your moods, Witcher! You’ve driven Regis away, even though he saved your life, and that’s your business. But Cahir saved me, so we’re comrades! If he’s an enemy to you, go back to Armeria. Suit yourself! Your mates are waiting for you there with a noose!’

‘Stop shouting.’

‘Well, don’t just stand there. Help me get Dandelion onto the gelding.’

‘You rescued our horses? Roach too?’

‘He did,’ she said, nodding towards Cahir. ‘Let’s be going.’

They forded the Ina. They rode along the right-hand bank, alongside the river, through shallow backwaters, through wetlands and old riverbeds, through swamps and marshes resounding with the croaking of frogs and the quacking of unseen mallards and garganeys. The day exploded with red sunlight, blindingly sparkling on the surfaces of small lakes overgrown with water lilies, and they turned towards a point where one of the Ina’s numerous branches flowed into the Yaruga. Now they were riding through tenebrous, gloomy forests, where the trees grew straight from the marsh, green with duckweed.

Milva led the way, riding beside the Witcher, busy giving him an account of Cahir’s story in hushed tones. Geralt was as silent as the grave, never once looking back at the Nilfgaardian, who was riding behind them, helping the poet. Dandelion moaned a little from time to time, swore and complained that his head was hurting, but held out bravely, without slowing down the march. His mood had improved with the recovery of Pegasus and the lute fastened to the saddle.

Around noon they rode out once more into sunny wetlands, beyond which the broad, calm waters of the Great Yaruga stretched out. They forced their way through dried-up riverbeds and waded through shallows and backwaters. And happened upon an island, a dry spot among the marshes and tussocks of grass between the river’s numerous offshoots. The island was overgrown with bushes and willows, and there were a few taller trees growing on it, bare, withered and white from cormorants’ guano.

Milva was the first to notice a boat among the reeds, which must have been deposited there by the current. She was also the first to spot a clearing among the osiers, which was a perfect place for a rest.

They stopped, and the Witcher decided it was time to talk to the Nilfgaardian. Face to face and without witnesses.

‘I spared your life on Thanedd. I felt sorry for you, whippersnapper. It’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. Early this morning I let a higher vampire go, even though he is certain to have several human lives on his conscience. I ought to have killed him. But I couldn’t be bothered with him, for I’m preoccupied with one thought: to get my hands on the people who harmed Ciri. I’ve sworn that those who’ve harmed her will pay for it with their blood.’

Cahir did not speak.

‘Your revelations, which Milva has told me about, don’t change anything. There’s only one conclusion: you were unable to abduct Ciri on Thanedd, despite your best efforts. Now you’re trailing me, so that I can lead you to her. So that you can get your hands on her again, because then your imperator might spare you and not send you to the scaffold.’

Cahir said nothing. Geralt felt bad. Very bad.

‘She cried out in the night because of you,’ he snapped. ‘You grew to nightmarish proportions in her child’s eyes. But actually, you were – and are – only a tool, a wretched minion of your imperator. I don’t know what you did to become a nightmare for her. And the worst thing is I don’t understand why in spite of everything I can’t kill you. I don’t understand what’s holding me back.’

‘Perhaps,’ Cahir said softly, ‘that despite all the circumstances and appearances we have something in common, you and I.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Like you, I want to rescue Ciri. Like you, I don’t care if that surprises or astonishes anybody. Like you, I have no intention of justifying my motives to anybody.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No.’

‘Very well, go on.’

‘Ciri,’ the Nilfgaardian began slowly, ‘is riding a horse through a dusty village. With six other young people. Among those people is a girl with close-cropped hair. Ciri is dancing on a table in a barn and is happy . . .’

‘Milva has told you about my dreams.’

‘No. She hasn’t told me anything. Do you believe me?’

‘No.’

Cahir lowered his head and ground his heel in the sand.

‘I’d forgotten,’ he said, ‘that you can’t believe me, can’t trust me. I understand that. But like you I had one more dream. A dream you haven’t told anyone about. Because I seriously doubt that you’d want to tell anyone about it.’

It could be said that Servadio was simply in luck. He had come to Loredo without intending to spy on anyone in particular. But the village wasn’t called the Bandits’ Lair for no reason. Loredo lay on the Bandits’ Trail, and brigands and thieves from all the regions of the Upper Velda called in there, met up to sell or barter loot, to stock up with provisions and tackle, and relax and enjoy themselves in the select company of fellow criminals. The village had been burnt down several times, but the few permanent and more numerous temporary residents would rebuild it each time. They lived off the bandits, and did very well, thank you. And snoopers and narks like Servadio always had the opportunity to pick up some information there, which might be worth a few florins to the prefect.

This time Servadio was counting on more than just a few. Because the Rats were riding into the village.

They were led by Giselher and flanked by Iskra and Kayleigh. Behind them rode Mistle and the new, flaxen-haired girl they called Falka. Asse and Reef brought up the rear, pulling some riderless horses, doubtlessly stolen with intent to sell. The Rats were tired and dust-covered but bore themselves briskly in the saddle, enthusiastically responding to greetings from the various comrades and acquaintances they happened to see. After dismounting and being given beer, they immediately entered noisy negotiations with traders and fences. All of them except Mistle and the new, flaxen-haired one, who wore a sword slung across her back. These two set off among the stalls, which, as usual, covered the village green. Loredo had its market days and the range of goods on offer (with the visiting bandits in mind) was especially rich and varied then. Today was such a day.

Servadio cautiously followed the girls. In order to make any money, he had to have information, and in order to have information he had to eavesdrop.

The girls looked at colourful scarves, beads, embroidered blouses, saddlecloths and ornate browbands for their horses. They sifted through the goods, but didn’t buy anything. Mistle kept a hand on the fair-haired girl’s shoulder almost the whole time.

The snooper cautiously moved closer, pretending to be looking at the straps and belts on a leatherworker’s stall. The girls were talking, but quietly. He couldn’t hear them and was too afraid to approach them any closer. They might have noticed, grown suspicious.

Candyfloss was being sold at one of the stalls. The girls walked over, Mistle bought two sticks wrapped round with the snow-white sweetmeat and handed one to the flaxen-haired girl. She nibbled it delicately. A white strand stuck to her lip. Mistle wiped it off with a careful, tender movement. The flaxen-haired girl opened her emerald-green eyes widely, slowly licked her lips and smiled, cocking her head playfully. Servadio felt a shudder, a cold trickle running between his shoulder blades. He recalled the rumours going around about the two female bandits.

He was going to withdraw stealthily, since it was clear he wouldn’t pick up any useful information. The girls weren’t talking about anything important. However, not far away, where the senior members of various bandit gangs were gathered, Giselher, Kayleigh and the others were noisily quarrelling, haggling, and yelling, every now and then holding mugs under the tap of a small cask. Servadio was likely to learn more from them. One of the Rats might let something slip, if only a single word, betraying the gang’s current plans, their route or their destination. Should he manage to eavesdrop and supply the information in time to the prefect’s soldiers or the Nilfgaardian spies who showed a lively interest in the Rats, the reward was practically his for the taking. And were the prefect to set a successful trap thanks to his information, Servadio could count on a considerable injection of funds. I’ll buy the old lady a sheepskin coat, he thought feverishly. I’ll finally get the kids some shoes and maybe some toys . . . And for me . . .

The girls wandered between the stalls, licking and nibbling the candyfloss from the sticks. Servadio suddenly noticed they were being watched. And pointed at. He knew who was doing the pointing; footpads and horse thieves from the gang of Pinta, also known as Otterpelt.

The thieves exchanged several provocatively loud comments and cackled with glee. Mistle squinted and placed her hand on the flaxen-haired girl’s shoulder.

‘Turtle doves!’ one of the thieves snorted. He was a beanpole with a moustache like a bunch of oakum. ‘Look, they’ll be billing and cooing next!’ Servadio saw the flaxen-haired girl tense up and noticed that Mistle’s grip on her shoulder tightened. The thieves all chuckled. Mistle turned around slowly and several of them stopped laughing. But the one with the oakum moustache was either too drunk or too lacking in imagination to take the hint.

‘Maybe one of you needs a man?’ he said, moving closer and making obscene, suggestive movements. ‘All you need is a good shag, and you’ll cure that kink in a flash! Hey! I’m talking to you, you—’

He didn’t manage to touch her. The flaxen-haired girl coiled up like an attacking adder, and her sword flashed and struck before the candyfloss she released had hit the ground. The moustachioed thief staggered and gobbled like a turkey, the blood from his butchered neck gushing in a long stream. The girl coiled up again, was on him in two nimble steps and struck once more, a wave of gore splashing the stalls. The corpse toppled over, the sand around it immediately turning red. Someone screamed. A second thief leant over and drew a knife from his bootleg, but at the same moment slumped, struck by Giselher with the metal handle of his knout.

‘One stiff’s enough!’ the Rats’ leader yelled. ‘That one’s only got himself to blame; he didn’t know who he was crossing! Back off, Falka!’

Only then did the flaxen-haired girl lower her sword. Giselher took out a purse and shook it.

‘According to the laws of our brotherhood, I’m paying for the man who was killed. Fairly, according to his weight, a thaler for every pound of the lousy cadaver! And that’ll put an end to the feud! Am I right, comrades? Pinto, what do you say?’

Iskra, Kayleigh, Reef and Asse stood behind their leader. They had faces of stone and held their hands on their sword hilts.

‘That’s fair,’ Otterpelt replied, surrounded by his gang. He was a short, bow-legged man in a leather tunic. ‘You’re right, Giselher. The feud’s over.’

Servadio swallowed, trying to melt into the crowd now gathering at the scene. He swiftly lost all interest in stalking the Rats or the flaxen-haired girl they called Falka. He decided that the reward promised by the prefect was not nearly as high as he’d thought.

Falka calmly sheathed her sword and looked around. Servadio was dumbstruck at the sudden change in her expression.

‘My candyfloss,’ the girl whined miserably, looking at her treat lying soiled in the sand. ‘I dropped my candyfloss . . .’

Mistle hugged her.

‘I’ll buy you another.’

The Witcher sat on the sand among the willows, gloomy, angry and lost in thought. He was looking at the cormorants sitting on the shit-covered tree.

After their conversation, Cahir had vanished into the bushes and had not reappeared. Milva and Dandelion were looking for something to eat. They had managed to find a copper cauldron and a trug of vegetables under some nets in the boat which had been washed up by the current. They set a wicker trap they had found in the boat in a riverside channel, then waded near to the bank and began hitting the rushes with sticks in order to drive fish into it. The poet was now feeling better and was strutting around as proud as a peacock with his heroically bandaged head.

Geralt continued to brood and sulk.

Milva and Dandelion hauled the fish pot out and began to swear, for instead of the catfish and carp they had expected, all they saw was silvery fry wriggling around inside.

The Witcher stood up.

‘Come over here, you two! Leave that trap and come here. I’ve got something to tell you.

‘You’re returning home,’ he began bluntly when they came over, wet and stinking of fish. ‘Head north, towards Mahakam. I’m going on by myself.’

‘What?’

‘Now we must go our separate ways. The party’s over, Dandelion. You’re going home to write poems. Milva will lead you through the forests . . . What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing’s the matter,’ Milva said, tossing her hair from her shoulder with a sudden movement. ‘Nothing. Speak, Witcher. I’d like to hear what you’re going to say.’

‘I don’t have anything else to say. I’ll go south, crossing to the Yaruga’s far bank. Through Nilfgaardian territory. It’ll be a dangerous and long journey. And there’s no time to waste. Which is why I’m going by myself.’

‘Having got rid of the inconvenient baggage.’ Dandelion nodded. ‘The ball and chain slowing down your march and causing so many problems. In other words: me.’

‘And me,’ Milva added, glancing to one side.

‘Listen,’ Geralt said, now much more calmly. ‘This is my own private matter. None of this concerns you. I don’t want you to risk your necks for something that only concerns me.’

‘It only concerns you,’ Dandelion repeated slowly. ‘You don’t need anybody. Company impedes you and slows down your journey. You don’t expect help from anybody and you have no intention of relying on anybody. Furthermore, you love solitude. Have I forgotten anything?’

‘Naturally,’ Geralt replied angrily. ‘You’ve forgotten to swap your empty head for one with a brain. Had that arrow passed an inch to the right, you idiot, the rooks would be pecking out your eyes now. You’re a poet and you’ve got an imagination; so try imagining a scene like that. I repeat: you’re returning north, and I’m heading in the opposite direction. By myself.’

‘Go on then,’ Milva said, and sprang to her feet. ‘I’m not going to plead with you. Go to hell, Witcher. Come on, Dandelion, let’s cook something. I’m starving and listening to him makes me sick.’

Geralt turned his head away. He watched the green-eyed cormorants hanging their wings out to dry on the limbs of the guano-covered tree. He smelled the intense scent of herbs and swore furiously.

‘You’re trying my patience, Regis.’

The vampire, who had suddenly appeared out of thin air, was unconcerned, and sat down alongside the furious witcher.

‘I have to change the poet’s dressing,’ he said calmly.

‘Then go to him. But stay well away from me.’

Regis heaved a sigh, showing no intention of moving away.

‘I was listening to your conversation with Dandelion and the archer,’ he said, not without a hint of mockery in his voice. ‘I have to admit you’ve got a real talent for winning people over. Though the entire world seems to be out to get you, you disregard the comrades and allies wanting to help you.’

‘The world turned upside down. A vampire’s teaching me how to deal with humans. What do you know about humans, Regis? The only thing you know is the taste of their blood. Why am I still talking to you?’

‘The world turned upside down,’ the vampire admitted, deadpan. ‘You are talking to me indeed. Perhaps you’d also like to listen to some advice?’

‘No. No, I wouldn’t. I don’t need to.’

‘True, I’d forgotten. Advice is superfluous to you, allies are superfluous, you’ll get by without any travelling companions. The goal of your expedition is, after all, personal and private. More than that, the nature of the goal demands that you accomplish it alone, in person. The risks, dangers, hardships and constant struggle with doubt must only burden you. For, after all, they are components of the penance, the expiation of guilt you want to earn. A baptism of fire, I’d say. You’ll pass through fire, which burns, but also purges. And you’ll do it alone. For were someone to support you in this, help you, take on even a scrap of that baptism of fire, that pain, that penance, they would, by the same token, impoverish you. They would deprive you of part of the expiation you desire, which would be owed to them for their involvement. After all, it should be your exclusive expiation. Only you have a debt to pay off, and you don’t want to run up debts with other creditors at the same time. Is my logic correct?’

‘Surprisingly so, considering you’re sober. Your presence annoys me, vampire. Leave me alone with my expiation, please. And with my debt.’

‘As you wish,’ Regis said, arising. ‘Sit and think. But I will give you some advice anyway. A sense of guilt, as well as the need for expiation, for a cleansing baptism of fire, aren’t things you can claim an exclusive right to. Life differs from banking because it has debts which are paid off by running up debts with others.’

‘Go away, please.’

‘As you wish.’

The vampire walked off and joined Dandelion and Milva. While Regis changed the dressing the trio debated what to eat. Milva shook the fry from the fish pot and examined the catch critically.

‘There’s nothing for it,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to skewer the little tiddlers on twigs and grill them over the embers.’

‘No,’ Dandelion demurred, shaking his freshly bandaged head, ‘that isn’t a good idea. There are too few of them, and they won’t fill us up. I suggest we make soup.’

‘Fish soup?’

‘By all means. We have enough of these tiddlers and we have salt,’ Dandelion said, counting out the list of ingredients on his fingers. ‘We’ve acquired onions, carrots, parsley root and celery. And a cauldron. If we put it all together we end up with soup.’

‘Some seasoning would come in handy.’

‘Oh.’ Regis smiled, reaching into his bag. ‘No problem there. Basil, pimento, pepper, bay leaves, sage . . .’

‘Enough, enough.’ Dandelion raised his hand, stopping him. ‘That’ll do. We don’t need mandrake in the soup. Right, let’s get to work. Clean the fish, Milva.’

‘Clean them yourself! Ha! Just because you’ve got a woman in the company, it doesn’t mean she’ll slave for you in the kitchen! I’ll bring the water and start the fire. And you can get yourself covered in guts with those weatherfish.’

‘They aren’t weatherfish,’ Regis said. ‘They’re chub, roach, ruff and silver bream.’

‘Ah,’ Dandelion said, unable to keep quiet. ‘I see you know your fish.’

‘I know lots of things,’ Regis replied neutrally, without boasting. ‘I’ve picked up this and that along the way.’

‘If you’re such a scholar,’ Milva said, blowing on the fire again and getting to her feet, ‘use your brain to get these tiddlers gutted. I’m getting the water.’

‘Can you manage a full cauldron? Geralt, help her.’

‘Course I can.’ Milva snorted. ‘And I don’t need his help. He has his own – personal – issues. No one’s to disturb him!’

Geralt turned his head away, pretending not to hear. Dandelion and the vampire skilfully prepared the small fry.

‘This soup’s going to be thin,’ Dandelion said, hanging the cauldron over the fire. ‘We could do with a bigger fish.’

‘Will this do?’ Cahir said, suddenly emerging from the willows carrying a three-pound pike by the gills. It was still flexing its tail and opening and closing its mouth.

‘Oh! What a beauty! Where did you come by that, Nilfgaardian?’

‘I’m not a Nilfgaardian. I come from Vicovaro and my name is Cahir—’

‘All right, all right, we know all that. Now where did you get the pike?’

‘I knocked up a tip-up using a frog as bait. I cast it into a hollow under the bank. The pike took it right away.’

‘Experts to a man,’ Dandelion said, shaking his bandaged head. ‘Pity I didn’t suggest steak, you would have conjured up a cow. But let’s make a start on what we’ve got. Regis, chuck all the fry into the cauldron, heads and tails and all. And the pike needs to be nicely dressed. Know how to, Nilf— Cahir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Get to work then. Geralt, dammit, do you plan to sit there sulking for much longer? Peel the vegetables!’

The Witcher got up obediently and joined them, but stayed ostentatiously well away from Cahir. Before he had time to complain that there wasn’t a knife, the Nilfgaardian – or possibly the Vicovarian – gave him his, taking another from his bootleg. Geralt took it, grunting his thanks.

The teamwork was carried out efficiently. The cauldron full of fingerlings and vegetables was soon bubbling and frothing. The vampire dextrously skimmed off the froth using a spoon Milva had whittled. Once Cahir had dressed and divided up the pike, Dandelion threw the predator’s tail, fins, spine and toothed head into the cauldron and stirred.

‘Mmm, it smells delicious. Once it’s all boiled down, we’ll strain off the waste.’

‘What, through our footwraps?’ Milva said with a grimace, as she whittled another spoon. ‘How can we strain it without a sieve?’

‘But my dear Milva,’ smiled Regis. ‘Don’t say that! We can easily replace what we don’t have with what we do. It’s purely a matter of invention and positive thinking.’

‘Go to hell with your smart-arsed chatter, vampire.’

‘We’ll sieve it through my hauberk,’ Cahir said. ‘Not a problem, it can be rinsed out afterwards.’

‘It should be rinsed out before, too,’ Milva declared, ‘or I won’t eat it.’

The sieving was carried out efficiently.

‘Now throw the pike into the broth, Cahir,’ Dandelion instructed. ‘Smells delicious. Don’t add any more wood, it just needs to simmer. Geralt, where are you shoving that spoon! You don’t stir it now!’

‘Don’t yell. I didn’t know.’

‘Ignorance’ – Regis smiled – ‘is no justification for ill-conceived actions. When one doesn’t know or has doubts it’s best to seek advice . . .’

‘Shut up, vampire!’ Geralt said, stood up and turned his back on them. Dandelion snorted.

‘He’s taken offence, look at him.’

‘That’s him all over,’ Milva said, pouting. ‘He’s all talk. If he doesn’t know what to do, he just talks and gets offended. Haven’t you lot caught on yet?’

‘A long time ago,’ Cahir said softly.

‘Add pepper,’ Dandelion said, licking the spoon and smacking his lips. ‘And some more salt. Ah, now it’s just right. Take the cauldron off the heat. By thunder, it’s hot! I don’t have any gloves . . .’

‘I have,’ Cahir said.

‘And I,’ Regis said, seizing the cauldron from the other side, ‘don’t need any.’

‘Right,’ said the poet, wiping the spoon on his trousers. ‘Well, company, be seated. Enjoy! Geralt, are you waiting for a special invitation? For a herald and a fanfare?’

They sat crowded around the cauldron on the sand and for a long time all that could be heard was dignified slurping, interrupted by blowing on spoons. After half of the broth had been eaten, the cautious fishing out of pieces of pike began, until finally their spoons were scraping against the bottom of the cauldron.

‘Oh, I’m stuffed,’ Milva groaned. ‘It wasn't a bad idea with that soup, Dandelion.’

‘Indeed,’ Regis agreed. ‘What do you say, Geralt?’

‘I say “thank you”,’ the Witcher said, getting up with difficulty and rubbing his knee, which had begun to torment him again. ‘Will that do? Or do you want a fanfare?’

‘He’s always like that,’ the poet said, waving a hand. ‘Take no notice of him. You’re lucky, anyway. I was around when he was fighting with that Yennefer of his; the wan beauty with ebony hair.’

‘Be discreet,’ the vampire admonished Dandelion, ‘and don’t forget he has problems.’

‘Problems,’ said Cahir, stifling a burp, ‘are there to be solved.’

‘Of course they are,’ Dandelion replied. ‘But how?’

Milva snorted, making herself more comfortable on the hot sand.

‘The vampire is a scholar. He’s sure to know.’

‘It’s not about knowledge, but about the skilful examination of the circumstances,’ Regis said calmly. ‘And when the circumstances are examined, we come to the conclusion that we are facing an insoluble problem. The entire undertaking has no chance of success. The likelihood of finding Ciri amounts to zero.’

‘But you can’t say that,’ Milva jibed. ‘We should think positively and use investigation. It’s like it was with that sieve. If we don’t have something, we find a replacement. That’s how I see it.’

‘Until recently,’ the vampire continued, ‘we thought Ciri was in Nilfgaard. Reaching the destination and rescuing her – or abducting her – seemed beyond our powers. Now, after hearing Cahir’s revelations, we have no idea where Ciri is. It’s hard to talk about invention when we have no idea where we should be directing it.’

‘What are we to do, then?’ Milva said, bridling. ‘The Witcher insists on going south . . .’

‘For him’ – Regis laughed – ‘the points of the compass have no great importance. It’s all the same to him which one he chooses, as long as he’s not idle. That is truly a witcher’s principium. The world is full of evil, so it’s sufficient to stride ahead, and destroy the Evil encountered on the way, in that way rendering a service to Good. The rest takes care of itself. To put it another way: being in motion is everything, the goal is nothing.’

‘Baloney,’ Milva commented. ‘I mean, Ciri’s his goal. How can you say she’s nothing?’

‘I was joking,’ the vampire admitted, winking at Geralt’s back, which was still turned away from them. ‘And not very tactfully. I apologise. You’re right, dear Milva. Ciri is our goal. And since we don’t know where she is, it would make sense to find that out and direct our activities accordingly. The case of the Child of Destiny, I observe, is simply pulsating with magic, fate and other supernatural elements. And I know somebody who is extremely knowledgeable about such matters and will certainly help us.’

‘Ah,’ Dandelion said, delighted. ‘Who’s that? Where are they? Far from here?’

‘Closer than the capital of Nilfgaard. In actual fact, really quite close. In Angren. On this bank of the Yaruga. I’m talking about the Druids’ Circle, which has its seat in the forests of Caed Dhu.’

‘Let’s go without delay!’

‘Don’t any of you,’ Geralt said, annoyed, ‘think you should ask me my opinion?’

‘You?’ Dandelion said, turning around. ‘But you haven’t got a clue what you’re doing. You even owe the soup you gobbled down to us. Were it not for us, you’d be hungry. We would be too, had we waited for you to act. That cauldron of soup was the result of cooperation. Of teamwork. The joint efforts of a fellowship united by a common goal. Get it, friend?’

‘How could he get it?’ Milva said, grimacing. ‘He’s just “me, me, by myself, all alone”. A lone wolf! But you can see he’s no hunter, that he’s a stranger to the forest. Wolves don’t hunt alone! Never! A lone wolf, ha, what twaddle, foolish townie nonsense. But he doesn’t understand that!’

‘Oh, he does, he does,’ Regis cut in, smiling through pursed lips, as was his custom.

‘He only looks stupid,’ Dandelion confirmed. ‘But I do keep hoping he’ll finally decide to strain his grey matter. Perhaps he’ll come to some useful conclusions. Perhaps he’ll realise the only activity that’s worth doing alone is wanking.’

Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach remained tactfully silent.

‘The hell with all of you,’ the Witcher finally said, sticking his spoon into his bootleg. ‘The hell with all of you, you cooperative fellowship of idiots, united by a common goal which none of you understand. And the hell with me too.’

This time the others, following Cahir’s example, also remained tactfully silent. Dandelion, Maria Barring, also known as Milva, and Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy.

‘What a company I ended up with,’ Geralt continued, shaking his head. ‘Brothers in arms! A team of heroes! What have I done to deserve it? A poetaster with a lute. A wild and lippy half-dryad, half-woman. A vampire, who’s about to notch up his fifth century. And a bloody Nilfgaardian who insists he isn’t a Nilfgaardian.’

‘And leading the party is the Witcher, who suffers from pangs of conscience, impotence and the inability to take decisions,’ Regis finished calmly. ‘I suggest we travel incognito, to avoid arousing suspicion.’

‘Or raising a laugh,’ Milva added.

The queen replied: ‘Ask not me for mercy, but those whom you wronged with your magic. You had the courage to commit those deeds, now have courage when your pursuers and justice are close at hand. It is not in my power to pardon your sins.’ Then the witch hissed like a cat and her sinister eyes flashed. ‘My end is nigh,’ she shrieked, ‘but yours is too, O Queen. You shall remember Lara Dorren and her curse in the hour of your dreadful death. And know this: my curse will hound your descendants unto the tenth generation.’ Seeing, however, that a doughty heart was beating in the queen’s breast, the evil elven witch ceased to malign her, or try to frighten her with the curse, but began instead to whine for help and mercy like a bitch dog . . .

The Tale of Lara Dorren, as told by the humans

. . . but her begging softened not the stony hearts of the Dh’oine, the merciless, cruel humans. So when Lara, now not begging for mercy for herself, but for her unborn child, caught hold of the carriage door, on the order of the queen the thuggish executioner struck with a sword and hacked off her fingers. And when a severe frost descended in the night, Lara breathed her last on the forested hilltop, giving birth to a tiny daughter, whom she protected with the remains of the warmth still flickering in her. And though she was surrounded by the blizzard, the night and the winter, spring suddenly bloomed on the hilltop and feainnewedd flowers blossomed. Even today do those flowers bloom in only two places: in Dol Blathanna and on the hilltop where Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal perished.

The Tale of Lara Dorren, as told by the elves

CHAPTER SIX

‘I asked you,’ Ciri, who was lying on her back, snapped angrily. ‘I asked you not to touch me.’

Mistle withdrew her hand and the blade of grass she had been tickling Ciri’s neck with, stretched out beside her and gazed up at the sky, placing both hands under her shaven neck.

‘You’ve been acting strangely of late, Young Falcon.’

‘I just want you to stop touching me!’

‘It’s just for fun.’

‘I know,’ Ciri said through pursed lips. ‘Just for fun. It’s always been “just for fun”. But I’ve stopped enjoying it, do you see? For me it’s no fun any more!’

Mistle was silent for a long while, lying on her back and staring at the blue sky riven with ragged streaks of cloud. A hawk circled high above the trees.

‘Your dreams,’ she finally said. ‘It’s because of your dreams, isn’t it? You wake almost every night screaming. What you once lived through now returns in your dreams. I’m no stranger to such things myself.’

Ciri did not answer.

‘You’ve never told me anything about yourself,’ Mistle said, breaking the silence once again. ‘About what you’ve been through. Or where you’re from. Or if you’ve left anyone behind . . .’

Ciri brought a hand up swiftly to her neck, but this time it was only a ladybird.

‘There were a few people,’ she said quietly, not looking at her companion. ‘I mean, I thought there were . . . People who would find me even here, at the end of the world, if they only wanted to . . . Or if they were still alive. Oh, what do you want of me, Mistle? Do you want me to unbosom myself?’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘Good. Because, surely, it’d just be for fun. Like everything else we share.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Mistle said, turning her head away, ‘why you don’t leave, if being with me is so awful.’

‘I don’t want to be alone.’

‘Is that all?’

‘That is a lot.’

Mistle bit her lip. But before she had time to say anything, there was a whistle. They both sprang to their feet, brushing off pine needles, and ran to their horses.

‘The fun’s about to begin,’ said Mistle, leaping into the saddle and drawing her sword. ‘The fun you’ve come to enjoy more than anything, Falka. Don’t think I haven't noticed.’

Ciri angrily kicked her horse with her heels. They hurtled along the side of a ravine at breakneck speed, already hearing the wild whooping of the remaining Rats rushing out of a thicket on the other side of the highway. The pincers of the ambush were closing.

The private audience was over. Vattier de Rideaux, Viscount of Eiddon, head of Imperator Emhyr var Emreis’s military intelligence, left the library, bowing to the Queen of the Valley of Flowers even more politely than courtly protocol demanded. At the same time his bow was very cautious, and his movements deliberate and guarded; the imperial spy’s eyes never left the two ocelots stretched out at the feet of the elven queen. The golden-eyed cats looked languorous and drowsy, but Vattier knew they weren’t cuddly mascots but vigilant guards, ever ready to reduce anyone to a bloody pulp if they tried to come closer to the queen than protocol decreed.

Francesca Findabair, also called Enid an Gleanna, the Daisy of the Valleys, waited until the door was closed behind Vattier, and stroked the ocelots.

‘Very well, Ida,’ she said.

Ida Emean aep Sivney, elven sorceress, one of the free Aen Seidhe from the Blue Mountains, during the audience shrouded by an invisibility spell, materialised in a corner of the library, and smoothed down her dress and vermilion-red hair. The ocelots only reacted with a slight widening of their eyes. Like all cats, they could see what was invisible and could not be deceived by a simple spell.

‘This parade of spies is beginning to annoy me,’ Francesca said with a sneer, finding a more comfortable position on the ebony chair. ‘Henselt of Kaedwen sent me a “consul” not long ago. Dijkstra dispatched a “trade mission” to Dol Blathanna. And now the arch-spy Vattier de Rideaux himself! Oh, and some time ago Stephan Skellen, the Grand Imperial Nobody, was creeping around too. But I didn’t give him an audience. I’m the queen and Skellen’s a nobody. He may hold a position, but he’s a nobody nonetheless.’

‘Stephan Skellen,’ Ida Emean said slowly, ‘visited us too, and was more fortunate. He spoke with Filavandrel and Vanadain.’

‘And like Vattier with me, did he enquire about Vilgefortz, Yennefer, Rience and Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach?’

‘Among other things. It may surprise you, but he was more interested in the original version of Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien’s prophecy, particularly the parts about Aen Hen Ichaer, the Elder Blood. He was also curious about Tor Lara, the Tower of Gulls, and the legendary portal which once connected the Tower of Gulls to Tor Zireael, the Tower of Swallows. How typical of humans, Enid. To expect that, at a single nod, we shall unravel enigmas and mysteries for them which we have been endeavouring to solve for centuries.’

Francesca raised her hand and examined the rings adorning it.

‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘whether Philippa knows about the strange preoccupation of Skellen and Vattier. And of Emhyr var Emreis, whom they both serve.’

‘It would be risky to assume she doesn’t,’ Ida Emean replied, looking keenly at the queen, ‘and to withhold what we know from Philippa and the entire lodge at the council in Montecalvo. It wouldn’t show us in a very favourable light . . . And we want the lodge to come into being. We want to be trusted – we, elven sorceresses – and not to be suspected of playing a double game.’

‘But we are playing a double game, Ida. And playing with fire: with the White Flame of Nilfgaard . . .’

‘Fire burns,’ Ida Emean said, raising her heavily made-up eyes at the queen, ‘but it also purifies. It must be passed through. Risks have to be taken, Enid. The lodge ought to exist, ought to begin functioning. At full strength. Twelve sorceresses, including the one mentioned in the prophecy. Even if it is a game, let us rely on trust.’

‘And if it’s an entrapment?’

‘You know the individuals involved better than I do.’

Enid an Gleanna thought for a while.

‘Sheala de Tancarville,’ she finally said, ‘is a secretive recluse, without any loyalties. Triss Merigold and Keira Metz were loyal but they are now both emigrants, since King Foltest drove all the mages from Temeria. Margarita Laux-Antille cares for her school and nothing besides. Of course, at this moment the last three are heavily under Philippa’s sway, and Philippa is an enigma. Sabrina Glevissig will not give up the political influence she has in Kaedwen, but will not betray the lodge either. She is too attracted by the power it can give her.’

‘And what about Assire var Anahid? And the other Nilfgaardian, whom we shall meet in Montecalvo?’

‘I know little about them.’ Francesca smiled faintly. ‘But once I see them I shall know more. As soon as I see how they are dressed.’

Ida Emean lowered her painted eyelids, but refrained from asking a question.

‘This leaves us with the jade statuette,’ she said a moment later. ‘The still dubious and enigmatic jade figurine mentioned in the Ithlinnespeath, Ithlinne’s Prophecy. I now deem it’s time to allow her to express herself. And to tell her what she may expect. Shall I help you with the decompression?’

‘No, I shall do it myself. You are familiar with reactions to unpacking. The fewer the witnesses, the less painful a blow it will be to her pride.’

Francesca Findabair checked one more time that the entire courtyard was thoroughly isolated from the rest of the palace by a protective field, which hid it from view and muffled its sounds. She lit three black candles planted in candlesticks equipped with parabolic mirrors. The candlesticks stood at points marked out by a circular mosaic pavement depicting the eight signs of Vicca, the elven zodiac, on the symbols indicating Belleteyn, Lammas and Yule. Inside the zodiac circle, the mosaic formed another, smaller circle, dotted with magic symbols and enclosing a pentagram. Francesca placed small, iron tripods on three symbols of the smaller circle, and then on each of them she carefully mounted three crystals. The cut of the crystals’ bases corresponded to the form of the tripods’ tops, which meant their placement could be nothing other than precise, but even so Francesca checked everything several times. She didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

A fountain was trickling nearby, the water gushing from a marble jug held by a marble naiad. It fell into the pool in four streams and made the water lilies, between which goldfish darted, quiver.

Francesca opened a jewellery case, removed a small, waxy jade figurine from it, and placed it precisely at the centre of the pentagram. She withdrew, glanced once again at the grimoire lying on a table, took a deep breath, raised her hands and chanted a spell.

The candles burst into bright flame, the crystals’ facets lit up and sparkled with streaks of light. Those streaks of light shot towards the figurine, which immediately changed colour from green to gold, and a moment later became transparent. The air shimmered with magical energy, which struck against the protective field. Sparks flew from one of the candles, shadows played on the floor, the mosaic came alive and the shapes in it transformed. Francesca did not lower her hands or interrupt the incantation.

The statuette grew at lightning speed, pulsating and throbbing, its structure and shape changing like a cloud of smoke crawling across the floor. The light shining from the crystals pierced the air; movement and congealing matter appeared in the streams of light. A moment later a human body suddenly manifested in the centre of the magical circles. It was the figure of a black-haired woman, lying inertly on the floor.

The candles bloomed with ribbons of smoke and the crystals went out. Francesca lowered her arms, relaxed her fingers and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

The black-haired woman on the floor curled up in a ball and began to scream.

‘What is your name?’ Francesca asked in a breathy voice.

The woman convulsed and howled, both hands clutching her belly.

‘What is your name?’

‘Ye . . . Yennef . . . Yennefeerrr!!! Aaaaaagh . . .’

The elf sighed with relief. The woman continued to squirm and howl, banging her fists against the floor and retching. Francesca waited patiently. And calmly. The woman – a moment earlier a jade figurine – was suffering, that was obvious. And normal. But her mind was undamaged.

‘Well, Yennefer,’ she said after a long pause, interrupting the groans. ‘That ought to do, oughtn’t it?’

Yennefer raised herself onto her hands and knees with obvious effort, wiped her nose with her wrist and looked around vacantly. Her gaze flitted over Francesca, as though the she-elf wasn’t even in the courtyard, then came to rest – and brightened – at the sight of the fountain gushing water. Having crawled up to it with immense difficulty, Yennefer hauled herself over the lip and flopped into the pool with a splash. She choked, began to splutter, cough and spit, until finally, parting the water lilies, she waded to the marble naiad and sat down, leaning back against the pedestal of the statue. The water came up to her breasts.

‘Francesca . . .’ she mumbled, touching the obsidian star hanging from her neck and looking at the she-elf with a slightly clearer gaze. ‘It’s you . . .’

‘It’s me. What do you recall?’

‘You packed me up . . . Hell’s teeth, you packed me up, didn’t you!’

‘I packed you up and then unpacked you. What do you recall?’

‘Garstang . . . Elves. Ciri. You. And the fifty tons suddenly landing on my head . . . Now I know what it was. Artefact compression . . .’

‘Your memory’s working. Good.’

Yennefer lowered her head and looked between her thighs, over which goldfish were darting.

‘The water in the pool will need changing, Enid,’ she mumbled. ‘I just peed in it.’

‘No matter.’ Francesca smiled. ‘But just see if there’s any blood in the water. Compression has been known to damage the kidneys.’

‘Only the kidneys?’ Yennefer said, taking a cautious breath. ‘I don’t think there’s a single undamaged organ in my body . . . At least that’s how I feel. Hell’s teeth, Enid, I really don’t know what I did to deserve this . . .’

‘Get out of the pool.’

‘No. I like it here.’

‘I know. It’s called dehydration.’

‘Degradation. Depredation! Why did you do it to me?’

‘Get out, Yennefer.’

The sorceress stood up with difficulty, holding onto the marble naiad with both hands. She shook off the water lilies, with a sharp tug tore away her dripping dress and stood naked before the fountain, under the gushing streams. After rinsing herself down and drinking deeply, she stepped out of the pool, sat down on the edge, wrung out her hair and looked around.

‘Where am I?’

‘In Dol Blathanna.’

Yennefer wiped her nose.

‘Do the hostilities on Thanedd continue?’

‘No. They ended a month and a half ago.’

‘I must have wronged you greatly,’ Yennefer said a moment later. ‘I must really have got under your skin, Enid. But you can consider us even. You’ve exacted a full revenge, if a little too sadistic. Couldn’t you have just cut my throat?’

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ the elf said, making a face. ‘I packed you up and got you out of Garstang to save your life. We’ll come back to that, but a little later. Here, have this towel. And this sheet. You’ll get a new dress after you’ve bathed – in a suitable place, in a tub full of warm water. You’ve done enough damage to my goldfish.’

Ida Emean and Francesca were drinking wine. Yennefer was drinking sugar water and carrot juice. In huge quantities.

‘To sum up,’ she said, after hearing Francesca’s account. ‘Nilfgaard has defeated Lyria, in an alliance with Kaedwen has dismantled Aedirn, burnt down Vengerberg, subjugated Verden, and is crushing Brugge and Sodden at this very moment. Vilgefortz has disappeared without a trace. Tissaia de Vries has committed suicide, and you’ve become queen of the Valley of Flowers. Imperator Emhyr has rewarded you with a crown and sceptre in exchange for my Ciri, whom he was hunting for so long, and whom he now has in his power and is using as he sees fit. You packed me up and have kept me in a box as a jade statuette for a month and a half. And no doubt expect me to thank you for it.’

‘It would be polite,’ Francesca Findabair replied coldly. ‘On Thanedd there was a certain Rience, who had made it a point of honour to submit you to a slow and cruel death, and Vilgefortz offered to expedite it. Rience pursued you all over Garstang. But he didn’t find you, because you were already a jade figurine safe in my cleavage.’

‘And I was that figurine for forty-seven days.’

‘Yes. While I, if asked, could always reply that Yennefer of Vengerberg was not in Dol Blathanna. Because the question referred to Yennefer, not a statuette.’

‘What changed to induce you finally to unpack me?’

‘A great deal changed. I shall explain forthwith.’

‘First explain something else to me: the Witcher was also on Thanedd. Geralt. Remember, I introduced him to you in Aretuza. How is he?’

‘Please remain calm. He’s alive.’

‘I am calm. Tell me, Enid.’

‘In the space of an hour,’ Francesca said, ‘your Witcher did more than some manage in their entire lives. Put succinctly: he broke Dijkstra’s leg, beheaded Artaud Terranova and slew ten Scoia’tael. Oh, I almost forgot: he also aroused Keira Metz’s unhealthy passions.’

‘Dreadful,’ Yennefer said with a grimace. ‘But Keira will have got over it by now, I imagine. I hope she doesn’t hold a grudge against him. The fact that he didn’t fuck her after inflaming her desire certainly resulted from lack of time, not lack of respect. Please put her mind at ease for me.’

‘You’ll have the chance to do that yourself,’ the Daisy of the Valleys said coldly. ‘And quite soon. Let’s go back, though, to the issues about which you are lamely feigning indifference. Your Witcher was so fervid in his defence of Ciri that he acted very rashly. He attacked Vilgefortz. And Vilgefortz gave him a sound thrashing. The fact that he didn’t kill him certainly resulted from lack of time, not lack of effort. Well? Are you still going to pretend you don’t care?’

‘No,’ Yennefer said, her grimace no longer expressing scorn. ‘No, Enid. I do care. Some people will soon learn how much. You can take my word for it.’

Francesca was no more concerned by Yennefer’s threat than she had been by her mockery.

‘Triss Merigold teleported what was left of the Witcher to Brokilon,’ she stated. ‘As far as I know, the dryads are still healing him. He is said to be recovering now, but it would be better if he didn’t venture out of the forest. He’s being tracked by Dijkstra’s spies and the military intelligence services of all the kings. So are you, for that matter.’

‘What did I do to deserve such attention? I didn’t break anything of Dijkstra’s . . . Oh, keep quiet and let me guess. I vanished without a trace from Thanedd. No one suspects I ended up in your pocket, shrunken down and packed up. Everybody is convinced I escaped to Nilfgaard with my fellow conspirators. Everybody apart from the real conspirators, naturally, but they won’t be correcting that error. For a war is raging, and disinformation is a weapon whose blade must always be kept sharp. And now, forty-seven days later, comes your moment to use that weapon. My house in Vengerberg is burnt to the ground, and I’m being hunted. There’s nothing left to do but join a Scoia’tael commando. Or join the fight for the elves’ freedom in some other way.’

Yennefer sipped her carrot juice, and stared into the eyes of Ida Emean aep Sivney, who still remained peaceful and silent.

‘Well, Mistress Ida, free lady of the Aen Seidhe from the Blue Mountains, have I correctly guessed what’s in store for me? Why are you so tight-lipped?’

‘Because I, Mistress Yennefer,’ the red-headed she-elf answered, ‘say nothing when I have nothing sensible to say. It’s always better than to make unfounded speculations and disguise one’s anxiety with idle talk. Enid, get to the point. Tell Mistress Yennefer what this is all about.’

‘You have my undivided attention,’ Yennefer said, touching the obsidian star hanging from its velvet ribbon. ‘Speak, Francesca.’

The Daisy of the Valleys rested her chin on her interlocked hands.

‘Today,’ she announced, ‘is the second night of the full moon. In a short while, we shall be teleporting to Montecalvo Castle, the seat of Philippa Eilhart. We shall be taking part in a session of an organisation that ought to interest you. After all, you were always of the opinion that magic represents the utmost value, superior to all disputes, conflicts, political choices, personal interests, grudges, sentiments and animosities. It will no doubt gladden you to hear that not long ago the foundations of an institution were laid down. Something like a secret lodge, brought into being exclusively to defend the interests of magic, meant to ensure that magic occupies the place it deserves in the hierarchy of the world. Exercising my privilege to recommend new members to this lodge, I took the liberty of proposing two candidates: Ida Emean aep Sivney and you.’

‘What an unexpected honour,’ Yennefer sneered. ‘From magical oblivion straight to a secret, elite and omnipotent lodge, which stands above personal grudges and resentments. But am I suitable? Will I find sufficient strength of character to rid myself of my grudges against the people who took Ciri from me, cruelly beat a man who is dear to me, and packed—’

‘I am certain,’ the she-elf interrupted, ‘that you will find sufficient strength of character, Yennefer. I know you and know you are not lacking in strength of that kind. Neither are you lacking in ambition, which ought to dispel your doubts about the honour and the advancement which has come your way. If you want, though, I’ll tell you frankly: I’m recommending you to the lodge, because I consider you a person who deserves it and who may render the cause a significant service.’

‘Thank you,’ Yennefer responded, the scornful smirk in no hurry to disappear from her lips. ‘Thank you, Enid. I truly feel the ambition, hubris and self-adoration filling me up. I’m ready to explode at any moment. And that’s before I even begin wondering why you aren’t recommending one more elf from Dol Blathanna or a she-elf from the Blue Mountains instead of me.’

‘You will find out why in Montecalvo,’ Francesca replied coldly.

‘I’d rather find out now.’

‘Tell her,’ Ida Emean muttered.

‘It’s because of Ciri,’ Francesca said after a moment’s thought, raising her inscrutable eyes towards Yennefer. ‘The lodge is interested in her, and no one knows the girl as well as you. You’ll learn the rest when we get there.’

‘Agreed,’ Yennefer said, vigorously scratching a shoulder blade. Her skin, dried out by the compression, was still itching intolerably. ‘Now tell me the names of the other members. Apart from you and Philippa.’

‘Margarita Laux-Antille, Triss Merigold and Keira Metz. Sheala de Tancarville of Kovir. Sabrina Glevissig. And two sorceresses from Nilfgaard.’

‘An international women’s republic?’

‘Let’s say.’

‘They must still think I’m an accomplice of Vilgefortz. Will they accept me?’

‘They accepted me. The rest I leave to you. You will be asked to give an account of your relationship with Ciri. From the very beginning, which – thanks to your witcher – was fifteen years ago in Cintra, and right up until the events of a month and a half ago. Frankness and honesty will be absolutely paramount. And will confirm your loyalty to the lodge.’

‘Who said there’s anything to confirm? Isn’t it too early to talk of loyalty? I’m not even familiar with the statute or programme of this new institution . . .’

‘Yennefer,’ the she-elf interjected, frowning slightly. ‘I’m recommending you to the lodge. But I have no intention of forcing you to do anything. Particularly not to be loyal. You have a choice.’

‘I think I know what it is.’

‘And you would be right. But it is still a free choice. Speaking for myself, I still heartily encourage you to choose the lodge. Trust me; by doing so you’ll be helping Ciri much more effectively than by plunging headlong into a whirl of events, which, I’m guessing, you would love to do. Ciri’s life is in danger. Only our combined efforts can save her. When you have heard what is said in Montecalvo, you’ll realise I was speaking the truth . . . Yennefer, I don’t like the gleam in your eyes. Give me your word you will not try to escape.’

‘No.’ Yennefer shook her head, covering the star on the velvet ribbon with her hand. ‘No, I will not, Francesca.’

‘I must warn you, my dear. All Montecalvo’s stationary portals have a distorting blockade. Anyone who tries to enter or leave without Philippa’s permission will end up in a dungeon lined with dimeritium. You’ll be unable to open your own teleportal without the appropriate components. I don’t want to confiscate your star, because you have to be in full possession of your faculties. But if you try any tricks . . . Yennefer, I cannot allow— The lodge won’t allow you to launch an insane, one-woman attempt to rescue Ciri and seek vengeance. I still have your matrix and the spell’s algorithm. I’ll shrink you and pack you into a jade statuette again. For several months this time. Or years, if necessary.’

‘Thank you for the warning. But I still will not give you my word.’

Fringilla Vigo was putting on a brave face, but she was anxious and stressed. She herself had often reprimanded young Nilfgaardian mages for uncritically yielding to stereotypical opinions and notions. She herself had regularly ridiculed the crude image painted by gossip and propaganda of the typical sorceress from the North: artificially beautiful, arrogant, vain and spoiled to the limits of perversion, and often beyond them. Right now, though, the closer the sequence of teleportals brought her to Montecalvo Castle, the greater she was racked by uncertainty about what she would find when she arrived at the secret lodge meeting. And about what awaited her. Her untrammelled imagination offered up images of impossibly gorgeous women with diamond necklaces resting on naked breasts with rouged nipples, women with moist lips and eyes glistening from the effects of alcohol and narcotics. In her mind’s eye Fringilla could already see the gathering becoming a wild and depraved orgy accompanied by frenzied music, aphrodisiacs, and slaves of both sexes using exotic accessories.

The final teleportal left her standing between two black marble columns, with dry lips, her eyes watering from the magic wind and her hand tightly clenching her emerald necklace, which filled the square neckline. Beside her materialised Assire var Anahid, also visibly agitated. Nevertheless, Fringilla had reason to suppose her friend was feeling uncomfortable owing to her new and unfamiliar outfit: a plain, but very elegant hyacinth dress, complemented with a small, modest alexandrite necklace.

Her anxiety was dispelled at once. It was cool and quiet in the large hall, which was lit by magical lanterns. There was no naked slave beating a drum, nor girls with sequinned pubic mounds dancing on the table. Neither was there the scent of hashish or Spanish fly in the air. Instead the Nilfgaardian enchantresses were welcomed by Philippa Eilhart, the lady of the castle; tastefully dressed, grave, courteous and businesslike. The others approached and introduced themselves and Fringilla sighed with relief. The sorceresses from the North were beautiful, colourful, and sparkled with jewellery, but there was no trace of intoxicating substances or nymphomania in their eyes, which were accentuated by understated make-up. Nor did any of them have naked breasts. Quite the opposite. Two of them had extremely modest gowns, fastened up to the neck: the severe Sheala de Tancarville, dressed in black, and the young Triss Merigold with her blue eyes and exquisite auburn hair. The dark-haired Sabrina Glevissig and the blondes Margarita Laux-Antille and Keira Metz all had low-cut necklines, only slightly more revealing than Fringilla’s.

The wait for other participants was filled by polite conversation, during which all of them had the opportunity to say something about themselves. Philippa Eilhart’s tactful comments and observations swiftly and adroitly broke the ice, although the only ice in the vicinity was on the food table, which was piled high with a mountain of oysters. No other ice could be discerned. Sheala de Tancarville, a scholar, immediately found a great deal of common ground with the scholar Assire var Anahid, while Fringilla quickly warmed towards the bubbly Triss Merigold. The conversation was accompanied by the greedy consumption of oysters. The only person not eating was Sabrina Glevissig, a true daughter of the Kaedwen forests, who took the liberty of expressing a scornful opinion about ‘that slimy filth’ and a yen for a slice of cold venison with plums. Philippa Eilhart, instead of reacting to the insult with haughty coolness, tugged on the bell pull and a moment later meat was brought in inconspicuously and noiselessly. Fringilla’s astonishment was immense. Well, she thought, it takes all sorts.

The teleportal between the columns flared up and vibrated audibly. Utter amazement was painted on Sabrina Glevissig’s face. Keira Metz dropped an oyster and a knife onto the ice. Triss stifled a gasp.

Three sorceresses emerged from the portal. Three she-elves. One with hair the colour of dark gold, one of vermilion and the third of raven black.

‘Welcome, Francesca,’ Philippa said. In her voice was none of the emotion being expressed by her eyes, which, though, she quickly narrowed. ‘Welcome, Yennefer.’

‘I was given the privilege of filling two seats,’ the golden-haired newcomer addressed as Francesca said melodiously, undoubtedly noticing Philippa’s astonishment. ‘Here are my candidates. Yennefer of Vengerberg, who needs no introduction. And Mistress Ida Emean aep Sivney, an Aen Saevherne from the Blue Mountains.’

Ida Emean slightly inclined her head and her mass of red curls and rustled her floating daffodil-yellow dress.

‘May I assume,’ Francesca said, looking around, ‘that we are all here now?’

‘Only Vilgefortz is missing,’ Sabrina Glevissig hissed quietly, but with unfeigned anger, looking askance at Yennefer.

‘And the Scoia’tael hiding in the cellars,’ Keira Metz muttered. Triss froze her with a look.

Philippa made the introductions. Fringilla watched Francesca Findabair with curiosity – Enid an Gleanna, the Daisy of the Valleys, the illustrious Queen of Dol Blathanna, the queen of the elves, who had not long before recovered their country. The rumours about Francesca’s beauty were not exaggerated, thought Fringilla.

The red-headed and large-eyed Ida Emean clearly aroused everybody’s interest, including both sorceresses from Nilfgaard. The free elves from the Blue Mountains maintained contact neither with humans nor with their own kind living closer to humans. The few Aen Saevherne – or Sages – among the free elves were an almost legendary enigma. Few – even among elves – could boast of a close relationship with the Aen Saevherne. Ida did not only stand out in the group by the colour of hair. There was not a single ounce of metal nor a carat of stone in her jewellery; she wore only pearls, coral and amber.

However, the source of the greatest emotions was, unsurprisingly, the third of the new arrivals: Yennefer, dressed in black and white and with raven-black hair, who was no elf despite first impressions. Her arrival in Montecalvo must have been an immense surprise, and a not entirely pleasant one. Fringilla felt an aura of antipathy and hostility emanating from some of the sorceresses.

While the Nilfgaardian sorceresses were being introduced to her, Yennefer let her violet eyes rest on Fringilla. They were tired and had dark circles around them, which even her make-up was unable to hide.

‘We know each other,’ she said, touching the obsidian star hanging from its velvet ribbon.

A heavy silence, pregnant with anticipation, suddenly descended on the chamber.

‘We’ve already met,’ Yennefer spoke again.

‘I don’t recall,’ Fringilla said without looking away.

‘I’m not surprised. But I have a good memory for faces and figures. I saw you from Sodden Hill.’

‘In which case there can be no mistake,’ Fringilla Vigo said and raised her head proudly, sweeping her eyes over all those present. ‘I was at the Battle of Sodden.’

Philippa Eilhart forestalled a response.

‘I was there too,’ she said. ‘And I also have many recollections. I don’t think, however, that excessive straining of the memory or unnecessary rummaging around in it will bring us any benefit here, in this chamber. What we plan to undertake here will be better served by forgetting, forgiving and being reconciled with each other. Do you agree, Yennefer?’

The black-haired sorceress tossed her curly locks away from her forehead.

‘When I finally learn what you’re trying to do here,’ she replied, ‘I’ll tell you what I agree with, Philippa. And what I don’t agree with.’

‘In that case it would be best if we began without delay. Please, would you take your places, ladies.’

The seats at the round table – apart from one – had place cards. Fringilla sat down beside Assire var Anahid, with the unnamed seat on her right separating her from Sheala de Tancarville, beyond whom Sabina Glevissig and Keira Metz took their places. On Assire’s left sat Ida Emean, Francesca Findabair and Yennefer. Philippa Eilhart occupied the place exactly opposite Assire, with Margarita Laux-Antille on her right, and Triss Merigold on her left.

All of the chairs had armrests carved in the shape of sphinxes.

Philippa began. She repeated the welcome and immediately got down to business. Fringilla, to whom Assire had given a detailed report of the lodge’s previous meeting, learned nothing new from the introduction. Neither was she surprised by the declarations made by all the sorceresses to join the lodge, nor the first contributions to the discussion. She was somewhat disconcerted, however, that those first voices related to the war the Empire was waging with the Nordlings, and in particular the operation in Sodden and Brugge which had been begun a short time before, during which the imperial forces had clashed with the Temerian Army. In spite of the lodge’s statutory political neutrality, the sorceresses were unable to hide their views. Some were clearly anxious about the close proximity of Nilfgaard. Fringilla had mixed feelings. She had assumed that such educated people would understand that the Empire was bringing culture, prosperity, order and political stability to the North. On the other hand, though, she didn’t know how she would have reacted herself, were foreign armies approaching her home.

However, Philippa Eilhart had clearly heard enough discussion about military matters.

‘No one is capable of predicting the outcome of this war,’ she said. ‘What is more, predictions of that kind are pointless. It’s time we looked at this matter with a dispassionate eye. Firstly, war is not such a great evil. I’d be more afraid of the consequences of overpopulation, which at this stage of the growth of agriculture and industry would lead to famine. Secondly, war is an extension of the kings’ politics. How many of those who are reigning now will be alive in a hundred years? None of them, that’s obvious. How many dynasties will last? There’s no way of predicting. In a hundred years, today’s territorial and dynastic conflicts, today’s ambitions and hopes will be dust in the history books. But if we don’t protect ourselves, if we allow ourselves to be drawn into the war, nothing but dust will remain of us too. If, however, we look a little beyond the battle flags, if we close our ears to the cries of war and patriotism, we shall survive. And we must survive. We must, because we bear responsibility. Not towards kings and their local interests, focused on the concerns of one kingdom. We are responsible for the whole world. For progress. For the changes which accompany this progress. We are responsible for the future.’

‘Tissaia de Vries would have expressed it differently,’ Francesca Findabair said. ‘She was always concerned with responsibility towards the common man. Not in the future, but here and now.’

‘Tissaia de Vries is dead. Were she alive, she would be here among us.’

‘No doubt,’ the Daisy of the Valleys smiled. ‘But I don’t think she would have agreed with the theory that war is a remedy for famine and overpopulation. Pay attention to the language used here, honourable sisters. We are debating using the Common Speech, which is meant to ease understanding. But for me it’s a foreign language; one becoming more and more foreign. In the language of my mother the expression “the common man” does not exist, and “the common elf” would be a coinage. The late, lamented Tissaia de Vries was concerned with the fate of ordinary humans. To me, the fate of ordinary elves is no less important. I’d gladly applaud the idea of looking ahead and treating today as ephemera. But I’m sorry to state that today paves the way for tomorrow, and without tomorrow there won’t be any future. For you, humans, perhaps the tears I shed over a lilac shrub burnt to ash during the turmoil of war are ridiculous. After all, there will always be lilac shrubs; if not that one, then another. And if there are no more lilac shrubs, well, there’ll be acacia trees. Forgive my botanical metaphors. But kindly note that what is a matter of politics to you humans is a matter of physical survival to the elves.’

‘Politics don’t interest me,’ Margarita Laux-Antille, the rectoress of the academy of magic, announced loudly. ‘I simply do not wish my girls, whose education I’ve dedicated myself to, to be used as mercenaries, pulling the wool over their eyes with slogans about love for one’s homeland. The homeland of those girls is magic; that’s what I teach them. If someone involves my girls in a war, stands them on a new Sodden Hill, they will be lost, irrespective of the result on that battlefield. I understand your reservations, Enid, but we’re here to discuss the future of magic, not issues of race.’

‘We are here to discuss the future of magic,’ Sabrina Glevissig repeated. ‘But the future of magic is determined by the status of sorcerers. Our status. Our importance. The role we play in society. Trust, respect and credibility, general faith in our usefulness, faith that magic is indispensable. The alternative we face seems simple: either a loss of status and isolation in ivory towers, or service. Service even on the hills of Sodden, even as mercenaries . . .’

‘Or as servants and errand girls?’ Triss Merigold cut in, tossing her beautiful hair off her shoulder. ‘With bent backs, ready to leap into action at every wag of the imperial finger? For that’s the role we will be assigned by the Pax Nilfgaardiana, should Nilfgaard conquer us all.’

‘If it does,’ Philippa said with emphasis. ‘Anyhow we won’t have much choice. For we have to serve. But serve magic. Not kings or imperators, not their present politics. Not matters of racial integration, because they are also subject to today’s political goals. Our lodge, my dear ladies, was not brought into being for us to adapt to today’s politics and daily changes on the front line. Or to feverishly search for solutions appropriate to the situation at hand, changing the colour of our skin like chameleons. Our lodge must be active, but its assigned role should be quite the opposite. And carried out using all the means we have at our disposal.’

‘If I understand correctly,’ Sheala de Tancarville said, raising her head, ‘you are persuading us to actively influence the course of events. By fair means or foul? Including illegal measures?’

‘What laws do you speak of? The ones governing the rabble? The ones written in the codices, which we drew up and dictated to the royal jurists? We are only bound by one law. Our own!’

‘I see.’ The sorceress from Kovir smiled. ‘We, then, shall actively influence the course of events. Should the kings’ politics not be to our liking, we’ll simply change it. Correct, Philippa? Or perhaps it’s better to overthrow all those crowned asses at once; dethrone them and drive them out. And seize power at once?’

‘In the past we crowned kings who were convenient to us. Unfortunately we did not put magic on the throne. We have never given magic absolute power. It’s time we corrected that mistake.’

‘You have yourself in mind, of course?’ Sabrina Glevissig said, leaning across the table. ‘On the Redanian throne, naturally? Her Majesty Philippa the First? With Dijkstra as prince consort?’

‘I was not thinking about myself. Nor was I thinking about the Kingdom of Redania. I have in mind the Kingdom of the North, which the Kingdom of Kovir is today evolving into. An empire whose power will be equal to Nilfgaard’s, thanks to which the currently oscillating scales of the world will finally come to rest in equilibrium. An empire ruled by magic, which we shall raise to the throne by marrying the Kovirian crown prince to a sorceress. Yes, you heard correctly, dear sisters; you are looking in the right direction. Yes, here, at this table, in this vacant seat, we shall place the lodge’s twelfth sorceress. And then we shall put her on the throne.’

The silence that fell was broken by Sheala de Tancarville.

‘An ambitious project indeed,’ she said with a hint of derision in her voice. ‘Truly worthy of us all, here seated. It absolutely justifies establishing a lodge of this kind. After all, less lofty tasks, even ones that are tottering on the brink of reality and feasibility, would be an affront to us. That would be like using an astrolabe to hammer in nails. No, no, it is best to set ourselves an utterly impossible task from the start.’

‘Why call it impossible?’

‘Have mercy, Philippa.’ Sabrina Glevissig sighed. ‘No king would ever wed a sorcereress. No society would accept a sorceress on the throne. An ancient custom stands in the way. A foolish one, perhaps, but it is there nevertheless.’

‘There also exist,’ Margarita Laux-Antille added, ‘obstacles of what I would call a technical nature. The sorceress who joined the House of Kovir would have to comply with a large number of conditions, both from our point of view and that of the House of Kovir. Those conditions are mutually exclusive, they contradict each other in obvious ways. Don’t you see that, Philippa? For us this person ought to be schooled in magic, utterly dedicated to magic, comprehending her role and capable of playing it deftly, imperceptibly and without arousing suspicion. Without direction or prompt, without any grey eminences standing in the shadows, against whom rebels always first direct their anger in a revolution. And Kovir itself, without any apparent pressure from us, must also choose her as the wife of the heir to the throne.’

‘That is obvious.’

‘So who do you think Kovir would select, given a free choice? A girl from a royal family, whose royal blood flows back many generations. A very young woman, suitable for a young prince. A girl who is fertile, because this is about a dynasty. Such prerequisites rule you out, Philippa. Rule me out, rule out Keira and Triss even, the youngest among us. They also rule out all the novices at my school, who are anyhow of little interest to us; they are but buds, the colour of whose petals are still unknown. It’s unthinkable that any of them could occupy the twelfth, empty seat at this table. In other words, were Kovir to be afflicted with insanity and willing to marry their prince to a sorceress, we couldn’t find a suitable woman. Who, then, is to be this Queen of the North?’

‘A girl from a royal family,’ Philippa calmly replied, ‘in whose veins flows royal blood, the blood of several great dynasties. Very young and capable of producing offspring. A girl with exceptional magical and prophetic abilities, a carrier of the Elder Blood as the prophecies have heralded. A girl who will play her role with great aplomb without direction, prompt, sycophants or grey eminences, because that is what her destiny demands. A girl, whose true abilities are and will be known only to us: Cirilla, daughter of Princess Pavetta of Cintra, the granddaughter of the Queen Calanthe called the Lioness of Cintra. The Elder Blood, the Icy Flame of the North, the Destroyer and Restorer, whose coming was prophesied centuries ago. Ciri of Cintra, the Queen of the North. And her blood, from which will be born the Queen of the World.’

At the sight of the Rats bursting out of the ambush, two of the horsemen escorting the carriage immediately turned tail and sped away. But they didn’t stand a chance. Giselher, helped by Reef and Iskra, cut off their escape and after a short fight hacked them to pieces. Kayleigh, Asse and Mistle fell on the other two, who were prepared to defend the carriage, and the four spotted horses harnessed to it, desperately. Ciri felt disappointment and overwhelming anger. They hadn’t left anyone for her. It looked as though she would have no one to kill.

But there was still one horseman, riding in front of the carriage as an outrider, lightly armed, on a swift horse. He could have escaped, but hadn’t. He turned back, swung his sword and dashed straight at Ciri.

She let him approach, even somewhat slowing her horse. When he struck, rising up in the stirrups, she leant far out from the saddle, skilfully ducking under his blade, then sat back up, pushing off hard against the stirrups. The horseman was quick and agile and managed to strike again. This time she parried obliquely, and when the sword slid away she struck the horseman in the hand from below with a short lunge, then swung her sword in a feint towards his face. He involuntarily covered his head with his left hand and she deftly turned the sword around in her hand and slashed him in the armpit, a cut she had practised for hours at Kaer Morhen. The Nilfgaardian slid from his saddle, fell to the ground, lifted himself up onto his knees, and howled like an animal, desperately trying to staunch the blood gushing from his severed arteries. Ciri watched him for a moment, as usual fascinated by the sight of a man fiercely fighting death with all his strength. She waited for him to bleed out. Then she rode off without looking back.

The ambush was over. The escort had been dispatched. Asse and Reef stopped the carriage, seizing the reins of the lead pair. The postilion, a young boy in colourful livery, having been pushed from the right lead horse, knelt on the ground, crying and begging for mercy. The coachman threw down the reins and also begged for his life, his hands placed together as though in prayer. Giselher, Iskra and Mistle cantered over to the carriage, and Kayleigh jumped off and jerked the door open. Ciri rode up and dismounted, still holding her blood-covered sword.

In the carriage sat a fat matron in an old-fashioned gown and bonnet, clutching a young and terribly pale girl in a black dress fastened up to the neck with a guipure lace collar. Ciri noticed she had a brooch pinned to her dress. A very pretty brooch.

‘Oh, spotted horses!’ Iskra called, looking at the rig. ‘What beauties! We’ll get a few florins for this four!’

‘And the coachman and postilion,’ Kayleigh said, grinning at the woman and the girl, ‘will pull the carriage to town, once we’ve harnessed them up. And when we come to a hill, these two fine ladies will help!’

‘Highwaymen, sirs!’ the matron in the old-fashioned gown whimpered, clearly more horrified by Kayleigh’s hideous smile than the bloody steel in Ciri’s hand. ‘I appeal to your honour! You surely will not outrage this young maiden.’

‘Hey, Mistle,’ Kayleigh called, smiling derisively, ‘your honour’s being appealed to!’

‘Shut your gob.’ Giselher grimaced, still mounted. ‘Your jokes don’t make anyone laugh. And you, woman, calm down. We’re the Rats. We don’t fight women and we don’t harm them. Reef, Iskra. Unharness the ponies! Mistle, catch our mounts; we’re leaving!’

‘We Rats don’t fight with women.’ Kayleigh grinned once more, staring at the ashen face of the girl in the black dress. ‘We just have some fun with them occasionally, if they have a yen. Well, do you, young lady? You haven’t got an itch between your legs, have you? Please don’t be shy. Just nod your little head.’

‘Show some respect!’ the lady in the old-fashioned gown screamed, her voice faltering. ‘How dare you talk like that to the Much Honoured Baron’s daughter, brigand!’

Kayleigh roared with laughter, then bowed extravagantly.

‘I beg for forgiveness. I didn’t wish to offend. What, mayn’t I even ask?’

‘Kayleigh!’ Iskra called. ‘Come here and stop dallying! Help us unharness these horses! Falka! Move it!’

Ciri couldn’t tear her eyes away from the coat of arms on the carriage doors: a silver unicorn on a black field. A unicorn, she thought. I once saw a unicorn like that . . . When? In another life? Or perhaps it was only a dream.

‘Falka! What’s the matter?’

I am Falka. But I wasn’t always. Not always.

She gathered herself and pursed her lips. I was unkind to Mistle, she thought. I upset her. I have to apologise somehow.

She placed a foot on the carriage steps, staring at the brooch on the pale girl’s dress.

‘Hand it over,’ she said bluntly.

‘How dare you?’ the matron choked. ‘Do you know who you are speaking to? She is the noble-born daughter of the Baron of Casadei!’

Ciri looked around, making sure no one was listening.

‘A Baron’s daughter?’ she hissed. ‘A petty title. And even if the snot were a countess, she ought to curtsy before me, arse close to the ground and head low. Give me the brooch! What are you waiting for? Should I tear it off along with the bodice?’

The silence which fell at the table after Philippa’s declaration was quickly replaced by an uproar. The sorceresses vied with each other to voice their astonishment and disbelief, demanding explanations. Some of them undoubtedly knew a great deal about the prophesied Queen of the North – Cirilla or Ciri – while for others the name was less familiar. Fringilla Vigo didn’t know anything, but she had her suspicions and was lost in conjecture, mainly centred on a certain lock of hair. However, when she asked Assire in hushed tones, the sorceress said nothing and instructed her to remain silent too. Meanwhile, Philippa Eilhart took the floor once again.

‘Most of us saw Ciri on Thanedd, where she delivered prophecy in a trance and caused a great deal of confusion. Some of us are close – or even very close – to her. I have you in mind, in particular, Yennefer. It’s your turn to speak.’

When Yennefer was telling the assembly about Ciri, Triss Merigold looked attentively at her. Yennefer spoke calmly and without emotion, but Triss knew her too well and had known her for too long to be fooled. She had seen her in many situations, including stressful ones, which had exhausted her and led her to the verge of sickness, and occasionally into it. Now, without doubt, Yennefer found herself in such a situation again. She looked distressed, weary and ill.

The sorceress talked, and Triss, who knew both the story and the person it concerned, discreetly observed the audience. Particularly the two sorceresses from Nilfgaard. The utterly transformed Assire var Anahid, now dressed up but still feeling uncertain in her make-up and fashionable dress. And Fringilla Vigo, the younger, friendly, naturally graceful and modestly elegant one, with green eyes and hair as black as Yennefer’s but less luxuriant, cut shorter and brushed down smoothly.

Neither of the Nilfgaardians gave the impression of being lost among the complexities of Ciri’s story, even though Yennefer’s account was lengthy and tangled, beginning with the infamous love affair between Pavetta of Cintra and the young man magically transformed into Urcheon. She recounted Geralt’s role and the Law of Surprise, and the destiny linking the Witcher and Ciri. Yennefer talked about Ciri and Geralt meeting in Brokilon, about the war, about her being lost and found, and about Kaer Morhen. About Rience and the Nilfgaardian agents hunting the girl. About her education in the Temple of Melitele, and about Ciri’s mysterious abilities.

They’re listening with such inscrutable expressions, Triss thought, looking at Assire and Fringilla. Like sphinxes. But they are clearly hiding something. I wonder what. Their astonishment? Since they couldn’t have known who Emhyr had brought to Nilfgaard. Or is it that they’ve known all this for a long time, perhaps even better than we do? Yennefer will soon reach Ciri’s arrival on Thanedd, and the prophecy she gave while in a trance, which sowed so much confusion. About the bloody fighting in Garstang, which left Geralt severely beaten and Ciri abducted.

Then the dissembling will be over, Triss thought, and the masks will fall. Everyone knows that Nilfgaard was behind the events on Thanedd. And when all eyes turn towards you, Nilfgaardians, you won’t have a choice, you’ll have to talk. And then certain matters will be explained and perhaps I shall find out more. Like how Yennefer managed to vanish from Thanedd, and why she suddenly appeared here, in Montecalvo, with Francesca. Who is Ida Emean, she-elf, Aen Saevherne from the Blue Mountains, and what role is she playing here? Why do I have the impression Philippa Eilhart reveals less than she knows, even though she declares her devotion and loyalty to magic, and not to Dijkstra . . . with whom she remains in unceasing contact?

And perhaps I’ll finally learn who Ciri really is. Ciri; the Queen of the North to them, but the flaxen-haired witcher-girl of Kaer Morhen to me. A girl I still think of as a younger sister.

Fringilla Vigo had heard something about witchers: individuals who earned their keep by killing monsters and beasts. She listened attentively to Yennefer’s story and to the sound of her voice, and observed her face. She didn’t let herself be deceived. The strong emotional relationship between Yennefer and Ciri – whom everyone found so fascinating – was clear as day. Interestingly enough, the relationship between the sorceress and the Witcher she had mentioned was equally clear and equally strong. Fringilla began to reflect on this, but was interrupted by raised voices.

She had already worked out that some of the assembled company had been in opposing camps during the rebellion on Thanedd, so was not at all surprised by the antipathy expressed in the form of biting comments, directed at Yennefer as she spoke. Just as an argument seemed inevitable, Philippa Eilhart cut it short by unceremoniously slapping the table, which made the cups jingle.

‘Enough!’ she shouted. ‘Be quiet, Sabrina! Don’t let her goad you, Francesca! That’s quite enough about Thanedd and Garstang. It’s history!’

History, Fringilla thought, with an astonishing sense of hurt. But history, which they – even though they belonged to different camps – had a hand in. They made their mark. They knew what they were doing and why. And we, imperial sorceresses, don’t know anything. We really are like errand girls, who know what they are being sent to do, but don’t know why. It’s good that this lodge is coming into being, she deemed. The devil only knows how it will end, but at least it’s beginning, here and now.

‘Yennefer, continue,’ Philippa summoned.

‘I don’t have anything else to say,’ the black-haired sorceress answered through pursed lips. ‘I repeat: Tissaia de Vries ordered me to bring Ciri to Garstang.’

‘It’s easy to blame the dead,’ Sabrina Glevissig snarled, but Philippa quietened her with a sharp gesture.

‘I didn’t want to meddle in Aretuza’s business,’ Yennefer said, pale and clearly disturbed. ‘I wanted to take Ciri and escape Thanedd. But Tissaia convinced me that the girl’s appearance in Garstang would be a shock to many and that her prophecy would pour oil on troubled waters. I’m not blaming her, however, because I agreed with her then. Both of us made a mistake. Mine was greater, though. Had I left Ciri in Rita’s care . . .’

‘What’s done cannot be undone,’ Philippa interrupted. ‘Anyone can make a mistake. Even Tissaia de Vries. When did Tissaia see Ciri for the first time?’

‘Three days before the conclave began,’ Margarita Laux-Antille replied. ‘In Gors Velen. I also made her acquaintance then. And I knew she was a remarkable individual the moment I saw her!’

‘Extremely remarkable,’ said the previously silent Ida Emean aep Sivney. ‘For the legacy of remarkable blood is concentrated in her. Hen Ichaer, the Elder Blood. Genetic material determining the carrier’s uncommon abilities. Determining the great role she will play. That she must play.’

‘Because that is what elven legends, myths and prophecies demand?’ Sabrina Glevissig asked with a sneer. ‘Since the very beginning, this whole matter has smacked of fairy-tales and fantasies! Now I have no doubts. My dear ladies, I suggest we discuss something important, rational and real for a change.’

‘I bow before sober rationality; the power and source of your race’s great superiority,’ Ida Emean said, smiling faintly. ‘Nonetheless, here, in the company of individuals capable of using a power which does not always lend itself to rational analysis or explanations, it seems somewhat improper to disregard the elves’ prophecies. Neither our race nor our power draws its strength from rationality. In spite of that it has endured for tens of thousands of years.’

‘The genetic material called the Elder Blood, of which we are talking, turned out to be a little less hardy, however,’ Sheala de Tancarville observed. ‘Even elven legends and prophecies, which I in no way disregard, consider the Elder Blood to be utterly atrophied. Extinct. Am I right, Mistress Ida? There is no more Elder Blood in the world. The last person in whose veins it flowed was Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, and we all know the legend of Lara Dorren and Cregennan of Lod.’

‘Not all of us,’ Assire var Anahid said, speaking for the first time. ‘I only studied your mythology cursorily and have never come across that legend.’

‘It is not a legend,’ Philippa Eilhart said, ‘but a true story. And there is one among us who not only knows the tale of Lara and Cregennan very well, but also what came after, which will certainly interest you all. Would you take up the story, Francesca?’

‘From what you say’ – the queen of the elves smiled – ‘it would seem you know this tale no less thoroughly than I do.’

‘Quite possibly. But I would nonetheless ask you to tell it.’

‘In order to test my honesty and loyalty to the lodge,’ Enid an Gleanna said, nodding. ‘Very well. I would ask you all to make yourselves comfortable, for the story will not be a short one.’

‘The story of Lara and Cregennan is a true story, although today it is so overgrown with fairy-tale ornamentation it is difficult to recognise. There is also enormous variance between the legend’s human and elven versions; chauvinism and racial hatred can be heard in both of them, though. Thus I shall refrain from embellishments and limit myself to dry facts. Cregennan of Lod was a sorcerer. Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal was an elven sorceress, an Aen Saevherne, a Sage, one of the carriers of the Elder Blood, which is even mysterious to we elves. The friendship – and later romance – between the two of them was at first joyfully acknowledged by both races, but there soon appeared opponents to their union. Sworn enemies to the idea of melding human and elven magic, who regarded it as betrayal. With the wisdom of hindsight, there were also feuds of a personal nature at work: jealousy and envy. Put simply: Cregennan was assassinated and Lara Dorren, hounded and hunted, died of exhaustion in a wilderness after giving birth to a daughter. The baby was saved by a miracle. She was taken in by Cerro, the Queen of Redania—’

‘Only because she was terrified of the curse Lara cast when she refused to help and drove Lara out into the cold of winter,’ Keira Metz said, butting in. ‘Had Cerro not adopted the child, terrible calamities would have fallen on her and her entire family—’

‘Those are precisely the fantastic ornaments Francesca has dispensed with,’ Philippa Eilhart interrupted. ‘Let us stick to facts.’

‘The prophetic abilities of the Sages of the Elder Blood are facts,’ Ida Emean said, raising her eyes towards Philippa. ‘And the evocative motif of prophecy which appears in every version of the legend is food for thought.’

‘It is now, and it was in the past,’ Francesca confirmed. ‘The rumours of Lara’s curse never died away, and were even recalled seventeen years later when Riannon – the little girl Cerro had adopted – grew into a young woman whose beauty eclipsed even her mother’s legendary looks. She bore the official title of Princess of Redania, and many ruling houses were interested in making a match with her. When Riannon finally chose Goidemar, the young King of Temeria, from among many suitors, it would not have taken much for rumours of the curse to thwart the marriage. However, the rumours only became common knowledge three years after their wedding. During the Falka Rebellion.’

Fringilla, who had never heard of Falka or the rebellion, raised her eyebrows. Francesca noticed it.

‘For the northern kingdoms,’ she explained, ‘these are tragic and bloody events, which live on in the memory, though more than a century has passed. In Nilfgaard, with whom the North had almost no contact at that time, the matter is probably not known so I will take the liberty of briefly restating certain facts. Falka was the daughter of Vridank, the King of Redania, and the issue of a marriage he dissolved when he took a fancy to the beautiful Cerro – the same Cerro who later adopted Lara’s child. A document survives, lengthily and circuitously stating the reasons for the divorce, but a surviving miniature of Vridank’s first wife, an undoubtedly half-elf Kovirian noblewoman with predominantly human traits, says a lot more. It depicts her with the eyes of a deranged hermit, the hair of a drowned corpse and the mouth of a lizard. To cut a long story short: an ugly woman was sent back to Kovir with her year-old daughter, Falka. And soon after, the one and the other were both forgotten.’

‘Falka,’ Enid an Gleanna picked up after a while, ‘gave cause to be remembered five-and-twenty years later, when she launched an uprising and murdered her own father, Cerro and two of her stepbrothers, allegedly with her own hands. The armed rebellion initially broke out as an attempt by the legally firstborn daughter, supported by some of the Temerian and Kovirian nobility, to gain the throne which was rightly hers. But it was soon transformed into a peasants’ revolt of immense proportions. Both sides committed gruesome atrocities. Falka passed into legend as a bloodthirsty demon, although actually it is more likely she simply lost control of the situation and of the slogans displayed on the insurrectionary standards. “Death To Kings”; “Death To Sorcerers”; “Death To Priests, Nobility, Gentry and Anybody Well-To-Do”; and soon after: “Death To Everyone and Everything”, for it became impossible to curb the blood-drenched evil mob. Then the rebellion began to spread to other countries . . .’

‘Nilfgaardian historians have written about that,’ Sabrina Glevissig interrupted with a distinct sneer. ‘And Mistresses Assire and Vigo have undoubtedly read it. Keep it brief, Francesca. Move on to Riannon and the Houtborg triplets.’

‘But of course. Riannon, issue of Lara Dorren, adopted daughter of Cerro, now the wife of Goidemar, King of Temeria, was accidentally seized by Falka’s rebels and imprisoned in Houtborg Castle. She was pregnant at the time of her capture. The castle was still under siege long after the rebellion had been suppressed and Falka executed, but Goidemar finally took it by storm and rescued his wife. And three children: two little girls, who were already walking, and a boy, who was learning to. Riannon had been driven insane. The furious Goidemar put all the captives on the rack and from the shreds of their testimonies, interspersed with groans, constructed a plausible picture.

‘Falka, who had inherited her looks more from her elven grandmother than her mother, had generously bestowed her charms on all her officers in command, from the noblemen to ordinary captains and thugs; by so doing ensuring their faithfulness and loyalty to her. She finally fell pregnant and gave birth to a child, precisely at the same moment that Riannon – who was imprisoned in Houtborg – had twins. Falka ordered her infant to be raised with Riannon’s children. As she was later alleged to have said, only queens were worthy of the honour of being wet nurses to her bastards, and a similar fate would await every queen and princess in the new order Falka would build following her victory.

‘The problem was that no one, not even Riannon, knew which of the “triplets” was Falka’s. It was surmised that it was most likely one of the girls, because Riannon had reputedly given birth to a girl and a boy. I repeat, most likely, since in spite of Falka’s boast the children were suckled by ordinary, peasant wet nurses. Riannon could hardly remember anything when her insanity was finally cured. Yes, she gave birth. Yes, the triplets were occasionally brought to her bed and shown to her. But nothing more.

‘Sorcerers were summoned to examine the triplets and establish which was which. Goidemar was so unwavering that he intended – after ascertaining which was Falka’s bastard – to publicly execute the child. We could not allow it. After the uprising’s suppression, unspeakable brutality had been inflicted on the captured rebels, and it was time to put an end to it. The execution of a child before its second birthday? Can you imagine? What legends would have sprung up! And anyway it had already been rumoured that Falka herself had been born a monster as a result of Lara Dorren’s curse. Nonsense, of course, since Falka had been born before Lara had even met Cregennan. But few people could be bothered to count the years. Pamphlets and other ridiculous documents were written about it and published clandestinely in Oxenfurt Academy. But I will return to the examination Goidemar ordered us to carry out—’

‘Us?’ Yennefer asked, looking up. ‘Who precisely was that?’

‘Tissaia de Vries, Augusta Wagner, Leticia Charbonneau and Hen Gedymdeith,’ Francesca said calmly. ‘I was later added to that body. I was a young sorceress, but a pureblood elf. And my father . . . my biological father, who disowned me . . . he was a Sage. I knew what the Elder Blood gene was.’

‘And that gene was found in Riannon, when you examined her and the king before studying the children,’ Sheala de Tancarville stated. ‘And in two of the children – although to different extents – which allowed Falka’s bastard to be identified. How did you save the child from the king’s wrath?’

‘Very simply,’ the she-elf smiled. ‘By feigning ignorance. We told the king that the matter was complicated, that we were still doing tests, but that tests of that kind demanded time . . . A great deal of time. Goidemar, an irascible but fundamentally good and noble man, quickly cooled down and put no pressure on us while the triplets were growing and running around the palace, bringing joy to the royal couple and the entire court. Amavet, Fiona and Adela. The triplets were as alike as three sparrows. They were watched attentively, of course, and there were frequent suspicions, particularly if one of the children was getting up to mischief. Fiona once tipped the contents of a chamber pot from a window right onto the Great Constable. He called her “a demonic bastard” and kissed goodbye to his post. Sometime later Amavet smeared tallow on the stairs, and then, when a splint was put on the arm of a certain lady-in-waiting, she groaned something about “accursed blood” and soon afterwards said farewell to the court. More lowborn loudmouths made the acquaintance of the whipping post and the horsewhip. Thus everyone swiftly learned to hold their tongues. There was even a baron from an ancient family, who Adela shot in the backside with an arrow, who confined himself to—’

‘That’s enough about the children’s pranks,’ Philippa Eilhart interjected. ‘When was Goidemar finally told the truth?’

‘He was never told. He never asked, which suited us.’

‘But you knew which of the children was Falka’s bastard?’

‘Of course. It was Adela.’

‘Not Fiona?’

‘No. Adela. She died of the plague. The demonic bastard, the accursed blood, the daughter of the diabolical Falka helped the priests in the infirmary beyond the castle walls during an epidemic – in spite of the king’s protests. She caught the plague from the sick children she was treating and died. She was seventeen. A year later her pseudo-brother Amavet became romantically involved with Countess Anna Kameny and was murdered by assassins hired by her husband. The same year Riannon died, distraught and inconsolable after the death of two of her beloved children. Then Goidemar summoned us once more. For the King of Cintra, Coram, was showing an interest in the last of the famous triplets: Princess Fiona. He wanted her to marry his son, also Coram, but knew of the rumours and didn’t want to go ahead with the match in case Fiona was indeed Falka’s bastard. We staked our reputation on the fact that Fiona was a legitimate child. I don’t know if he believed us, but the young couple grew to like each other and thus Riannon’s daughter, Ciri’s great-great-great-grandmother, became the Queen of Cintra.’

‘Introducing your celebrated gene to the Coram dynasty.’

‘Fiona,’ Enid an Gleanna said calmly, ‘was not a carrier of the Elder Blood gene, which we had begun to call the Lara gene.’

‘What do you mean exactly?’

‘Well, Amavet carried the Lara gene, so our experiment went on. For Anna Kameny, who inadvertently caused the death of both her lover and husband, gave birth to twins while still in mourning. A boy and a girl. Their father must have been Amavet, for the baby girl was a carrier. She was named Muriel.’

‘Muriel the Impure?’ Sheala de Tancarville asked in astonishment.

‘She became that much later.’ Francesca smiled. ‘At first she was Muriel the Delightful. Indeed, she was a sweet, charming child. When she was fourteen they were already calling her Doe-Eyed Muriel. Many men drowned in those eyes. She was finally given in marriage to Robert, Count of Garramone.’

‘And the boy?’

‘Crispin. He wasn’t a carrier, so he was of no interest to us. If my memory serves, he fell in combat somewhere, for his passion was warfare.’

‘Just a moment,’ Sabrina said, ruffling her hair vigorously. ‘Wasn’t Muriel the Impure the mother of Adalia the Seer?’

‘Indeed,’ Francesca confirmed. ‘An interesting one, was Adalia. A powerful Source, excellent material for a sorceress. But she didn’t want to be one, unfortunately. She preferred to be a queen.’

‘And the gene?’ Assire var Anahid asked. ‘Did she bear it?’

‘Interestingly not.’

‘As I thought,’ Assire said, nodding. ‘Lara’s gene can only be passed on inviolately down the female line. If the carrier is a man, the gene disappears in the second, or – at most – the third generation.’

‘But wait—’

‘It activates later, however,’ Philippa Eilhart broke in. ‘After all, Adalia, who didn’t have the gene, was Calanthe’s mother, and Calanthe, Ciri’s grandmother, carried the Lara gene.’

‘She was the first carrier after Riannon,’ Sheala de Tancarville said, suddenly joining the discussion. ‘You made a mistake, Francesca. There were two genes. One, the true gene, was latent, quiescent. You were beguiled by Amavet’s powerful, distinct gene. However, what Amavet had wasn’t a gene, but an activator. Mistress Assire is right. The activator travelling down the male line was so faint in Adalia you didn’t identify it at all. Adalia was Muriel’s first child; her later-born definitely didn’t have even a trace of the activator. Fiona’s latent gene would probably also have vanished in her male descendants at most in the third generation. But it didn’t, and I know why.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Yennefer hissed through her teeth.

‘I’m lost,’ Sabrina Glevissig declared. ‘In this tangle of genetics and genealogy.’

Francesca drew a fruit bowl towards herself, held out a hand and murmured a spell.

‘I apologise for this vulgar display of psychokinesis,’ she said with a smile, making a red apple rise high above the table. ‘But the fruit will help me demonstrate your mistake. Red apples are the Lara gene, the Elder Blood. Green apples represent the latent gene. Pomegranates are the pseudo-gene, the activator. Let us begin. This is Riannon, the red apple. Her son, Amavet, is the pomegranate. Amavet’s daughter, Muriel, and his granddaughter, Adalia, are still pomegranates, the last of which is very faint. And here is Fiona’s line, Riannon’s daughter: a green apple. Her son, Corbett, the King of Cintra, is green. Dagorad, Corbett and Elen of Kaedwen’s son, is green too. As you have observed, in two successive generations there are exclusively male descendants. The gene is very weak, and vanishes. So at the very bottom, here, we finish with a pomegranate and a green apple; Adalia, the Princess of Maribor, and Dagorad, the King of Cintra. And the couple’s daughter was Calanthe. A red apple. The revived, powerful Lara gene.’

‘Fiona’s latent gene’ – Margarita Laux-Antille nodded – ‘met Amavet’s activator gene through marital incest. Did no one notice their kinship? Did none of the royal heraldists or chroniclers pay any attention to this blatant incest?’

‘It wasn’t as blatant as it seems. After all, Anna Kameny didn’t advertise that her twins were bastards, because her husband’s family would have deprived her and her children of their coat of arms, titles and fortune. Of course there were persistent rumours, and not just among the peasantry. That’s why they had to search for a husband for Calanthe, who was contaminated by incest, in distant Ebbing, beyond the rumours’ reach.’

‘Add two more red apples to your pyramid, Enid,’ Margarita said. ‘Now, as Mistress Assire has astutely indicated, we can see the reborn Lara gene moving smoothly down the female line.’

‘Yes. Here is Pavetta, Calanthe’s daughter. And Pavetta’s daughter, Cirilla, the sole inheritor of the Elder Blood, carrier of the Lara gene.’

‘The sole inheritor?’ Sheala de Tancarville asked abruptly. ‘You’re very confident, Enid.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Sheala suddenly stood up, snapped her beringed fingers towards the fruit bowl and made the remaining fruit levitate, disrupting Francesca’s model and transforming it into a multi-coloured confusion.

‘This is what I mean,’ she said coldly, pointing at the jumble of fruit. ‘Here we have all of the possible genetic combinations and permutations. And we know as much as we can see here. Namely nothing. Your mistake backfired, Francesca, and it caused an avalanche of errors. The gene only reappeared by accident after a century, during which time we have no idea what may have occurred. Secret, hidden, hushed-up events. Premarital children, extramarital children, adoptive children – even changelings. Incest. The crossbreeding of races, the blood of forgotten ancestors returning in later generations. In short: a hundred years ago you had the gene within arm’s reach, even in your hands. And it gave you the slip. That was a mistake, Enid, a terrible mistake! Too much confusion, too many accidents. Too little control, too little interference in the randomness of it all.’

‘We weren’t dealing,’ Enid an Gleanna said through pursed lips, ‘with rabbits, which we could pair off and put in a hutch.’

Fringilla, following Triss Merigold’s gaze, noticed Yennefer’s hands suddenly clenching her chair’s carved armrests.

So this is what Yennefer and Francesca have in common, Triss thought feverishly, still avoiding her close friend’s gaze. Cynical duplicity. For, after all, pairing off and breeding turned out to be unavoidable. Indeed, their plans for Ciri and the Prince of Kovir, although apparently improbable, are actually quite realistic. They’ve done it before. They’ve placed whoever they wanted on thrones, created the marriages and dynasties they desired and which were convenient for them. Spells, aphrodisiacs and elixirs were all used. Queens and princesses suddenly entered bizarre – often morganatic – marriages, contrary to all plans, intentions and agreements. And later those who wanted children, but ought not to have them, were secretly given contraceptive agents. Those who didn’t want children, but ought to have them, were given placebos of liquorice water instead of the promised agents. Which resulted in all of those improbable connections: Calanthe, Pavetta . . . and now Ciri. Yennefer was involved in this. And now she regrets it. She’s right to. Damn it, were Geralt to find out . . .

Sphinxes, Fringilla Vigo thought. The sphinxes carved on the chairs’ armrests. Yes, they ought to be the lodge’s emblem. Wise, mysterious, silent. They are all sphinxes. They will easily achieve what they want. It’s a trifle for them to marry Kovir off to that Ciri of theirs. They have the power to. They have the expertise. And the means. The diamond necklace around Sabrina Glevissig’s neck is probably worth almost as much as the entire income of forested, rocky Kaedwen. They could easily carry out their plans. But there is one snag . . .

Aha, Triss Merigold thought, at last we’ve reached the topic we should have started with: the sobering and discouraging fact that Ciri is in Nilfgaard, in Emhyr’s clutches. Far away from the plans being hatched here . . .

‘There is no question that Emhyr had been hunting for Cirilla for many years,’ Philippa continued. ‘Everyone assumed his goal was a political union with Cintra and control of the fiefdom which is her legal heritage. However, one cannot rule out that rather than politics it concerns the gene of the Elder Blood, which Emhyr wants to introduce to the imperial line. If Emhyr knows what we do, he may want the prophecy to manifest itself in his dynasty, and the future Queen of the World to be born in Nilfgaard.’

‘A correction,’ Sabrina Glevissig interrupted. ‘It’s not Emhyr who wants it, but the Nilfgaardian sorcerers. They alone were capable of tracking down the gene and making Emhyr aware of its significance. I’m sure the Nilfgaardian ladies here present will want to confirm that and explain their role in the intrigue.’

‘I am astonished,’ Fringilla burst out, ‘by your tendency to search for the threads of intrigue in distant Nilfgaard, while the evidence requires us to search for conspirators and traitors much closer to you.’

‘An observation as blunt as it is apt,’ Sheala de Tancarville said, silencing with a glance Sabrina, who was preparing a riposte. ‘All the evidence suggests that the facts about the Elder Blood were leaked to Nilfgaard from us. Is it possible you’ve forgotten about Vilgefortz, ladies?’

‘Not I,’ Sabrina said, a flame of hatred flaring in her black eyes for a second. ‘I have not forgotten!’

‘All in good time,’ Keira Metz said, flashing her teeth malevolently. ‘But for the moment it’s not about him, but about the fact that Emhyr var Emreis, Imperator of Nilfgaard, has Ciri – and thus the Elder Blood that is so important to us – in his grasp.’

‘The Imperator,’ Assire declared calmly, glancing at Fringilla, ‘doesn’t have anything in his grasp. The girl being held in Darn Rowan is not the carrier of any extraordinary gene. She’s ordinary to the point of commonness. Beyond a shadow of doubt she is not Ciri of Cintra. She is not the girl the Imperator was seeking. For he was clearly seeking a girl who carries the gene; he even had some of her hair. I examined it and found something I didn’t understand; now I do.’

‘So Ciri isn’t in Nilfgaard,’ Yennefer said softly. ‘She’s not there.’

‘She’s not there,’ Philippa Eilhart repeated gravely. ‘Emhyr was tricked; a double was planted on him. I’ve known as much since yesterday. However, I’m pleased by Mistress Assire’s disclosure. It confirms that our lodge is now functioning.’

Yennefer had great difficulty controlling the trembling of her hands and mouth. Keep calm, she told herself. Keep calm; don’t reveal anything; wait for an opportunity. Keep listening. Collect information. A sphinx. Be a sphinx.

‘So it was Vilgefortz,’ Sabrina said, slamming her fist down on the table. ‘Not Emhyr, but Vilgefortz. That charmer, that handsome scoundrel! He duped Emhyr and us!’

Yennefer calmed herself by breathing deeply. Assire var Anahid, the Nilfgaardian sorceress, feeling understandably uncomfortable in her tight-fitting dress, was talking about a young Nilfgaardian nobleman. Yennefer knew who it was and involuntarily clenched her fists. A black knight in a winged helmet, the nightmare from Ciri’s hallucinations . . . She sensed Francesca and Philippa’s eyes on her. However, Triss – whose gaze she was trying to attract – was avoiding her eyes. Bloody hell, Yennefer thought, trying hard to remain impassive, I’ve landed myself in it. What bloody predicament have I tangled the girl up in? Shit, how will I ever be able to look the Witcher in the eye . . . ?

‘Thus, we’ll have a perfect opportunity,’ Keira Metz called in an excited voice, ‘to rescue Ciri and strike at Vilgefortz at the same time. We’ll scorch the ground beneath the rascal’s arse!’

‘Any scorching of ground must be preceded by the discovery of Vilgefortz’s whereabouts,’ Sheala de Tancarville, the sorceress from Kovir whom Yennefer had never felt much affection for, said mockingly. ‘And no one’s managed it so far. Not even some of the ladies sitting at this table, who have devoted both their time and their extraordinary abilities to looking for it.’

‘Two of Vilgefortz’s numerous hideouts have already been found,’ Philippa Eilhart responded coldly. ‘Dijkstra is searching intensively for the remaining ones, and I wouldn’t write him off. Sometimes spies and informers succeed where magic fails.’

One of the agents accompanying Dijkstra looked into the dungeon, stepped back sharply, leant against the wall and went as white as a sheet, looking as though he would faint at any moment. Dijkstra made a mental note to transfer the milksop to office work. But when he looked into the cell himself, he changed his mind. He felt his bile rising. He couldn’t embarrass himself in front of his subordinates, however. He unhurriedly removed a perfumed handkerchief from his pocket, held it against his nose and mouth, and leant over the naked corpse lying on the stone floor.

‘Belly and womb cut open,’ he diagnosed, struggling to maintain his calm and a cold tone. ‘Very skilfully, as if by a surgeon's hand. The foetus was removed from the girl. She was alive when they did it, but it was not done here. Are all of them like that? Lennep, I’m talking to you.’

‘No . . .’ the agent said with a shudder, tearing his eyes away from the corpse. ‘The others had been garrotted. They weren’t pregnant . . . But we shall perform post-mortems . . .’

‘How many were found, in total?’

‘Apart from this one, four. We haven’t managed to identify any of them.’

‘That’s not true,’ Dijkstra countered from behind his handkerchief. ‘I’ve already managed to identify this one. It’s Jolie, the youngest daughter of Count Lanier. The girl who disappeared without a trace a year ago. I’ll take a glance at the other ones.’

‘Some of them are partially burnt,’ Lennep said. ‘They will be difficult to identify . . . But, sire, apart from this . . . we found . . .’

‘Speak. Don’t stammer.’

‘There are bones in that well,’ the agent said, pointing at a hole gaping in the floor. ‘A large quantity of bones. We have not removed or examined them, but we can be sure they all belonged to young women. Were we to ask sorcerers for aid we might be able to identify them . . . and inform those parents who are still looking for their missing daughters . . .’

‘Under no circumstances,’ Dijkstra said, swinging around. ‘Not a word about what’s been found here. To anyone. Particularly not to any mages. I’m beginning to lose faith in them after what I’ve seen here. Lennep, have the upper levels been thoroughly searched? Has nothing been found that might help us in our quest?’

‘Nothing, sire,’ Lennep said and lowered his head. ‘As soon as we received word, we rushed to the castle. But we arrived too late. Everything had burnt down. Consumed by a fearful conflagration. Magical, without any doubt. Only here, in the dungeons, did the spell not destroy everything. I don’t know why . . .’

‘But I do. The fuse wasn’t lit by Vilgefortz, but by Rience or another of the sorcerer’s factotums. Vilgefortz wouldn’t have made such a mistake, he wouldn’t have left anything but the soot on the walls. Oh yes, he knows that fire purifies . . . and covers tracks.’

‘Indeed it does,’ Lennep muttered. ‘There isn’t even any evidence that Vilgefortz was here at all . . .’

‘Then fabricate some,’ Dijkstra said, removing the handkerchief from his face. ‘Must I teach you how it’s done? I know that Vilgefortz was here. Did anything else survive in the dungeons apart from the corpses? What’s behind that iron door?’

‘Step this way, sire,’ the agent said, taking a torch from one of the assistants. ‘I will show you.’

There was no doubt that the magical spark which had been meant to turn everything in the dungeon to ashes had been placed right there, in the spacious chamber behind the iron door. An error in the spell had largely thwarted the plan, but the fire had still been powerful and fierce. The flames had charred the shelves occupying one of the walls, destroyed and fused the glass vessels, turning everything into a stinking mass. The only thing left unaffected in the chamber was a table with a metal top and two curious chairs set into the floor. Curious, but leaving no doubt as to their function.

‘They are constructed,’ Lennep said swallowing, and pointing at the chairs and the clasps attached to them, ‘so as to hold . . . the legs . . . apart. Wide apart.’

‘Bastard,’ Dijkstra snapped through clenched teeth. ‘Damned bastard . . .’

‘We found traces of blood, faeces and urine in the gutter beneath the wooden chair,’ the agent continued softly. ‘The steel one is brand new, most probably unused. I don’t know what to make of it . . .’

‘I do,’ Dijkstra said. ‘The steel one was constructed for somebody special. Someone that Vilgefortz suspected of special abilities.’

‘In no way do I disregard Dijkstra or his secret service,’ Sheala de Tancarville said. ‘I know that finding Vilgefortz is only a matter of time. However, passing over the motif of personal vengeance which seems to fascinate some of you, I’ll take the liberty of observing that it is not at all certain that Vilgefortz has Ciri.’

‘If it’s not Vilgefortz, then who? She was on the island. None of us, as far as I know, teleported her away from there. Neither Dijkstra nor any of the kings have her, we know that for sure. And her body wasn’t found in the ruins of the Tower of Gulls.’

‘Tor Lara,’ Ida Emean said slowly, ‘once concealed a very powerful teleportal. Could the girl have escaped Thanedd through that portal?’

Yennefer veiled her eyes with her eyelashes and dug her nails into the heads of the sphinxes on the chair’s armrests. Keep calm, she thought. Just keep calm. She felt Margarita’s eyes on her, but did not raise her head.

‘If Ciri entered the teleportal in the Tower of Gulls,’ the rectoress of Aretuza said in a slightly altered voice, ‘I fear we can forget our plans and projects. We may never see Ciri again. The now-destroyed portal of Tor Lara was damaged. It's warped. Lethal.’

‘What are we talking about here?’ Sabrina exploded. ‘In order to uncover the teleportal in the tower, in order to see it at all, would require fourth-level magic! And the abilities of a grandmaster would be necessary to activate the portal! I don’t know if Vilgefortz is capable of that, never mind a fifteen-year-old filly. How can you even imagine something like that? Who is this girl, in your opinion? What potential does she hold?’

‘Is it so important,’ Stephan Skellen, also called Tawny Owl, the Coroner of Imperator Emhyr var Emreis said, stretching, ‘what potential she holds, Master Bonhart? Or even if any? I’d rather she wasn’t around at all. And I’m paying you a hundred florins to make my wish come true. If you want, examine her – after killing her or before, up to you. Either way the fee won't change, I give you my solemn word.’

‘And were I to supply her alive?’

‘It still won’t.’

The man called Bonhart twisted his grey whiskers. He was of immense height, but as bony as a skeleton. His other hand rested on his sword the entire time, as though he wanted to hide the ornate pommel of the hilt from Skellen’s eyes.

‘Am I to bring you her head?’

‘No,’ Tawny Owl said, wincing. ‘Why would I want her head? To preserve in honey?’

‘As proof.’

‘I’ll take you at your word. You are well known for your reliability, Bonhart.’

‘Thank you for the recognition,’ the bounty hunter said, and smiled. At the sight of his smile, Skellen, who had twenty armed men waiting outside the tavern, felt a shiver running down his spine. ‘Rarely received, although well deserved. I have to bring the barons and the lords Varnhagens the heads of all the Rats I catch or they won’t pay. If you have no need of Falka’s head, you won’t, I imagine, have anything against my adding it to the set.’

‘To claim the other reward? What about your professional ethics?’

‘Honoured sir,’ Bonhart said, narrowing his eyes, ‘I am not paid for killing, but for the service I render by killing. A service I’ll be rendering both you and the Varnhagens.’

‘Fair enough,’ Tawny Owl agreed. ‘Do whatever you think’s right. When can I expect you to collect the bounty money?’

‘Soon.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The Rats are heading for the Bandit’s Trail, with plans to winter in the mountains. I’ll cut off their route. Twenty days, no more.’

‘Are you certain of the route they’re taking?’

‘They’ve been seen near Fen Aspra, where they robbed a convoy and two merchants. They’ve been prowling near Tyffi. Then they stopped off at Druigh for one night, to dance at a village fair. They finally ended up in Loredo, where your Falka hacked a fellow to pieces, in such a fashion that they’re still talking about it through chattering teeth. Which is why I asked what there is to this Falka.’

‘Perhaps you and she are very much alike,’ Stephan Skellen mocked. ‘But no, forgive me. After all, you don’t take money for killing, but for services rendered. You’re a true craftsman, Bonhart, a genuine professional. A trade, like any other? A job to be done? They pay for it, and everyone has to make a living? Eh?’

The bounty hunter looked at him long and hard. Until Tawny Owl’s smirk finally vanished.

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Everyone has to make a living. Some earn money doing what they’ve learned. Others do what they have to. But not many craftsmen have been as lucky in life as I am: they pay me for a trade I truly and honestly enjoy. Not even whores can say that.’

Yennefer welcomed Philippa’s suggestion of a break for a bite to eat and to moisten throats dried out by speaking with relief, delight and hope. It soon turned out, however, that her hopes were in vain. Philippa quickly dragged away Margarita – who clearly wanted to talk to Yennefer – to the other end of the room, and Triss Merigold, who had drawn closer to her, was accompanied by Francesca. The she-elf unceremoniously controlled the conversation. Yennefer saw anxiety in Triss’s cornflower-blue eyes, however, and was certain that even without witnesses it would have been futile to ask for help. Triss was undoubtedly already committed, heart and soul, to the lodge. And doubtlessly sensed that Yennefer’s loyalty was still wavering.

Triss tried to cheer her up by assuring her that Geralt, safe in Brokilon, was returning to health thanks to the dryads’ efforts. As usual, she blushed at the mention of his name. He must have pleased her back then, Yennefer thought, not without malice. She had never known anyone like him before and she won’t forget him in a hurry. And a good thing too.

She dismissed the revelations with an apparently indifferent shrug of her shoulders. She wasn’t concerned by the fact that neither Triss nor Francesca believed her indifference. She wanted to be alone, and wanted them to see that.

They did just that.

She stood at the far end of the food table, devoting herself to oysters. She ate cautiously, still in pain from her compression. She was reluctant to drink wine, not knowing how she might react.

‘Yennefer?’

She turned around. Fringilla Vigo smiled faintly, looking down at the short knife Yennefer was gripping tightly.

‘I can see and sense,’ she said, ‘that you’d rather prise me open than that oyster. Still no love lost?’

‘The lodge,’ Yennefer replied coolly, ‘demands mutual loyalty. Friendship is not compulsory.’

‘It isn’t and shouldn’t be,’ the Nilfgaardian sorceress said, and looked around the chamber. ‘Friendship is either the result of a lengthy process or is spontaneous.’

‘The same goes for enmity,’ Yennefer said, opening the oyster and swallowing the contents along with some seawater. ‘Occasionally one happens to see another person for only a split second, right before going blind, and one takes a dislike to them instantly.’

‘Oh, enmity is considerably more complicated,’ Fringilla said, squinting. ‘Imagine someone you don’t know at all standing at the top of a hill, and ripping a friend of yours to shreds in front of your eyes. You neither saw them nor know them at all, but you still don’t like them.’

‘So it goes,’ Yennefer said, shrugging. ‘Fate has a way of playing tricks on you.’

‘Fate,’ Fringilla said quietly, ‘is unpredictable indeed, like a mischievous child. Friends sometimes turn their backs on us, while an enemy comes in useful. You can, for example, talk to them face to face. No one tries to interfere, no one interrupts or eavesdrops. Everyone wonders what the two enemies could possibly be talking about. About nothing important. Why, they’re mouthing platitudes and twisting the occasional barb.’

‘No doubt,’ Yennefer said, nodding, ‘that’s what everyone thinks. And they’re absolutely right.’

‘Which means it’ll be even easier,’ Fringilla said, quite relaxed, ‘to bring up a particularly important and remarkable matter.’

‘What matter would that be?’

‘That of the escape attempt you’re planning.’

Yennefer, who was opening another oyster, almost cut her finger. She looked around furtively, and then glanced at the Nilfgaardian from under her eyelashes. Fringilla Vigo smiled slightly.

‘Be so kind as to lend me the knife. To open an oyster. Your oysters are excellent. It’s not easy for us to get such good ones in the south. Particularly not now, during the wartime blockade . . . A blockade is a very bad thing, isn’t it?’

Yennefer gave a slight cough.

‘I’ve noticed,’ Fringilla said, swallowing the oyster and reaching for another. ‘Yes, Philippa’s looking at us. Assire too, probably worrying about my loyalty to the lodge. My endangered loyalty. She’s liable to think I’ll yield to sympathy. Let us see . . . Your sweetheart was seriously injured. The girl you treat as a daughter has disappeared, is possibly being imprisoned . . . perhaps her life’s in danger. Or perhaps she’ll just be played as a card in a rigged game? I swear, I couldn’t stand it. I’d flee at once. Please, take the knife back. That’s enough oysters, I have to watch my figure.’

‘A blockade, as you have deigned to observe,’ Yennefer whispered, looking into the Nilfgaardian sorceress’s eyes, ‘is a very bad thing. Simply beastly. It doesn’t allow one to do what one wants. But a blockade can be overcome, if one has . . . the means. Which I don’t.’

‘Do you expect me to give the means to you?’ the Nilfgaardian asked, examining the rough shell of the oyster, which she was still holding. ‘Oh no, not a chance. I’m loyal to the lodge, and the lodge, naturally, doesn’t wish you to hurry to the aid of your loved ones. Furthermore, I’m your enemy. How could you forget that, Yennefer?’

‘Indeed. How could I?’

‘I would warn a friend,’ Fringilla said quietly, ‘that even if she were in possession of the components for teleportation spells, she wouldn’t be able to break the blockade undetected. An operation of that kind demands time and is too conspicuous. An unobtrusive but energetic attractor is a little better. I repeat: a little better. Teleportation using an improvised attractor, as you are no doubt aware, is very risky. I would try to dissuade a friend from taking such a risk. But you aren’t a friend.’

Fringilla spilt a sprinkling of seawater from the shell she was holding onto the table.

‘And on that note, we’ll end our banal conversation,’ she said. ‘The lodge demands mutual loyalty from us. Friendship, fortunately, isn’t compulsory.’

‘She teleported,’ Francesca Findabair stated coldly and unemotionally, when the confusion caused by Yennefer’s disappearance had calmed down. ‘There’s nothing to get het up about, ladies. And there’s nothing we can do about it now. She’s too far away. It’s my mistake. I suspected her obsidian star masked the echo of spells—’

‘How did she bloody do it?’ Philippa yelled. ‘She could muffle an echo, that isn’t difficult. But how did she manage to open the portal? Montecalvo has a blockade!’

‘I’ve never liked her,’ Sheala de Tancarville said, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I’ve never approved of her lifestyle. But I’ve never questioned her abilities.’

‘She’ll tell them everything!’ Sabrina Glevissig yelled. ‘Everything about the lodge! She’ll fly straight to—’

‘Nonsense,’ Triss Merigold interrupted animatedly, looking at Francesca and Ida Emean. ‘Yennefer won’t betray us. She didn’t escape to betray us.’

‘Triss is right,’ Margarita Laux-Antille added, backing her up. ‘I know why she escaped and who she wants to rescue. I’ve seen them, she and Ciri, together. And I understand.’

‘But I don’t understand any of this!’ Sabrina yelled and everything became heated again.

Assire var Anahid leant towards her friend.

‘I won’t ask why you did it,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t ask how you did it. I’ll only ask: where is she headed?’

Fringilla Vigo smiled faintly, stroking the carved head of the sphinx on the chair’s armrest with her fingers.

‘And how could I possibly know,’ she whispered back, ‘which coast these oysters came from?’

Ithlina, actually Ithlinne Aegli: daughter of Aevenien, the legendary elven healer, astrologist and soothsayer, famous for her predictions and prophecies, of which Aen Ithlinnespeath, Ithlina’s Prophecy, is the best known. It has been written down many times and published in numerous forms. The Prophecy enjoyed great popularity at certain moments, and the commentaries, clues and clarifications appended to it adapted the text to contemporary events, which strengthened convictions about its great clairvoyance. In particular it is believed I. predicted the Northern Wars (1239–1268), the Great Plagues (1268, 1272 and 1294), the bloody War of the Two Unicorns (1309–1318) and the Haak Invasion (1350). I. was also supposed to have prophesied the climatic changes observed from the end of the thirteenth century, known as the Great Frost, which superstition always claimed was a sign of the end of the world and linked to the prophesied coming of the Destroyer (q.v.). This passage from I.’s Prophecy gave rise to the infamous witch hunts (1272–76) and contributed to the deaths of many women and unfortunate girls mistaken for the incarnation of the Destroyer. Today I. is regarded by many scholars as a legendary figure and her ‘prophecies’ as very recently fabricated apocrypha, and a cunning literary fraud.

Effenberg and Talbot, Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, Volume X

CHAPTER SEVEN

The children gathered in a ring around the wandering storyteller Stribog showed their disapproval by making a dreadful, riotous uproar. Finally Connor, the blacksmith’s son, the oldest, strongest and bravest of the children, and also the one who brought the storyteller a pot full of cabbage soup and potatoes sprinkled with scraps of fried bacon, stepped forward as the spokesman and exponent of the general opinion.

‘How’s that?’ he yelled. ‘What do you mean “that’s your lot”? Is it fair to end the tale there? To leave us hungry for more? We want to know what happened next! We can’t wait till you visit our village again, for it might be in six months or a whole year! Go on with the story!’

‘The sun’s gone down,’ the old man replied. ‘It’s time for bed, young ’uns. When you start to yawn and grumble over your chores tomorrow, what will your parents say? I know what they’ll say: “Old Stribog was telling them tales till past midnight, wearying the children’s heads with songs, and didn’t let them get to bed. So when he wends his way to the village again, don’t give him nothing; no kasha, no dumplings, no bacon. Just drive him off, the old gimmer, because nothing comes from his tales but woe and trouble—” ’

‘They won’t say that!’ the children all shouted. ‘Tell us more! Pleeease!’

‘Mmm,’ the old man mumbled, looking at the sun disappearing behind the treetops on the far bank of the Yaruga. ‘Very well then. But here’s the bargain: one of you’s to hurry over to the cottage and fetch some buttermilk for me to moisten my throat. The rest of you, meanwhile, are to decide whose story I’ll tell, for I shan’t tell everyone’s tale today, even were I to spin yarns till morning. You have to decide: who do I tell of now, and who another time.’

The children began to yell again, each trying to outshout the others.

‘Silence!’ Stribog roared, brandishing his stick. ‘I told you to choose, not shriek like jays: skaak-skaak-skaak! What’ll it be? Whose story shall I tell?’

‘Yennefer’s,’ Nimue squeaked. She was the youngest in the audience, nicknamed ‘Squirt’ owing to her height, and was stroking a kitten that was asleep on her lap. ‘Tell us what happened to the sorceress afterwards. How she used magic to flee from the cov-cov-coven on Bald Mountain to rescue Ciri. I’d love to hear that. I want to be a sorceress when I grow up!’

‘No chance!’ shouted Bronik, the miller’s son. ‘Wipe your nose first, Squirt. They don’t take snot-noses for sorcerers’ apprentices! And you, old man, don’t talk about Yennefer, but about Ciri and the Rats, when they went a-robbing and beat up—’

‘Quiet,’ Connor said, glum and pensive. ‘You’re all stupid, and that’s that. If we’re to hear one thing more tonight, let there be some order. Tell us about the Witcher and his band, when the company set off from the Yaruga—’

‘I want to hear about Yennefer,’ Nimue squealed.

‘Me too,’ Orla, her elder sister, joined in. ‘I want to hear about her love for the Witcher. How they doted on each other. But be sure it’s a happy ending! Nowt about fighting, oh no!’

‘Quiet, you silly thing, who cares about love? We want war and fighting!’

‘And the Witcher’s sword!’

‘No, Ciri and the Rats!’

‘Shut your traps,’ Connor said and looked around fiercely. ‘Or I’ll get a stick and give you a thrashing, you little snots! I said: let there be some order. Let him carry on about the Witcher, when he was travelling with Dandelion and Milva—’

‘Yes!’ Nimue squealed again. ‘I want to hear about Milva, about Milva! Because if the sorceresses don’t take me, I’m going to be an archer!’

‘So we’ve decided,’ Connor said. ‘Look at him nodding, nose dipping like a corncrake’s . . . Hey, old man! Wake up! Tell us about the Witcher, about Geralt the Witcher, I mean. When he formed his fellowship on the bank of the Yaruga.’

‘But first,’ Bronik interrupted, ‘to salve our curiosity, tell us a little about the others. About what happened to them. Then it’ll be easier for us to wait till you come back and continue the story. Just a little about Yennefer and Ciri. Please.’

‘Yennefer’ – Stribog giggled – ‘flew from the enchanted castle, which was called Bald Mountain, using a spell. And she plopped straight into the ocean. Into the rough seas, among cruel rocks. But don’t be afeared, it was a trifle for the enchantress. She didn’t drown. She landed up on the Skellige Islands and found allies there. For you must know that a great fury arose in her against the Wizard Vilgefortz. Convinced he had kidnapped Ciri, she vowed to track him down, exact a terrible vengeance and free Ciri. And that’s that. I’ll tell you more another time.’

‘And Ciri?’

‘Ciri was still prowling with the Rats, calling herself “Falka”. She had gained a taste for the robbers’ life. For though no one knew it then, there was fury and cruelty in that girl. The worst of everything that hides in a person emerged from her and slowly got the upper hand. Oh, the witchers of Kaer Morhen made a great mistake by teaching her how to kill! And Ciri herself – dealing out death – didn’t even suspect that the Grim Reaper was hot on her trail. For the terrible Bonhart was tracking her, hunting her. The meeting of these two, Bonhart and Ciri, was meant to be. But I shall recount their tale another time. For tonight you shall hear the tale of the Witcher.’

The children calmed down and crowded around the old man in a tight circle. They listened. Night was falling. The hemp shrubs, the raspberry bushes and hollyhocks growing near the cottage – friendly during the day – were suddenly transformed into an extraordinary, sinister forest. What was rustling there? Was it a mouse, or a terrible, fiery-eyed elf? Or perhaps a striga or a witch, hungry for children’s flesh? Was it an ox stamping in the cowshed, or the hooves of cruel invaders’ warhorses, crossing the Yaruga as they had a century before? Was that a nightjar flitting above the thatched roof, or perhaps a vampire, thirsty for blood? Or perhaps a beautiful sorceress, flying towards the distant sea with the aid of a magic spell?

‘Geralt the Witcher,’ the storyteller began, ‘set out with his company towards the bogs and forests of Angren. And you must know that in those days there were truly wild forests in Angren, oh my, not like now, there aren’t any forests like that left, unless in Brokilon . . . The company trekked eastwards, up the Yaruga, towards the wildernesses of the Black Forest. Things went well at first, but later, oh my . . . you’ll learn what happened later . . .’

The tale of long-past, forgotten times unravelled and flowed. And the children listened.

The Witcher sat on a log at the top of a cliff from which unfolded a view over the wetlands and reed beds lining the bank of the Yaruga. The sun was sinking. Cranes soared up from the marshes, whooping, flying in a skein.

Everything’s gone to pot, the Witcher thought, looking at the ruins of a woodman’s shack and the thin ribbon of smoke rising from Milva’s campfire. Everything’s fallen through. And it was going so well. My companions were strange, but at least they stood by me. We had a goal to achieve; close at hand, realistic, defined. Eastwards through Angren, towards Caed Dhu. It was going pretty well. But it had to get fucked up. Was it bad luck, or fate?

The cranes sounded their bugle call.

Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy led the way, riding a Nilfgaardian bay captured by the Witcher near Armeria. The horse, although at first somewhat tetchy with the vampire and his herby smell, quickly became accustomed to him and didn’t cause any more problems than Roach, who was walking alongside and was capable of bucking wildly if stung by a horsefly. Dandelion followed behind Regis and Geralt on Pegasus, with a bandaged head and a warlike mien. As he rode, the poet composed a heroic ballad, in whose melody and rhymes could be heard his recollections of their recent adventures. The song clearly implied that the author and performer had been the bravest of the brave during the adventures. Milva and Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach brought up the rear. Cahir was riding his recovered chestnut, pulling the grey laden with some of their modest accoutrement.

They finally left the riverside marshes, heading towards higher and drier, hilly terrain from which they could see the sparkling ribbon of the Great Yaruga to the south, and to the north the high, rocky approaches to the distant Mahakam massif. The weather was splendid, the sun was warm, and the mosquitoes had stopped biting and buzzing around their ears. Their boots and trousers had dried out. On the sunny slope brambles were black with fruit and the horses found grass to eat. The streams tumbling down from the hills flowed with crystal-clear water and were full of trout. When night fell, they were able to make a fire and even lie beside it. In short, everything was wonderful and their moods ought to have improved right away. But they didn’t. The reason why became apparent at one of the first camps.

‘Wait a moment, Geralt,’ the poet began, looking around and clearing his throat. ‘Don’t rush back to the camp. Milva and I would like to talk to you in private. It’s about . . . you know . . . Regis.’

‘Ah,’ the Witcher said, laying a handful of brushwood on the ground. ‘So now you’re afraid? It’s a bit late for that.’

‘Stop that,’ Dandelion said with a grimace. ‘We’ve accepted him as a companion; he’s offered to help us search for Ciri. He saved my neck from the noose, which I shall never forget. But hell’s bells, we are feeling something like fear. Does that surprise you? You’ve spent your entire life hunting and killing his like.’

‘I did not kill him. And I’m not planning to. Does that declaration suffice? If it doesn’t, even though my heart’s brimming with sorrow for you, I can’t cure you of your anxieties. Paradoxically, Regis is the only one among us capable of curing anything.’

‘Stop that,’ the troubadour repeated, annoyed. ‘You aren’t talking to Yennefer; you can drop the tortuous eloquence. Give us a simple answer to a simple question.’

‘Then ask it. Without any tortuous eloquence.’

‘Regis is a vampire. It’s no secret what vampires feed on. What will happen when he gets seriously hungry? Yes, yes, we saw him eating fish soup, and since then he’s been eating and drinking with us, as normal as anyone. But . . . will he be able to control his craving . . . Geralt, do I have to spell it out to you?’

‘He controlled his blood lust, when gore was pouring from your head. He didn’t even lick his fingers after he’d finished applying the dressing. And during the full moon, when we’d been drinking his mandrake moonshine and were sleeping in his shack, he had the perfect opportunity to get his hands on us. Have you checked for puncture marks on your swanlike neck?’

‘Don’t take the piss, Witcher,’ Milva growled. ‘You know more about vampires than we do. You’re mocking Dandelion, so tell me. I was raised in the forest, I didn’t go to school. I’m ignorant. But it’s no fault of mine. It’s not right to mock. I – I’m ashamed to say – am also a bit afraid of . . . Regis.’

‘Not unreasonably,’ Geralt said, nodding. ‘He’s a so-called higher vampire. He’s extremely dangerous. Were he our enemy, I’d be afraid of him too. But, bloody hell, for reasons unknown to me, he’s our companion. Right now, he’s leading us to Caed Dhu, to the druids, who may be able to help me get information about Ciri. I’m desperate, so I want to seize the chance and certainly not give up on it. Which is why I’ve agreed to his vampiric company.’

‘Only because of that?’

‘No,’ he answered, with a trace of reluctance. Then he finally decided to be frank. ‘Not just that. He . . . he behaves decently. He didn’t hesitate to act during that girl’s trial at the camp by the Chotla. Although he knew it would unmask him.’

‘He took that red-hot horseshoe from the fire,’ Dandelion recalled. ‘Why, he held it in his hand for a good few seconds without even flinching. None of us would be able to repeat that trick; not even with a roast potato.’

‘He’s invulnerable to fire.’

‘What else is he capable of?’

‘He can become invisible if he wishes. He can bewitch with his gaze, and put someone in a deep sleep. He did that to the guards in Vissegerd’s camp. He can assume the form of a bat and fly. I presume he can only do those things at night, during a full moon, but I could be wrong. He’s already surprised me a few times, so he might still have something up his sleeve. I suspect he’s quite remarkable even among vampires. He imitates humans perfectly, and has done so for years. He baffles horses and dogs – which can sense his true nature – using the smell of the herbs he keeps with him at all times. Though my medallion doesn’t react to him either, and it ought to. I tell you; he defies easy classification. Talk to him if you want to know more. He’s our companion. There should be nothing left unsaid between us, particularly not mutual mistrust or fear. Let’s get back to the camp. Help me with this brushwood.’

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes, Dandelion.’

‘If . . . and I’m asking purely theoretically . . . If . . .’

‘I don’t know,’ the Witcher replied honestly and frankly. ‘I don’t know if I’d be capable of killing him. I truly would prefer not to be forced to try.’

Dandelion took the Witcher’s advice to heart, deciding to clear up the uncertainty and dispel their doubts. He began as soon as they set off. With his usual tact.

‘Milva!’ he suddenly called as they were riding, sneaking a glance at the vampire. ‘Why don’t you ride on ahead with your bow, and bring down a fawn or wild boar. I’ve had enough of damned blackberries and mushrooms, fish and mussels. I fancy eating a hunk of real meat for a change. How about you, Regis?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ the vampire said, lifting his head from the horse’s neck.

‘Meat!’ the poet repeated emphatically. ‘I’m trying to persuade Milva to go hunting. Fancy some fresh meat?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘And blood. Would you like some fresh blood?’

‘Blood?’ Regis asked, swallowing. ‘No. I’ll decline the blood. But, if you have a taste for some, feel free.’

Geralt, Milva and Cahir observed an awkward, sepulchral silence.

‘I know what this is about, Dandelion,’ Regis said slowly. ‘And let me reassure you. I’m a vampire, but I don’t drink blood.’

The silence became as heavy as lead. But Dandelion wouldn’t have been Dandelion if he had remained silent.

‘You must have misunderstood me,’ he said seemingly light-heartedly. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

‘I don’t drink blood,’ Regis interrupted. ‘Haven’t for many years. I gave it up.’

‘What do you mean, gave it up?’

‘Just that.’

‘I really don’t understand . . .’

‘Forgive me. It’s a personal matter.’

‘But . . .’

‘Dandelion,’ the Witcher burst out, turning around in the saddle. ‘Regis just told you to fuck off. He just said it more politely. Be so good as to shut your trap.’

However, the seeds of anxiety and doubts that had been sown now germinated and sprouted. When they stopped for the night, the ambience was still heavy and tense, which even Milva shooting down a plump barnacle goose by the river couldn’t relieve. They covered the catch in clay, roasted and ate it, gnawing even the tiniest bones clean. They had sated their hunger, but the anxiety remained. The conversation was awkward despite Dandelion’s titanic efforts. The poet’s chatter became a monologue, so obviously apparent that even he finally noticed it and stopped talking. Only the sound of the horses crunching their hay disturbed the deathly silence around the campfire.

In spite of the late hour no one seemed to be getting ready for bed. Milva was boiling water in a pot above the fire and straightening the crumpled fletchings of her arrows in the steam. Cahir was repairing a torn boot buckle. Geralt was whittling a piece of wood. And Regis swept his eyes over all of them in turn.

‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘I see it is inevitable. It would appear I ought to have explained a few things to you long ago . . .’

‘No one expects it of you,’ Geralt said. He threw the stick he had been lengthily and enthusiastically carving into the fire and looked up. ‘I don’t need explanations. I’m the old-fashioned type. When I hold my hand out to someone and accept him as a comrade, it means more to me than a contract signed in the presence of a notary.’

‘I’m old-fashioned too,’ Cahir said, still bent over his boot.

‘I don’t know any other custom,’ Milva said drily, placing another arrow in the steam rising up from the pot.

‘Don’t worry about Dandelion’s chatter,’ the Witcher added. ‘He can’t help it. And you don’t have to confide in us or explain anything. We haven’t confided in you either.’

‘I nonetheless think’ – the vampire smiled faintly – ‘that you’d like to hear what I have to say, even though no one's forcing you to. I feel the need for openness towards the individuals I extend a hand to and accept as my comrades.’

This time no one said anything.

‘I ought to begin by saying,’ Regis said a moment later, ‘that all fears linked to my vampiric nature are groundless. I won’t attack anybody, nor will I creep around at night trying to sink my teeth into somebody’s neck. And this does not merely concern my comrades, to whom my relationship is no less old-fashioned than theirs is to me. I don’t touch blood. Not at all and never. I stopped drinking it when it became a problem for me. A serious problem, which I had difficulty solving.

‘In fact, the problem arose and acquired negative characteristics in true textbook style,’ he continued a moment later. ‘Even during my youth I enjoyed . . . er . . . the pleasures of good company, in which respect I was no different to the majority of my peers. You know what it’s like; you were young too. With humans, however, there exists a system of rules and restrictions: parental authority, guardians, superiors and elders – morals, ultimately. We have nothing like that. Youngsters have complete freedom and exploit it. They create their own patterns of behaviour. Stupid ones, you understand. It’s real youthful foolishness. “Don’t fancy a drink? And you call yourself a vampire?” “He doesn’t drink? Don’t invite him, he’ll spoil the party!” I didn’t want to spoil the party, and the thought of losing social approval terrified me. So I partied. Revelries and frolics, shindigs and booze-ups; every full moon we’d fly to a village and drink from anyone we found. The foulest, the worst class of . . . er . . . fluid. It made no difference to us whose it was, as long as there was . . . er . . . haemoglobin . . . It can’t be a party without blood, after all! And I was terribly shy with vampire girls, too, until I’d had a drop.’

Regis fell silent, lost in thought. No one responded. Geralt felt a terrible urge to have a drink himself.

‘It got rowdier and rowdier,’ the vampire continued. ‘And worse and worse as time went on. Occasionally I went on such benders that I didn’t return to the crypt for three or four nights in a row. A tiny amount of fluid and I lost control, which, of course, didn’t stop me from continuing the party. My friends? Well, you know what they’re like. Some of them tried to make me see reason, so I took offence. Others were a bad influence, and dragged me out of the crypt to revels. Why, they even set me up with . . . er . . . playthings. And they enjoyed themselves at my expense.’

Milva, still busy restoring her arrows’ flattened fletchings, murmured angrily. Cahir had finished repairing his boot and seemed to be asleep.

‘Later on,’ Regis continued, ‘more alarming symptoms appeared. Parties and company began to play an absolutely secondary role. I noticed I could manage without them. Blood was all I needed, was all that mattered, even when it was . . .’

‘Just you and your shadow?’ Dandelion interjected.

‘Worse than that,’ Regis answered calmly. ‘I don’t even cast one.’

He was silent for a while.

‘Then I met a special vampire girl. It might have been – I think it was – serious. I settled down. But not for long. She left me. So I began to double my intake. Despair and grief, as you know, are perfect excuses. Everyone thinks they understand. Even I thought I understood. But I was merely applying theory to practice. Am I boring you? I’ll try to make it short. I finally began to do absolutely unacceptable things, the kind of things no vampire does. I flew under the influence. One night the boys sent me to the village to fetch some blood, and I missed my target: a girl who was walking to the well. I smashed straight into the well at top speed . . . The villagers almost beat me to death, but fortunately they didn’t know how to go about it . . . They punctured me with stakes, chopped my head off, poured holy water all over me and buried me. Can you imagine how I felt when I woke up?’

‘We can,’ Milva said, examining an arrow. Everyone looked at her strangely. The archer coughed and looked away. Regis smiled faintly.

‘I won’t be long now,’ he said. ‘In the grave I had plenty of time to rethink things . . .’

‘Plenty?’ Geralt asked. ‘How much?’

Regis looked at him.

‘Professional curiosity? Around fifty years. After I’d regenerated I decided to pull myself together. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. And I haven’t drunk since.’

‘Not at all?’ Dandelion said, and stuttered. But his curiosity got the better of him. ‘Not at all? Never? But . . . ?’

‘Dandelion,’ Geralt said, slightly raising his eyebrows. ‘Get a grip and think. In silence.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ the poet grunted.

‘Don’t apologise,’ the vampire said placatingly. ‘And, Geralt, don’t chasten him. I understand his curiosity. I – by which I mean I and my myth – personify all his human fears. One cannot expect a human to rid himself of them. Fear plays a no less important role in the human psyche than all the other emotions. A psyche without fears would be crippled.’

‘But,’ Dandelion said, regaining his poise, ‘you don’t frighten me. Does that make me a cripple?’

For a moment Geralt expected Regis to show his fangs and cure Dandelion of his supposed disability, but he was wrong. The vampire wasn’t inclined towards theatrical gestures.

‘I was talking about fears deeply lodged in the consciousness and the subconscious,’ he explained calmly. ‘Please don’t be hurt by this metaphor, but a crow isn’t afraid of a hat and coat hung on a stick, after it has overcome that fear and alighted on them. But when the wind jerks the scarecrow, the bird flees.’

‘The crow’s behaviour might be seen as a struggle for life,’ Cahir observed from the darkness.

‘Struggle, schmuggle.’ Milva snorted. ‘The crow isn’t afraid of the scarecrow. It’s afraid of men, because men throw stones and shoot at it.’

‘A struggle for life.’ Geralt nodded. ‘But in human – not corvine – terms. Thank you for the explanation, Regis, we accept it wholeheartedly. But don’t go rooting about in the depths of the human subconscious. Milva’s right. The reasons people react in panic-stricken horror at the sight of a thirsty vampire aren’t irrational, they are a result of the will to survive.’

‘Thus speaks an expert,’ the vampire said, bowing slightly towards him. ‘An expert whose professional pride would not allow him to take money for fighting imaginary fears. The self-respecting witcher who only hires himself out to fight real, unequivocally dangerous evil. This professional will probably want to explain why a vampire is a greater threat than a dragon or a wolf. They have fangs too, don’t forget.’

‘Perhaps because the latter two use their fangs to stave off hunger or in self-defence, but never for fun or for breaking the ice or overcoming shyness towards the opposite sex.’

‘People know nothing about that,’ riposted Regis. ‘You have known it for some time, but the rest of our company have only just discovered the truth. The remaining majority are deeply convinced that vampires do not drink for fun but feed on blood, and nothing but blood. Needless to say, human blood. Blood is a life-giving fluid; its loss results in the weakening of the body, the seeping away of a vital force. You reason thus: a creature that spills our blood is our deadly enemy. And a creature that attacks us for our blood, because it lives on it, is doubly evil. It grows in vital force at the expense of ours. For its species to thrive, ours must fade away. Ultimately a creature like that is repellent to you humans, for although you are aware of blood’s life-giving qualities, it is disgusting to you. Would any of you drink blood? I doubt it. And there are people who grow weak or even faint at the sight of blood. In some societies women are considered unclean for a few days every month and they are isolated—’

‘Among savages, perhaps,’ Cahir interrupted. ‘And I think only Nordlings grow faint at the sight of blood.’

‘We’ve strayed,’ the Witcher said, looking up. ‘We’ve deviated from a straight path into a tangle of dubious philosophy. Do you think, Regis, that it would make a difference to humans were they to know you don’t treat them as prey, but as a watering hole? Where do you see the irrationality of fears here? Vampires drink human blood; that particular fact cannot be challenged. A human treated by a vampire as a demijohn of vodka loses his strength, that’s also clear. A totally drained human – so to speak – loses his vitality definitively. He dies. Forgive me, but the fear of death can’t be lumped together with an aversion to blood. Menstrual or otherwise.’

‘Your talk’s so clever it makes my head spin,’ Milva snorted. ‘And all your wisdom comes down to what’s under a woman’s skirt. Woeful philosophers.’

‘Let’s cast aside the symbolism of blood for a moment,’ Regis said. ‘For here the myths really do have certain grounds in facts. Let’s focus on those universally accepted myths with no grounds in fact. After all, everyone knows that if someone is bitten by a vampire and survives they must become a vampire themselves. Right?’

‘Right,’ Dandelion said. ‘There’s even a ballad—’

‘Do you understand basic arithmetic?’

‘I’ve studied all seven liberal arts, and was awarded a degree summa cum laude.’

‘After the Conjunction of the Spheres there remained approximately one thousand two hundred higher vampires in your world. The number of teetotallers – because there is a considerable number of them – balances the number who drink excessively, as I did in my day. Generally, the statistically average vampire drinks during every full moon, for the full moon is a holy day for us, which we usually . . . er . . . celebrate with a drink. Applying the matter to the human calendar and assuming there are twelve full moons a year gives us the theoretical sum of fourteen thousand four hundred humans bitten annually. Since the Conjunction – once again calculating according to your reckoning – one thousand five hundred years have passed. A simple calculation will show that at the present moment, twenty-one million six hundred thousand vampires ought to exist in the world. If that figure is augmented by exponential growth . . .’

‘That’ll do.’ Dandelion sighed. ‘I don’t have an abacus, but I can imagine the number. Actually I can’t imagine it, and you’re saying that infection from a bite is nonsense and a fabrication.’

‘Thank you,’ Regis said, bowing. ‘Let’s move on to the next myth, which states that a vampire is a human being who has died – but not completely. He doesn’t rot or crumble to dust in the grave. He lies there as fresh as a daisy and ruddy-faced, ready to go forth and bite a victim. Where does that myth come from, if not from your subconscious and irrational aversion to your dearly departed? You surround the dead with veneration and memory, you dream of immortality, and in your myths and legends there’s always someone being resurrected, conquering death. But were your esteemed late great-grandfather really to suddenly rise from the grave and order a beer, panic would ensue. And it doesn’t surprise me. Organic matter, in which the vital processes have ceased, succumbs to degradation, which manifests itself very unpleasantly. The corpse stinks and dissolves into slime. The immortal soul, an indispensable element of your myths, abandons the stinking carcass in disgust and spirits away, forgive the pun. The soul is pure, and one can easily venerate it. But then you invented a revolting kind of spirit, which doesn’t soar, doesn’t abandon the cadaver, why, it doesn’t even stink. That’s repulsive and unnatural! For you, the living dead is the most revolting of revolting anomalies. Some moron even coined the term “the undead”, which you’re ever so keen to bestow on us.’

‘Humans,’ Geralt said, smiling slightly, ‘are a primitive and superstitious race. They find it difficult to fully understand and appropriately name a creature that resurrects, even though it’s had stakes pushed through it, had its head removed and been buried in the ground for fifty years.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the vampire, impervious to the derision. ‘Your mutated race is capable of regenerating its fingernails, toenails, hair and epidermis, but is unable to accept the fact that other races are more advanced in that respect. That inability is not the result of your primitiveness. Quite the opposite: it’s a result of egotism and a conviction in your own perfection. Anything that is more perfect than you must be a repulsive aberration. And repulsive aberrations are consigned to myths, for sociological reasons.’

‘I don’t understand fuck all,’ Milva announced calmly, brushing the hair from her forehead with an arrow tip. ‘I hear you’re talking about fairy-tales, and even I know fairy-tales, though I’m a foolish wench from the forest. So it astonishes me that you aren’t afraid of the sun, Regis. In fairy-tales sunlight burns a vampire to ash. Should I lump it together with the other fairy-tales?’

‘Of course you should,’ Regis confirmed. ‘You believe a vampire is only dangerous at night, that the first rays of the sun turn him into ash. At the root of this myth, invented around primeval campfires, lies your heliophilia, by which I mean love of warmth; the circadian rhythm, which relies upon diurnal activity. For you the night is cold, dark, sinister, menacing, and full of danger. The sunrise, however, represents another victory in the fight for life, a new day, the continuation of existence. Sunlight carries with it light and the sun; and the sun’s rays, which are invigorating for you, bring with them the destruction of hostile monsters. A vampire turns to ash, a troll succumbs to petrifaction, a werewolf turns back into a human, and a goblin flees, covering his eyes. Nocturnal predators return to their lairs and cease to be a threat. The world belongs to you until sunset. I repeat and stress: this myth arose around ancient campfires. Today it is only a myth, for now you light and heat your dwelling places. Even though you are still governed by the solar rhythm, you have managed to appropriate the night. We, higher vampires, have also moved some way from our primeval crypts. We have appropriated the day. The analogy is complete. Does this explanation satisfy you, my dear Milva?’

‘Not in the slightest,’ the archer replied, throwing the arrow away. ‘But I think I’ve got it. I’m learning. I’ll be learned one day. Sociolation, petrificology, werewolfation, crap-ology. In schools they lecture and birch you. It’s more pleasant learning with you lot. My head hurts a bit, but my arse is still in one piece.’

‘One thing is beyond question and is easy to observe,’ Dandelion said. ‘The sun’s rays don’t turn you into ash, Regis. The sun’s warmth has as much effect on you as that red-hot horseshoe you so nimbly removed from the fire with your bare hands. Returning, however, to your analogies, for us humans the day will always remain the natural time for activity, and the night the natural time for rest. That is our physical structure. During the day, for example, we see better than at night. Except Geralt, who sees just as well at all times, but he’s a mutant. Was it also a question of mutation among vampires?’

‘One could call it that,’ Regis agreed. ‘Although I would argue that when mutation is spread over a sufficiently long period it ceases to be mutation and becomes evolution. But what you said about physical structure is apt. Adapting to sunlight was an unpleasant necessity for us. In order to survive, we had to become like humans in that respect. Mimicry, I’d call it. Which had its consequences. To use a metaphor: we lay down in the sick man’s bed.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘There are reasons to believe that sunlight is lethal in the long run. There’s a theory that in about five thousand years, at a conservative estimate, this world will only be inhabited by lunar creatures, which are active at night.’

‘I’m glad I won’t be around that long.’ Cahir sighed, then yawned widely. ‘I don’t know about you, but the intensive diurnal activity is reminding me of the need for nocturnal sleep.’

‘Me too,’ the Witcher said, stretching. ‘And there are only a few hours left until the dawning of the murderous sun. But before sleep overcomes us . . . Regis, in the name of science and the spread of knowledge, puncture some other myths about vampirism. Because I bet you’ve still got at least one.’

‘Indeed.’ The vampire nodded. ‘I have one more. It’s the last, but in no sense any less important. It is the myth behind your sexual phobias.’

Cahir snorted softly.

‘I left this myth until the end,’ Regis said, looking him up and down. ‘I would have tactfully passed over it, but since Geralt has challenged me, I won’t spare you. Humans are most powerfully influenced by fears with a sexual origin. The virgin fainting in the embrace of a vampire who drinks her blood. The young man falling prey to the vile practices of a female vampire running her lips over his body. That’s how you imagine it. Oral rape. Vampires paralyse their victims with fear and force them to have oral sex. Or rather, a revolting parody of oral sex. And there is something disgusting about sex like that, which, after all, rules out procreation.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ the Witcher muttered.

‘An act crowned not by procreation, but by sensual delight and death,’ Regis continued. ‘You have turned it into a baleful myth. You unconsciously dream of something like it, but shy away from offering it to your lovers. So it’s done for you by the mythological vampire, who as a result swells to become a fascinating symbol of evil.’

‘Didn’t I say it?’ Milva yelled, as soon as Dandelion had finished explaining to her what Regis had been talking about. ‘It’s all they ever have on their minds! It starts off brainy, but always comes back to humping!’

The distant trumpeting of cranes slowly died away.

The next day, the Witcher recalled, we set off in much better humour. And then, utterly unexpectedly, war caught up with us again.

They travelled through a practically deserted and strategically unimportant country covered in huge, dense forests, unappealing to invaders. Although Nilfgaard was close at last, and they were only separated from the imperial lands by the broad waters of the Great Yaruga, it was difficult terrain to cover. Their astonishment was all the greater because of that.

War appeared in a less spectacular way than it had in Brugge and Sodden, where the horizon had glowed with fires at night, and during the day columns of black smoke had slashed the blue sky. It was not so picturesque here in Angren. It was much worse. They suddenly saw a murder of crows circling over the forest with a horrible cawing, and soon after they happened upon some corpses. Although the bodies had been stripped of their clothing and were impossible to identify, they bore the infallible and clear marks of violent death. Those people had been killed in combat. And not just killed. Most of the corpses were lying in the undergrowth, but some, cruelly mutilated, hung from trees by their arms or legs, lay sprawled on burnt-out pyres, or were impaled on stakes. And they stank. The whole of Angren had suddenly begun to reek with the monstrous, repulsive stench of barbarity.

It wasn’t long before they had to hide in ravines and thick undergrowth, for to their left and right, and in front and behind them, the earth shook with cavalry horses’ hooves, and more and more units passed their hideout, stirring up dust.

‘Once again,’ Dandelion said, shaking his head, ‘once again we don’t know who’s fighting who and why. Once again we don’t know who’s behind us or who’s ahead of us, or what direction they’re headed. Who’s attacking and who’s retreating. The pox take it all. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but I see it like this: war is no different to a whorehouse with a fire raging through it—’

‘You have,’ Geralt interrupted. ‘A hundred times.’

‘What are they fighting over?’ the poet asked, spitting violently. ‘Juniper bushes and sand? I mean, this exquisite country hasn’t got anything else to offer.’

‘There were elves among the bodies in the bushes,’ Milva said. ‘Scoia’tael commandos march this way, they always have. This is the route volunteers from Dol Blathanna and the Blue Mountains take when they head for Temeria. Someone wants to block their path. That’s what I think.’

‘It’s likely,’ Regis admitted, ‘that the Temerian Army would try to ambush the Squirrels here. But I’d say there are too many soldiers in the area. I surmise the Nilfgaardians have crossed the Yaruga.’

‘I surmise the same,’ the Witcher said, grimacing a little as he looked at Cahir’s stony countenance. ‘The bodies we saw this morning carried the marks of Nilfgaardian combat methods.’

‘They’re all as bad as each other,’ Milva snapped, unexpectedly taking the side of the young Nilfgaardian. ‘And don’t look daggers at Cahir, because now you’re bound by the same, bizarre fate. He dies if he falls into the Blacks’ clutches, and you escaped a Temerian noose a while back. So it’s no use trying to find out which army is in front of us and which behind, who are our comrades, who are our enemies, who’s good and who’s evil. Now they’re all our common foes, no matter what colours they’re wearing.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Strange,’ Dandelion said, when the next day they had to hide in another ravine and wait for another cavalcade to pass. ‘The army are rumbling over the hills, and yet woodmen are felling trees by the Yaruga as if nothing was happening. Can you hear it?’

‘Perhaps they aren’t woodmen,’ Cahir wondered. ‘Perhaps it’s the army, and they’re sappers.’

‘No, they’re woodmen,’ Regis said. ‘It’s clear nothing is capable of interrupting the mining of Angren gold.’

‘What gold?’

‘Take a closer look at those trees,’ the vampire said, once again assuming the tone of an all-knowing, patronising sage instructing mere mortals or the simple-minded. He often acquired that tone, which Geralt found somewhat irritating. ‘Those trees,’ Regis repeated, ‘are cedars, sycamores and Angren pines. Very valuable material. There are timber ports all around here, from which logs are floated downstream. They’re felling trees everywhere and axes are thudding away day and night. The war we can see and hear is beginning to make sense. Nilfgaard, as you know, has captured the mouth of the Yaruga, Cintra and Verden, as well as Upper Sodden. At this moment probably also Brugge and part of Lower Sodden. That means that the timber being floated from Angren is already supplying the imperial sawmills and shipyards. The northern kingdoms are trying to halt the process, while the Nilfgaardians, on the contrary, want to fell and float as much as possible.’

‘And we, as usual, have found ourselves in a tight spot,’ Dandelion said, nodding. ‘Seeing as we have to get to Caed Dhu, right through the very centre of Angren and this timber war. Isn’t there another bloody way?’

I asked Regis the same question, the Witcher recalled, staring at the sun setting over the Yaruga, as soon as the thudding of hooves had faded into the distance, things had calmed down and we were finally able to continue our journey.

‘Another way to Caed Dhu?’ the vampire pondered. ‘Which avoids the hills and keeps out of the soldiers’ way? Indeed, there is such a way. Not very comfortable and not very safe. And it’s longer too. But I guarantee we won’t meet any soldiers there.’

‘Go on.’

‘We can turn south and try to get across a low point in one of the Yaruga’s meanders. Across Ysgith. Do you know Ysgith, Witcher?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever ridden through those forests?’

‘Of course.’

‘The calm in your voice,’ the vampire said, clearing his throat, ‘would seem to signify you accept the idea. Well, there are five of us, including a witcher, a warrior and an archer. Experience, two swords and a bow. Too little to take on a Nilfgaardian raiding party, but it ought to be sufficient for Ysgith.’

Ysgith, the Witcher thought. More than thirty square miles of bogs and mud, dotted with tarns. And murky forests full of weird trees dividing up the bogs. Some have trunks covered in scales. At the base they’re as bulbous as onions, thinning towards the top, ending in dense, flat crowns. Others are low and misshapen, crouching on piles of roots twisted like octopuses, with beards of moss and shrivelled bog lichen hanging on their bare branches. Those beards sway, not from the wind though, but from poisonous swamp gas. Ysgith means mud hole. ‘Stink hole’ would be more appropriate.

And the mud and bogs, the tarns and lakes overgrown with duckweed and pondweed teem with life. Ysgith isn’t just inhabited by beavers, frogs, tortoises and water birds. It is swarming with much more dangerous creatures, armed with pincers, tentacles and prehensile limbs, which they use to catch, mutilate, drown and tear apart their prey. There are so many of these creatures that no one has ever been able to identify and classify them all. Not even witchers. Geralt himself had rarely hunted in Ysgith and never in Lower Angren. The land was sparsely populated, and the few humans who lived on the fringes of the bogs were accustomed to treating the monsters as part of the landscape. They kept their distance, but it rarely occurred to them to hire a witcher to exterminate the monstrosities. Rarely, however, did not mean never. So Geralt knew Ysgith and its dangers.

Two swords and a bow, he thought. And experience, my witcher’s expertise. We ought to manage in a group. Especially when I’ll be riding in the vanguard and keeping close watch on everything. On the rotten tree trunks, piles of weed, scrub, tussocks of grass; and the plants, orchids included. For in Ysgith even the orchids sometimes only look like plants, but are actually venomous crab spiders. I’ll have to keep Dandelion on a short leash, and make sure he doesn’t touch anything. Particularly since there’s no shortage of plant life which likes to supplement its chlorophyll diet with morsels of meat. Plants whose shoots are as deadly as a crab spider’s venom when they come into contact with skin. And the gas, of course. Not to mention poisonous fumes. We shall have to find a way to cover our mouths and noses . . .

‘Well?’ Regis asked, pulling him out of his reverie. ‘Do you accept the plan?’

‘Yes, I do. Let’s go.’

Something finally prompted me, the Witcher recalled, not to talk to the rest of the company about the plan to cross Ysgith. And to ask Regis not to mention it either. I don’t know why I was reluctant. Today, when everything is absolutely and totally screwed up, I might claim to have been aware of Milva’s behaviour. Of the problems she was having. Of her obvious symptoms. But it wouldn’t be true; I didn’t notice anything, and what I did notice I ignored. Like a blockhead. So we continued eastwards, reluctant to turn towards the bogs.

On the other hand it was good that we lingered, he thought, drawing his sword and running his thumb over the razor-sharp blade. Had we headed straight for Ysgith then, I wouldn’t have this weapon today.

They hadn’t seen or heard any soldiers since dawn. Milva led the way, riding far ahead of the rest of the company. Regis, Dandelion and Cahir were talking.

‘I just hope those druids will deign to help us find Ciri,’ the poet said worriedly. ‘I’ve met druids and, believe me, they are uncooperative, tight-lipped, unfriendly, eccentric recluses. They might not talk to us at all, far less use magic to help us.’

‘Regis knows one of the druids from Caed Dhu,’ the Witcher reminded them.

‘Are you sure the friendship doesn’t go back three or four centuries?’

‘It’s considerably more recent than that,’ the vampire assured them with a mysterious smile. ‘Anyhow, druids enjoy longevity. They’re always out in the open, in the bosom of primordial and unpolluted nature, which has a marvellous effect on the health. Breathe deeply, Dandelion, fill your lungs with forest air and you’ll be healthy too.’

‘I’ll soon grow fur in this bloody wilderness,’ Dandelion said sneeringly. ‘When I sleep, I dream of inns, drinks and bathhouses. A primordial pox on this primordial nature. I really have my doubts about its miraculous effect on the health, particularly mental health. The said druids are the best example, because they’re eccentric madmen. They’re fanatical about nature and protecting it. I’ve witnessed them petitioning the authorities more times than I care to remember. Don’t hunt, don’t cut down trees, don’t empty cesspits into rivers and other similar codswallop. And the height of idiocy was the visit of a delegation all arrayed in mistletoe wreathes to the court of King Ethain in Cidaris. I happened to be there . . .’

‘What did they want?’ Geralt asked, curious.

‘Cidaris, as you know, is a kingdom where most people make a living from fishing. The druids demanded that the king order the use of nets with mesh of a specific size, and harshly punish anyone who used finer nets than instructed. Ethain’s jaw dropped, and the mistletoers explained that limiting the size of mesh was the only way to protect fish stocks from depletion. The king led them out onto the terrace, pointed to the sea and told them how his bravest sailor had once sailed westwards for two months and only returned because supplies of fresh water had run out on his vessel, and there still wasn’t a sign of land on the horizon. Could the druids, he asked, imagine the fish stocks in a sea like that being exhausted? By all means, the mistletoers confirmed. For though there was no doubt sea fishery would endure the longest as a means of acquiring food directly from nature, the time would come when fish would run out and hunger would stare them all in the face. Then it would be absolutely necessary to fish using nets with large mesh, to only catch fully grown specimens, and protect the small fry. Ethain asked when, in the druids’ opinion, this dreadful time of hunger would occur, and they said in about two thousand years, according to their forecasts. The king bade them a courteous farewell and requested that they drop by in around a thousand years, when he would think it over. The mistletoers didn’t get the joke and began to protest, so they were thrown out.’

‘They’re like that, those druids,’ Cahir agreed. ‘Back home, in Nilfgaard—’

‘Got you!’ Dandelion cried triumphantly. ‘Back home, in Nilfgaard! Only yesterday, when I called you a Nilfgaardian, you leapt up as though you’d been stung by a hornet! Perhaps you could finally decide who you are, Cahir.’

‘To you,’ Cahir said, shrugging, ‘I have to be a Nilfgaardian, for as I see nothing will convince you otherwise. However, for the sake of precision please know that in the Empire such a title is reserved exclusively for indigenous residents of the capital and its closest environs, lying by the lower reaches of the Alba. My family originates in Vicovaro, and thus—’

‘Shut your traps!’ Milva commanded abruptly and not very politely from the vanguard.

They all immediately fell silent and reined in their horses, having learned by now that it was a sign the girl had seen, heard or instinctively sensed something edible, provided it could be stalked and shot with an arrow. Milva had indeed raised her bow to shoot, but had not dismounted. That meant it was not about food. Geralt approached her cautiously.

‘Smoke,’ she said bluntly.

‘I can’t see it.’

‘Sniff it then.’

The archer’s sense of smell had not deceived her, even though the scent of smoke was faint. It couldn’t have been the smoke from the conflagration behind them.

This smoke, Geralt observed, smells nice. It’s coming from a campfire on which something is being roasted.

‘Do we steer clear of it?’ Milva asked quietly.

‘After we’ve taken a look,’ he replied, dismounting from his mare and handing the reins to Dandelion. ‘It would be good to know what we’re steering clear of. And who we have behind us. Come with me, Maria. The rest of you stay in your saddles. Be vigilant.’

From the brush at the edge of the forest unfolded a view of a vast clearing with logs piled up in even cords of wood. A very thin ribbon of smoke rose from between the woodpiles. Geralt calmed down somewhat, as nothing was moving in his field of vision and there was too little space between the woodpiles for a large group to be hiding there. Milva shared his opinion.

‘No horses,’ she whispered. ‘They aren’t soldiers. Woodmen, I’d say.’

‘Me too. But I’ll go and check. Cover me.’

When he approached, cautiously picking his way around the piles of logs, he heard voices. He came closer. And was absolutely amazed. But his ears hadn’t let him down.

‘Half a contract in diamonds!’

‘Small slam in diamonds!’

‘Barrel!’

‘Pass. Your lead! Show your hand! Cards on the table! What the . . . ?’

‘Ha-ha-ha! Just the knave and some low numbers. Got you right where it hurts! I’ll make you suffer, before you get a small slam!’

‘We’ll see about that. My knave. What? It’s been taken? Hey, Yazon, you really got fucked over!’

‘Why didn’t you play the lady, shithead? Pshaw, I ought to take my rod to you . . .’

The Witcher, perhaps, might still have been cautious; after all, various different individuals could have been playing Barrel, and many people might have been called Yazon. However, a familiar hoarse squawking interrupted the card players’ excited voices.

‘’Uuuckkk . . . me!’

‘Hello, boys,’ Geralt said, emerging from behind the woodpile. ‘I’m delighted to see you. Particularly as you’re at full force again, including the parrot.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Zoltan Chivay said, dropping his cards in astonishment, then quickly leaping to his feet, so suddenly that Field Marshal Windbag, who was sitting on his shoulder, fluttered his wings and shrieked in alarm. ‘The Witcher, as I live and breathe! Or is it a mirage? Percival, do you see what I see?’

Percival Schuttenbach, Munro Bruys, Yazon Varda and Figgis Merluzzo surrounded Geralt and seriously strained his right hand with their iron-hard grips. And when the rest of the company emerged from behind the logs, the shouts of joy increased accordingly.

‘Milva! Regis!’ Zoltan shouted, embracing them all. ‘Dandelion, alive and kicking, even if your skull’s bandaged! And what do you say, you bloody busker, about this latest melodramatic banality? Life, it turns out, isn’t poetry! And do you know why? Because it’s so resistant to criticism!’

‘Where’s Caleb Stratton?’ Dandelion asked, looking around.

Zoltan and the others fell silent and grew solemn.

‘Caleb,’ the dwarf finally said, sniffing, ‘is sleeping in a birch wood, far from his beloved peaks and Mount Carbon. When the Blacks overwhelmed us by the Ina, his legs were too slow and he didn’t make it to the forest . . . He caught a sword across the head and when he fell they dispatched him with bear spears. But come on, cheer up, we’ve already mourned him and that’ll do. We ought to be cheerful. After all, you got out of the madness in the camp in one piece. Why, the company’s even grown, I see.’

Cahir inclined his head a little under the dwarf’s sharp gaze, but said nothing.

‘Come on, sit you down,’ Zoltan invited. ‘We’re roasting a lamb here. We happened upon it a few days ago, lonely and sad. We stopped it from dying a miserable death from hunger or in a wolf’s maw by slaughtering it mercifully and turning it into food. Sit down. And I’d like a few words with you, Regis. And Geralt, if you would.’

Two women were sitting behind the woodpile. One of them, who was suckling an infant, turned away in embarrassment at the sight of them approaching. Nearby, a young woman with an arm wrapped in none too clean rags was playing with two children on the sand. As soon as she raised her misty, blank eyes to him the Witcher recognised her.

‘We untied her from the wagon, which was already in flames,’ the dwarf explained. ‘It almost finished the way that priest wanted. You know, the one who was after her blood. She passed through a baptism of fire, nonetheless. The flames were licking at her, scorching her to the raw flesh. We dressed her wounds as well as we could. We covered her in lard, but it’s a bit messy. Barber-surgeon, if you would . . . ?’

‘Right away.’

When Regis tried to peel off the dressing the girl whimpered, retreating and covering her face with her good hand. Geralt approached to hold her still, but the vampire gestured him to stop. He looked deeply into the girl’s vacant eyes, and she immediately calmed down and relaxed. Her head drooped gently on her chest. She didn’t even flinch when Regis carefully peeled off the dirty rag and smeared an intense and strange smelling ointment on her burnt arm.

Geralt turned his head, pointed with his chin at the two women and the two children, and then bored his eyes into the dwarf. Zoltan cleared his throat.

‘We came across the two young ’uns and the women here in Angren,’ he explained in hushed tones. ‘They’d got lost during their escape. They were alone, fearful and hungry, so we took them on board, and we’re looking after them. It just seemed to happen.’

‘It just seemed to happen,’ Geralt echoed, smiling faintly. ‘You’re an incorrigible altruist, Zoltan Chivay.’

‘We all have our faults. I mean, you’re still determined to rescue your girl.’

‘Indeed. Although it’s become more complicated than that . . . .’

‘Because of that Nilfgaardian, who was tracking you and has now joined the company?’

‘Partly. Zoltan, where are those fugitives from? Who were they fleeing? Nilfgaard or the Squirrels?’

‘Hard to say. The kids know bugger all, the women aren’t too talkative and get upset for no reason at all. If you swear near them or fart they go as red as beetroots . . . Never mind. But we’ve met other fugitives – woodmen – and they say the Nilfgaardians are prowling around here. It’s our old friends, probably, the troop that came from the west, from across the Ina. But apparently there are also units here that arrived from the south. From across the Yaruga.’

‘And who are they fighting?’

‘It’s a mystery. The woodmen talked of an army being commanded by a White Queen or some such. That queen’s fighting the Blacks. It’s said she and her army are even venturing onto the far bank of the Yaruga, taking fire and sword to imperial lands.’

‘What army could that be?’

‘No idea,’ Zoltan said and scratched an ear. ‘See, every day some company or other comes through, messing up the tracks with their hooves. We don’t ask who they are, we just hide in the bushes . . .’

Regis, who was dealing with the burns on the girl’s arm, interrupted their conversation.

‘The dressing must be changed daily,’ he said to the dwarf. ‘I’ll leave you the ointment and some gauze which won’t stick to the burns.’

‘Thank you, barber-surgeon.’

‘Her arm will heal,’ the vampire said softly, looking at the Witcher. ‘With time the scar will even vanish from her young skin. What’s happening in the poor girl’s head is worse, though. My ointments can’t cure that.’

Geralt said nothing. Regis wiped his hands on a rag.

‘It’s a curse,’ he said in hushed tones, ‘to be able to sense a sickness – the entire essence of it – in the blood, but not be able to treat it . . .’

‘Indeed.’ Zoltan sighed. ‘Patching up the skin is one thing, but when the mind’s addled, you’re helpless. All you can do is give a damn and look after them. . . Thank you for your aid, barber-surgeon. I see you’ve also joined the Witcher’s company.’

‘It just seemed to happen.’

‘Mmm,’ Zoltan said and stroked his beard. ‘And which way will you head in search of Ciri?’

‘We’re heading east, to Caed Dhu, to the druids’ circle. We’re counting on the druids’ help . . .’

‘No help,’ said the girl with the bandaged arm in a ringing, metallic voice. ‘No help. Only blood. And a baptism of fire. Fire purifies. But also kills.’

Zoltan was dumbfounded. Regis gripped his arm tightly and gestured him to remain silent. Geralt, who could recognise a hypnotic trance, said nothing and did not move.

‘He who has spilt blood and he who has drunk blood,’ the girl said, her head still lowered, ‘shall pay in blood. Within three days one shall die in the other, and something shall die in each. They shall die inch by inch, piece by piece . . . And when finally the iron-shod clogs wear out and the tears dry, then the last shreds will pass. Even that which never dies shall die.’

‘Speak on,’ Regis said softly and gently. ‘What can you see?’

‘Fog. A tower in the fog. It is the Tower of Swallows . . . on a lake bound by ice.’

‘What else do you see?’

‘Fog.’

‘What do you feel?’

‘Pain . . .’

Regis had no time to ask another question. The girl jerked her head, screamed wildly, and whimpered. When she raised her eyes there really was nothing but fog in them.

Zoltan, Geralt recalled, still running his fingers over the rune-covered blade, started to respect Regis more after that incident, altogether dropping the familiar tone he normally used in conversations with the barber-surgeon.

Regis requested they did not say a single word to the others about the strange incident. The Witcher was not too concerned about it. He had seen similar trances in the past and tended towards the view that the ravings of people under hypnosis were not prophecy but the regurgitation of thoughts they had intercepted and the suggestions of the hypnotist. Of course in this case it was not hypnosis but a vampire spell, and Geralt mused over what else the girl might have picked up from Regis’s mind, had the trance lasted any longer.

They marched with the dwarves and their charges for half a day. Then Zoltan Chivay stopped the procession and took the Witcher aside.

‘It is time to part company,’ he declared briefly. ‘We have made a decision, Geralt. Mahakam is looming up to the north, and this valley leads straight to the mountains. We’ve had enough adventures. We’re going back home. To Mount Carbon.’

‘I understand.’

‘It’s nice that you want to understand. I wish you and your company luck. It’s a strange company, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘They want to help,’ the Witcher said softly. ‘That’s something new for me. Which is why I’ve decided not to enquire into their motives.’

‘That’s wise,’ Zoltan said, removing the dwarven sihil in its lacquered scabbard, wrapped in catskins, from his back. ‘Here you go, take it. Before we go our separate ways.’

‘Zoltan . . .’

‘Don’t say anything, just take it. We’ll sit out the war in the mountains. We have no need of hardware. But it’ll be pleasant to recall, from time to time, that this Mahakam-forged sihil is in safe hands and whistles in a just cause. That it won’t bring shame on itself. And when you use the blade to slaughter your Ciri’s persecutors, take one down for Caleb Stratton. And remember Zoltan Chivay and the dwarven forges.’

‘You can be certain I will,’ Geralt said, taking the sword and slinging it across his back. ‘You can be certain I’ll remember. In this rotten world, Zoltan Chivay, goodness, honesty and integrity become deeply engraved in the memory.’

‘That is true,’ the dwarf said, narrowing his eyes. ‘Which is why I won’t forget about you and the marauders in the forest clearing, nor about Regis and the horseshoe in the coals. While we’re talking about reciprocity . . .’

He broke off, coughed, hawked and spat.

‘Geralt, we robbed a merchant near Dillingen. A wealthy man, who’d got rich as a hawker. We waylaid him after he’d loaded his gold and jewels onto a wagon and fled the city. He defended his property like a lion and was yelling for help, so he took a few blows of an axe butt to the pate and became as quiet as a lamb. Do you remember the chest we lugged along, then carried on the wagon, and finally buried in the earth by the River O? Well, it contained his goods. Stolen loot, which we intend to build our future on.’

‘Why are you telling me this, Zoltan?’

‘Because I reckon you were still being misled by false appearances not so long ago. What you took for goodness and integrity was rottenness hidden under a pretty mask. You’re easy to deceive, Witcher, because you don’t look into motives. But I don’t want to deceive you. So don’t look at those women and children . . . don’t take the dwarf who’s standing in front of you as virtuous and noble. Before you stands a thief, a robber and possibly even a murderer. Because I can’t be certain the hawker we roughed up didn’t die in the ditch by the Dillingen highway.’

A lengthy silence followed, as they both looked northwards at the distant mountains enveloped in clouds.

‘Farewell, Zoltan,’ Geralt finally said. ‘Perhaps the forces, the existence of which I’m slowly becoming convinced about, will permit us to meet again one day. I hope our paths cross again. I’d like to introduce Ciri to you, I’d like her to meet you. But even if it never happens, know that I won’t forget you. Farewell, dwarf.’

‘Will you shake my hand? Me, a thief and a thug?’

‘Without hesitation. Because I’m not as easy to deceive as I once was. Although I don’t enquire into people’s motives, I’m slowly learning the art of looking beneath masks.’

Geralt swung the sihil and bisected a moth that was flying past.

After parting with Zoltan and his group, he recalled, we happened upon a group of wandering peasants in the forest. Some of them took flight on seeing us, but Milva stopped a few by threatening them with her bow. The peasants, it turned out, had been captives of the Nilfgaardians not long before. They had been forced to fell cedar trees, but a few days ago their guards had been attacked and overcome by a unit of soldiers who freed them. Now they were going home. Dandelion insisted they describe their liberators. He pushed them aggressively and asked sharp questions.

‘Those soldiers,’ the peasant repeated, ‘they serve the White Queen. They’re giving the Black infantry a proper hiding! They said they’re carrying out baboon attacks on the enemy’s rear lines.’

‘What?’

‘I’m telling you, aren’t I? Baboon attacks.’

‘Bollocks to those baboons,’ Dandelion said, grimacing and waving a hand. ‘Good people . . . I asked you what banners the army were bearing.’

‘Divers ones, sire. Mainly cavalry. And the infantry were wearing something crimson.’

The peasant picked up a stick and described a rhombus in the sand.

‘A lozenge,’ Dandelion, who was well versed in heraldry, said in astonishment. ‘Not the Temerian lily, but a lozenge. Rivia’s coat of arms. Interesting. It’s two hundred miles from here to Rivia. Not to mention the fact that the armies of Lyria and Rivia were utterly annihilated during the fighting in Dol Angra and at Aldersberg, and Nilfgaard has since occupied the country. I don’t understand any of this!’

‘That’s normal,’ the Witcher interrupted. ‘Enough talking. We need to go.’

‘Ha!’ the poet cried. He had been pondering and analysing the information extracted from the peasants the whole time. ‘I’ve got it! Not baboons – guerrillas! Partisans! Do you see?’

‘We see.’ Cahir nodded. ‘In other words, a Nordling partisan troop is operating in the area. A few units, probably formed from the remains of the Lyrian and Rivian armies, which were defeated at Aldersberg in the middle of July. I heard about that battle while I was with the Squirrels.’

‘I consider the news heartening,’ Dandelion declared, proud he had been able to solve the mystery of the baboons. ‘Even if the peasants had confused the heraldic emblems, we don’t seem to be dealing with the Temerian Army. And I don’t think news has reached the Rivian guerrillas about the two spies who recently cheated Marshal Vissegerd’s gallows. Should we happen upon those partisans we have a chance to lie our way out of it.’

‘Yes, we have a chance . . .,’ Geralt agreed, calming the frolicking Roach. ‘But, to be honest, I’d prefer not to try our luck.’

‘But they’re your countrymen, Witcher,’ Regis said. ‘I mean, they call you Geralt of Rivia.’

‘A slight correction,’ he replied coldly. ‘I call myself that to make my name sound fancier. It’s an addition that inspires more trust in my clients.’

‘I see,’ the vampire said, smiling. ‘And why exactly did you choose Rivia?’

‘I drew sticks, marked with various grand-sounding names. My witcher preceptor suggested that method to me, although not initially. Only after I’d insisted on adopting the name Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde. Vesemir thought it was ridiculous; pretentious and idiotic. I dare say he was right.’

Dandelion snorted loudly, looking meaningfully at the vampire and the Nilfgaardian.

‘My full name,’ Regis said, a little piqued by the look, ‘is authentic. And in keeping with vampire tradition.’

‘Mine too,’ Cahir hurried to explain. ‘Mawr is my mother’s given name, and Dyffryn my great-grandfather’s. And there’s nothing ridiculous about it, poet. And what’s your name, by the way? Dandelion must be a pseudonym.’

‘I can neither use nor betray my real name,’ the bard replied mysteriously, proudly putting on airs. ‘It’s too celebrated.’

‘It always sorely annoyed me,’ added Milva, who after being silent and gloomy for a long while had suddenly joined in the conversation, ‘when I was called pet names like Maya, Manya or Marilka. When someone hears a name like that they always think they can pinch a girl’s behind.’

It grew dark. The cranes flew off and their trumpeting faded into the distance. The breeze blowing from the hills subsided. The Witcher sheathed the sihil.

It was only this morning. This morning. And all hell broke loose in the afternoon.

We should have suspected earlier, he thought. But which of us, apart from Regis, knew anything about this kind of thing? Naturally everyone noticed that Milva often vomited at dawn. But we all ate grub that turned our stomachs. Dandelion puked once or twice too, and on one occasion Cahir got the runs so badly he feared it was dysentery. And the fact that the girl kept dismounting and going into the bushes, well I took it as a bladder infection . . .

I was an ass.

I think Regis realised the truth. But he kept quiet. He kept quiet until he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. When we stopped to make camp in a deserted woodmen’s shack, Milva led him into the forest, spoke to him at length and at times in quite a loud voice. The vampire returned from the forest alone. He brewed up and mixed some herbs, and then abruptly summoned us all to the shack. He began rather vaguely, in his annoying patronising manner.

‘I’m addressing all of you,’ Regis said. ‘We are, after all, a fellowship and bear collective responsibility. The fact that the one who bears ultimate responsibility . . . direct responsibility, so to speak . . . is probably not with us doesn’t change anything.’

‘Spit it out,’ Dandelion said, irritated. ‘Fellowship, responsibility . . . What’s the matter with Milva? What’s she suffering from?’

‘She’s not suffering from anything,’ Cahir said softly.

‘At least not strictly speaking,’ Regis added. ‘Milva’s pregnant.’

Cahir nodded to show it was as he suspected. Dandelion, however, was dumbstruck. Geralt bit his lip.

‘How far gone is she?’

‘She declined, quite rudely, to give any dates at all, including the date of her last period. But I’m something of an expert. The tenth week.’

‘Then refrain from your pompous appeals to direct responsibility,’ Geralt said sombrely. ‘It’s not one of us. If you had any doubts at all in this regard, I hereby dispel them. You were absolutely right, however, to talk about collective responsibility. She’s with us now. We have suddenly been promoted to the role of husbands and fathers. So let’s listen carefully to what the physician says.’

‘Wholesome, regular meals,’ Regis began to list. ‘No stress. Sufficient sleep. And soon the end of horseback riding.’

They were all quiet for a long time.

‘We hear you, Regis,’ Dandelion finally said. ‘My fellow husbands and fathers, we have a problem.’

‘It’s a bigger problem than you think,’ the vampire said. ‘Or a lesser one. It all depends on one’s point of view.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well you ought to,’ Cahir muttered.

‘She demanded,’ Regis began a short while later, ‘that I prepare and give her a strong and powerful . . . medicament. She considers it a remedy for the problem. Her mind is made up.’

‘And have you?’

Regis smiled.

‘Without talking to the other fathers?’

‘The medicine she’s requesting,’ Cahir said quietly, ‘isn’t a miraculous panacea. I have three sisters, so I know what I’m talking about. She thinks, it seems to me, that she’ll drink the decoction in the evening, and the next morning she’ll ride on with us. Not a bit of it. For about ten days there won’t be a chance of her even sitting on a horse. Before you give her that medicine, Regis, you have to tell her that. And we can only give her the medicine after we’ve found a bed for her. A clean bed.’

‘I see,’ Regis said, nodding. ‘One voice in favour. What about you, Geralt?’

‘What about me?’

‘Gentlemen.’ The vampire swept across them with his dark eyes. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t understand.’

‘In Nilfgaard,’ Cahir said, blushing and lowering his head, ‘the woman decides. No one has the right to influence her decision. Regis said that Milva is certain she wants the . . . medicament. Only for that reason, absolutely only for that reason, have I begun – in spite of myself – to think of it as an established fact. And to think about the consequences. But I’m a foreigner, who doesn’t know . . . I ought not to get involved. I apologise.’

‘What for?’ the troubadour asked, surprised. ‘Do you think we’re savages, Nilfgaardian? Primitive tribes, obeying some sort of shamanic taboo? It’s obvious that only the woman can make a decision like that. It’s her inalienable right. If Milva decides to—’

‘Shut up, Dandelion,’ the Witcher snapped. ‘Please shut up.’

‘You don’t agree?’ the poet said, losing his temper. ‘Are you planning to forbid her or—’

‘Shut your bloody mouth, or I won’t be answerable for my actions! Regis, you seem to be conducting something like a poll among us. Why? You’re the physician. The agent she’s asking for . . . yes, the agent. The word medicament doesn’t suit me somehow . . . Only you can prepare and give her this agent. And you’ll do it should she ask you for it again. You won’t refuse.’

‘I’ve already prepared the agent,’ Regis said, showing them all a little bottle made of dark glass. ‘Should she ask again, I shall not refuse. Should she ask again,’ he repeated with force.

‘What’s this all about then? Unanimity? Total agreement? Is that what you’re expecting?’

‘You know very well what it’s about,’ the vampire answered. ‘You sense perfectly what ought to be done. But since you ask, I shall tell you. Yes, Geralt, that’s precisely what it’s about. Yes, that’s precisely what ought to be done. And no, it’s not me that’s expecting it.’

‘Could you be clearer?’

‘No, Dandelion,’ the vampire snapped. ‘I can’t be any clearer. Particularly since there’s no need. Right, Geralt?’

‘Right,’ the Witcher said, resting his forehead on his clasped hands. ‘Yes, too bloody right. But why are you looking at me? You want me to do it? I don’t know how. I can’t. I’m not suited for this role at all . . . Not at all, get it?’

‘No,’ Dandelion interjected. ‘I don’t get it at all. Cahir? Do you get it?’

The Nilfgaardian looked at Regis and then at Geralt.

‘I think I do,’ he said slowly. ‘I think so.’

‘Ah,’ the troubadour said, nodding. ‘Ah. Geralt understood right away and Cahir thinks he understands. I, naturally, demand to be enlightened, but first I’m told to be quiet, and then I hear there’s no need for me to understand. Thank you. Twenty years in the service of poetry, long enough to know there are things you either understand at once, even without words; or you’ll never understand them.’

The vampire smiled.

‘I don’t know anyone,’ he said, ‘who could have put it more elegantly.’

It was totally dark. The Witcher got to his feet.

It’s now or never, he thought. I can’t run away from it. There’s no point putting it off. It’s got to be done. And that’s an end to it.

Milva sat alone by the tiny fire she had started in the forest, in a pit left by a fallen tree, away from the woodmen’s shack where the rest of the company were sleeping. She didn’t move when she heard his footsteps. It was as though she was expecting him. She just shifted along, making space for him on the fallen tree trunk.

‘Well?’ she said harshly, not waiting for him to say anything. ‘We’re in a fix, aren’t we, eh?’

He didn’t answer.

‘You didn’t expect this when we set off, did you? When you let me join the company? You thought: “So what if she’s a peasant; a foolish, country wench?” You let me join. “I won’t be able to talk to her about brainy things on the road,” you thought, “but she might come in useful. She’s a healthy, sturdy lass. She shoots a straight arrow, she won’t get a sore arse from the saddle, and if it gets nasty she won’t shit her britches. She’ll come in useful.” And it turns out she’s no use, just a hindrance. A millstone. A typical bloody woman!’

‘Why did you come after me?’ he asked softly. ‘Why didn’t you stay in Brokilon? You must have known . . .’

‘I did,’ she interrupted. ‘I mean, I was with the dryads, they always know what’s wrong with a girl; you can’t keep anything secret from them. They realised quicker than me . . . But I never thought I’d start feeling poorly so soon. I thought I’d drink some ergot or some other decoction, and you wouldn’t even notice, wouldn’t even guess . . .’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘I know. The vampire told me. I spent too long dragging my feet, meditating, hesitating. Now it won’t be so easy . . .’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Bollocks,’ she said a moment later. ‘Imagine this. I had more than one string to my bow . . . I saw how Dandelion puts on a brave face; but thought him weak, soft, not used to hardship. I was just waiting for him to give up and then we’d have to offload him. I thought if it got hard I’d go back with Dandelion . . . Now just look: Dandelion’s the hero, and I’m . . .’

Her voice suddenly cracked. Geralt embraced her. And he knew at once it was the gesture she had been waiting for, which she needed more than anything else. The roughness and hardness of the Brokilon archer disappeared just like that, and what remained was the trembling, gentle softness of a frightened girl. But it was she who interrupted the lengthening silence.

‘And that’s what you told me . . . in Brokilon. That I would need a . . . a shoulder to lean on. That I would call out, in the darkness . . . You’re here, I can feel your arm next to mine . . . And I still want to scream . . . Oh dear, oh dear . . . Why are you trembling?’

‘It’s nothing. A memory.’

‘What will become of me?’

He didn’t answer. The question wasn’t meant for him.

‘Daddy once showed me . . . Where I come from there’s a black wasp that lives by the river and lays its eggs in a live caterpillar. The young wasps hatch and eat the caterpillar alive . . . from the inside. . . Something like that’s in me now. In me, inside me, in my own belly. It’s growing, it keeps growing and it’s going to eat me alive . . .’

‘Milva—’

‘Maria. I’m Maria, not Milva. What kind of Red Kite am I? A mother hen with an egg, not a Kite . . . Milva laughed with the dryads on the battleground, pulled arrows from bloodied corpses. Waste of a good arrow shaft or a good arrowhead! And if someone was still breathing, a knife across the throat! Milva was treacherous, she led those people to their fate and laughed . . . Now their blood calls. That blood, like a wasp’s venom, is devouring Maria from the inside. Maria is paying for Milva.’

He remained silent. Mainly because he didn’t know what to say. The girl snuggled up closer against his shoulder.

‘I was guiding a commando to Brokilon,’ she said softly. ‘It was in Burnt Stump, in June, on the Sunday before summer solstice. We were chased, there was a fight, seven of us escaped on horseback. Five elves, one she-elf and me. About half a mile to the Ribbon, but the cavalry were behind us and in front of us, darkness all around, swamps, bogs . . . At night we hid in the willows, we had to let ourselves and the horses rest. Then the she-elf undressed without a word, lay down . . . and the first elf lay with her . . . It froze me, I didn’t know what to do . . . Move away, or pretend I couldn’t see? The blood was pounding in my temples, but I heard it when she said: “Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Who will cross the Ribbon and who will perish? En’ca minne.” En’ca minne, a little love. Only this way, she said, can death be overcome. Death or fear. They were afraid, she was afraid, I was afraid . . . So I undressed too and lay down nearby. I placed a blanket under my back . . . When the first one embraced me I clenched my teeth, for I wasn’t ready, I was terrified and dry . . . But he was wise – an elf, after all – he only seemed young . . . wise . . . tender . . . He smelled of moss, grass and dew . . . I held my arms out towards the second one myself . . . desiring . . . a little love? The devil only knows how much love there was in it and how much fear, but I’m certain there was more fear . . . For the love was fake. Perhaps well faked, but fake even so, like a pantomime, where if the actors are skilled you soon forget what’s playacting and what’s the truth. But there was fear. There was real fear.’

Geralt remained silent.

‘Nor did we manage to defeat death. They killed two of them at dawn, before we reached the bank of the Ribbon. Of the three who survived I never saw any of them again. My mother always told me a wench knows whose fruit she’s bearing . . . But I don’t know. I didn’t even know the names of those elves, so how could I tell? How?’

He said nothing. He let his arm speak for him.

‘And anyway, why do I need to know? The vampire will soon have the draft ready . . . The time will come for me to be left in some village or other . . . No, don’t say a word; be silent. I know what you’re like. You won’t even give up that skittish mare, you won’t leave her, you won’t exchange her for another, even though you keep threatening to. You aren’t the kind that leaves others behind. But now you have no choice. After I drink it I won’t be able to sit in the saddle. But know this; when I’ve recovered I’ll set off after you. For I would like you to find your Ciri, Witcher. To find her and get her back, with my help.’

‘So that’s why you rode after me,’ he said, wiping his forehead. ‘That’s why.’

She lowered her head.

‘That’s why you rode after me,’ he repeated. ‘You set off to help rescue someone else’s child. You wanted to pay; to pay off a debt, that you intended to incur even when you set off . . . Someone else’s child for your own, a life for a life. And I promised to help you should you be in need. But, Milva, I can’t help you. Believe me, I cannot.’

This time she remained silent. But he could not. He felt compelled to speak.

‘Back there, in Brokilon, I became indebted to you and swore I’d repay you. Unwisely. Stupidly. You offered me help in a moment when I needed help very much. There’s no way of paying off a debt like that. It’s impossible to repay something that has no price. Some say everything in the world – everything, with no exception – has a price. It’s not true. There are things with no price, things that are priceless. But you realise it belatedly: when you lose them, you lose them forever and nothing can get them back for you. I have lost many such things. Which is why I can’t help you today.’

‘But you have helped me,’ she replied, very calmly. ‘You don’t even know how you’ve helped me. Now go, please. Leave me alone. Go away, Witcher. Go, before you destroy my whole world.’

When they set off again at dawn, Milva rode at the head, calm and smiling. And when Dandelion, who was riding behind her, began to strum away on his lute, she whistled the melody.

Geralt and Regis brought up the rear. At a certain moment the vampire glanced at the Witcher, smiled, and nodded in acknowledgement and admiration. Without a word. Then he took a small bottle of dark glass out of his medical bag and showed it to Geralt. Regis smiled again and threw the bottle into the bushes.

The Witcher said nothing.

When they stopped to water the horses, Geralt led Regis away to a secluded place.

‘A change of plans,’ he informed briefly. ‘We aren’t going through Ysgith.’

The vampire remained silent for a moment, boring into him with his black eyes.

‘Had I not known,’ he finally said, ‘that as a witcher you are only afraid of real hazards, I should have thought you were worried by the preposterous chatter of a deranged girl.’

‘But you do know. And you’re sure to be guided by logic.’

‘Indeed. However, I should like to draw your attention to two matters. Firstly, Milva’s condition, which is neither an illness nor a disability. The girl must, of course, take care of herself, but she is utterly healthy and physically fit. I would even say more than fit. The hormones—’

‘Drop the patronising, superior tone,’ Geralt interrupted, ‘because it’s getting on my nerves.’

‘That was the first matter of the two I intended to bring up,’ Regis continued. ‘Here’s the second: when Milva notices your overprotectiveness, when she realises you’re making a fuss and mollycoddling her, she’ll be furious. And then she’ll feel stressed; which is absolutely inadvisable for her. Geralt, I don’t want to be patronising. I want to be rational.’

Geralt did not answer.

‘There’s also a third matter,’ Regis added, still watching the Witcher carefully. ‘We aren’t being compelled to go through Ysgith by enthusiasm or the lust for adventure, but by necessity. Soldiers are roaming the hills, and we have to make it to the druids in Caed Dhu. I understood it was urgent. That it was important for you to acquire the information and set off to rescue your Ciri as quickly as possible.’

‘It is,’ Geralt said, looking away. ‘It’s very important to me. I want to rescue Ciri and get her back. Until recently I thought I’d do it at any price. But no. I won’t pay that price, I won’t consent to taking that risk. We won’t go through Ysgith.’

‘The alternative?’

‘The far bank of the Yaruga. We’ll go upstream, far beyond the swamps. And we’ll cross the Yaruga again near Caed Dhu. If it turns out to be difficult, only the two of us will meet the druids. I’ll swim across and you’ll fly over as a bat. Why are you staring at me like that? I mean, rivers being obstacles to vampires is another myth and superstition. Or perhaps I’m wrong.’

‘No, you are not wrong. But I can only fly during a full moon, not at any other time.’

‘That’s only two weeks away. When we reach the right place it’ll almost be full moon.’

‘Geralt,’ the vampire said, still not taking his eyes away from the Witcher. ‘You’re a strange man. To make myself clear, I wasn’t being critical. Right, then. We give up on Ysgith, which is dangerous for a woman with child. We cross to the far bank of the Yaruga, which you consider safer.’

‘I’m capable of assessing the level of risk.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘Not a word to Milva or the others. Should they ask, it’s part of our plan.’

‘Of course. Let us begin to look for a boat.’

They didn’t have to look for long, and the result of their search surpassed their expectations. They didn’t find just a boat, but a ferryboat. Hidden among the willows, craftily camouflaged with branches and bunches of bulrushes, it was betrayed by the painter connecting it to the left bank.

The ferryman was also found. While they were approaching he quickly hid in the bushes, but Milva spotted him and dragged him from the undergrowth by the collar. She also flushed out his helper, a powerfully built fellow with the shoulders of an ogre and the face of an utter simpleton. The ferryman shook with fear, and his eyes darted around like a couple of mice in an empty granary.

‘To the far bank?’ he whined, when he found out what they wanted. ‘Not a chance! That’s Nilfgaardian territory and there’s a war on! They’ll catch us and stick us on a spike! I’m not going! You can kill me, but I’m not going!’

‘We can kill you,’ Milva said, grinding her teeth. ‘We can also beat you up first. Open your trap again and you’ll see what we can do.’

‘I’m sure the fact there’s a war on,’ the vampire said, boring his eyes into the ferryman, ‘doesn’t interfere with smuggling, does it, my good man? Which is what your ferry is for, after all, craftily positioned as it is far from the royal and Nilfgaardian toll collectors. Am I right? Go on, push it into the water.’

‘That would be wise,’ Cahir added, stroking his sword hilt. ‘Should you hesitate, we shall cross the river ourselves, without you, and your ferry will remain on the far bank. To get it back you’ll have to swim across doing the breaststroke. This way you ferry us across and return. An hour of fear and then you can forget all about it.’

‘But if you resist, you halfwit,’ Milva snapped, ‘I’ll give you such a beating you won’t forget us till next winter!’

The ferryman yielded in the face of these hard, indisputable arguments, and soon the entire company was on the ferry. Some of the horses, particularly Roach, resisted and refused to go aboard, but the ferryman and his dopey helper used twitches made of sticks and rope. The skill with which they calmed the animals proved it was not the first time they had smuggled stolen mounts across the Yaruga. The giant simpleton got down to turning the wheel which drove the ferry, and the crossing began.

When they reached the peaceful waters and felt the gentle breeze, their moods improved. Crossing the Yaruga was something new, a clear milestone, marking progress in their trek. In front of them was the Nilfgaardian bank, the frontier, the border. They all suddenly cheered up. It even affected the ferryman’s foolish helper, who began to whistle an inane tune. Even Geralt was strangely euphoric, as though Ciri would emerge at any moment from the alder grove on the far bank and shout out joyfully on seeing him.

Instead of that the ferryman began shouting. And not joyfully in the least.

‘By the Gods! We’re done for!’

Geralt looked towards where he was pointing and cursed. Suits of armour flashed and hooves thudded among the alders on the high bank. A moment later the jetty on the left bank was teeming with horsemen.

‘Black Riders!’ the ferryman screamed, paling and releasing the wheel. ‘Nilfgaardians! Death! Gods, save us!’

‘Hold the horses, Dandelion!’ Milva yelled, trying to remove her bow from her saddle with one hand. ‘Hold the horses!’

‘They aren’t imperial forces,’ Cahir said. ‘I don’t think . . .’

His voice was drowned out by the shouts of the horsemen on the jetty and the ferryman’s yelling. Urged on by the yelling, the daft helper seized a hatchet, swung it and brought the blade down powerfully on the rope. The ferryman came forward to help him with another hatchet. The horsemen on the jetty noticed it and also began to yell. Several of them rode into the water, to seize the rope. Others began swimming towards the ferry.

‘Leave that rope alone!’ Dandelion shouted. ‘It’s not Nilfgaard! Don’t cut it—’

It was too late, however. The loose end of the rope sank heavily into the water, the ferry turned a little and began to float downstream. The horsemen on the bank started yelling.

‘Dandelion’s right,’ Cahir said grimly. ‘They aren’t imperial forces . . . They’re on the Nilfgaardian bank, but it isn’t Nilfgaard.’

‘Of course they aren’t!’ Dandelion called. ‘I recognise their livery! Eagles and lozenges! It’s Lyria’s coat of arms! They’re the Lyrian guerrillas! Hey, you men . . .’

‘Get down, you idiot!’

The poet, as usual, rather than listen to the warning, wanted to know what it was all about. And right then arrows whistled through the air. Some of them thudded into the side of the ferry, some of them flew over the deck and splashed into the water. Two flew straight for Dandelion, but the Witcher already had his sword in his hand, leapt forward and deflected both of them with swift blows.

‘By the Great Sun,’ Cahir grunted. ‘He deflected two arrows! Remarkable! I’ve never seen anything like it . . .’

‘And you never will again! That’s the first time I’ve ever managed two in a row! Now get down, will you!’

However, the soldiers by the jetty had stopped shooting, seeing the current pushing the drifting ferryboat straight towards their bank. Water foamed beside the horses which had been driven into the river. The ferry station was filling up with more horsemen. There were at least two hundred of them.

‘Help!’ the ferryman yelled. ‘Seize the poles, m’lords! We’re being carried to the bank!’

They understood at once, and fortunately there were plenty of poles. Regis and Dandelion held the horses, and Milva, Cahir and the Witcher aided the efforts of the ferryman and his duffer of an assistant. Pushed off by five poles, the ferryboat turned and began to move more quickly, clearly heading towards the midstream. The soldiers on the bank started yelling again, and took up their bows once again. Again, several arrows whistled past and one of their horses neighed wildly. The ferryboat, carried away by a more powerful current, was fortunately travelling quickly and began to move further from the bank, beyond the range of an effective arrow shot.

They were now floating in the middle of the river, on calm waters. The ferryboat was spinning like a turd in an ice hole and the horses stamped and whinnied, tugging at the reins, which were being held by Dandelion and the vampire. The horsemen on the bank yelled and shook their fists at them. Geralt suddenly noticed a rider on a white steed among them, who was waving a sword and issuing orders. A moment later the cavalcade withdrew into the forest and galloped along the edge of the high bank. Their armour flashed among the riverside undergrowth.

‘They aren’t letting us go,’ the ferryman groaned. ‘They know that the rapids round the corner will push us over towards the bank again . . . Keep those poles at the ready, m’lords! When it turns towards the right bank, we’ll have to help the old tub get the better of the current and land . . . Else we’re doomed . . .’

They floated, turning, drifting slightly towards the right bank; a steep, high bluff, bristling with crooked pine trees. The left bank, the one that was moving away from them, had become flat and jutted into the river in a semi-circular, sandy spit. Horsemen galloped onto the spit, their momentum taking them into the water. By the spit there was clearly a sandbank channel, a shallow, and before the water had reached the height of the horses’ bellies, the horsemen had ridden quite far into the river.

‘We’re in arrow range,’ Milva judged grimly. ‘Get down.’

Arrows began whistling again and some of them thumped into the planks. But the current, pushing them away from the channel, quickly carried the ferryboat towards a sharp bend on the right.

‘To the poles!’ the trembling ferryman ordered. ‘With a will. Let’s land before the rapids carry us away!’

It wasn’t so easy. The current was swift, the water deep and the ferryboat large, heavy and cumbersome. At first it did not react to their efforts at all, but finally the poles found more purchase on the riverbed. It looked as though they might succeed, when Milva suddenly dropped her pole and pointed wordlessly at the right bank.

‘This time . . .’ Cahir said, wiping sweat from his brow. ‘This time it’s definitely Nilfgaard.’

Geralt saw it too. The horsemen who had suddenly appeared on the right bank were wearing black and green cloaks, and the horses had typical Nilfgaardian blinders. There were at least a hundred of them.

‘Now we’re done for . . .’ the ferryman whimpered. ‘Mother of mine, it’s the Black Riders!’

‘To the poles!’ the Witcher roared. ‘To the poles and into the current! Away from the bank!’

Once again it turned out to be a difficult task. The current by the right bank was powerful and pushed the ferryboat straight under the high bluff, from which the shouts of the Nilfgaardians could be heard. A moment later, when Geralt, who was leaning on his pole, looked upwards, he saw pine branches above his head. An arrow shot from the top of the bluff penetrated the ferryboat’s deck almost vertically, two feet from him. He deflected another, which was heading for Cahir, with a blow of his sword.

Milva, Cahir, the ferryman and his assistant pushed away – not from the riverbed, but from the bank where the bluff was. Geralt dropped his sword, caught up a pole and helped them, and the ferryboat began to drift towards the calm waters again. But they were still dangerously close to the right bank and to their pursuers galloping along the edge of it. Before they could move away, the bluff ended and Nilfgaardians flooded onto the flat, reedy bank. Fletchings screamed through the air.

‘Get down!’

The ferryman’s helper suddenly coughed strangely, dropping his pole into the water. Geralt saw a bloodied arrowhead and four inches of shaft sticking out of his back. Cahir’s chestnut reared, neighed in pain, jerking its penetrated neck, knocked Dandelion down and leaped overboard. The remaining horses also neighed and thrashed, and the ferryboat shook from the impact of their hooves.

‘Hold the horses!’ the vampire yelled. ‘Three—’

He suddenly broke off, fell backwards against the planks, and sat down with his head lolling. A black-feathered arrow was sticking out of his chest.

Milva saw it too. She screamed with fury, picked up her bow, knelt and emptied the quiver of arrows right on the deck. Then she began to shoot. Quickly. Arrow after arrow. Not one missed its target.

There was confusion on the bank, the Nilfgaardians retreating into the forest, leaving their dead and wounded in the reeds. Hidden in the undergrowth they continued to shoot, but their arrows were barely reaching the ferryboat, which was being carried towards the midstream by the swift current. The distance was too great for the Nilfgaardian archers to shoot accurately. But not too great for Milva.

Among the Nilfgaardians suddenly appeared an officer in a black cape and a helmet with raven’s wings flapping on it. He was yelling, brandishing a mace and pointing downstream. Milva stood, took a broader stance, pulled the bowstring to her ear and quickly took aim. The arrow hissed in the air, and the officer bent backwards in his saddle and sagged in the arms of the soldiers holding him up. Milva drew her bow again and released her fingers from the bowstring. One of the Nilfgaardians holding up the officer screamed piercingly and lurched back off his horse. The others disappeared into the forest.

‘Masterful shots,’ Regis said calmly from behind the Witcher’s back. ‘But it’d be better if you grabbed the poles. We’re still too close to the bank and we’re being carried into the shallows.’

The archer and Geralt turned around.

‘Aren’t you dead?’ they asked in in chorus.

‘Did you think,’ the vampire said, showing them the black-fletched shaft, ‘I could be harmed by any old bit of wood?’

There was no time to be surprised. The ferryboat was once again turning around in the current and moving along the calm waters. But on the bend in the river another beach appeared, a sandbank and shallow channel, and the bank teemed with black-clad Nilfgaardians again. Some of them were riding into the river and preparing to shoot. Everyone, including Dandelion, rushed for the poles, which soon could not reach the bottom as – owing to the combined effort – the current finally carried the ferryboat towards swifter water.

‘Good,’ Milva panted, dropping her pole. ‘Now they won’t be able to reach us . . .’

‘One of them’s made it to the sandbank!’ Dandelion cried. ‘He’s going to shoot! Get out of sight!’

‘He’ll miss,’ Milva said coldly.

The arrow splashed into the water two yards from the ferryboat’s bow.

‘He’s doing it again!’ the troubadour yelled, peeping out from above the saxboard. ‘Look out!’

‘He’ll miss,’ Milva repeated, straightening the bracer on her left forearm. ‘He’s got a good bow, but he’s as much an archer as my old grannie. He’s overexcited. After he releases, he trembles and shakes like a woman with a slug wriggling up her arse. Hold onto the horses, so I don’t get knocked over.’

This time the Nilfgaardian shot too high and the arrow whistled over the ferryboat. Milva raised her bow, her stance firm, quickly pulled the bowstring to her cheek and released it gently, not changing her position by even a fraction of an inch. The Nilfgaardian tumbled into the water as though struck by lightning and began to float with the current. His black cape billowed out like a balloon.

‘That’s how it’s done,’ Milva said and lowered her bow. ‘But it’s too late for him to learn.’

‘The others are galloping after us,’ Cahir said, pointing towards the right bank. ‘And I vouch they won’t stop chasing us. Not now that Milva’s shot their officer. The river’s meandering and the current will carry us towards their bank again on the next bend. They know it and they’ll be waiting . . .’

‘Right now we have another worry,’ the ferryman moaned, getting up from his knees and throwing off his dead helper. ‘We’re being pushed straight for the left bank . . . By the Gods, we’re caught between two fires . . . And all because of you, m’lords! The blood will fall on your heads . . .’

‘Shut your trap and grab a pole!’

The flat, left bank, which was now nearer, was teeming with horsemen, identified by Dandelion as Lyrian partisans. They were yelling and waving their arms. Geralt noticed a rider on a white horse among them. He wasn’t certain, but he thought the rider was a woman. A fair-haired woman in armour, but without a helmet.

‘What are they yelling?’ Dandelion said, straining to listen. ‘Something about a queen, is it?’

The shouting on the left bank intensified. They could also hear the clanging of steel distinctly now.

‘It’s a battle,’ Cahir said bluntly. ‘Look. Those are imperial forces running out of the forest. The Nordlings were fleeing from them, and now they’ve been caught in a trap.’

‘The way out of the trap,’ Geralt said, spitting into the water, ‘was the ferry. I think they wanted to save at least their queen and their officers by ferrying them onto the other bank. And we hijacked the ferry. Oh, they won’t like us now, no, no . . .’

‘But they ought to!’ Dandelion said. ‘The ferry wouldn’t have saved anyone, just carried them straight into the clutches of the Nilfgaardians on the right bank. Let’s avoid the right bank too. We can parley with the Lyrians, but the Blacks will beat us to death without a second thought . . .’

‘It’s carrying us quicker and quicker,’ Milva said, spitting into the water too and watching her saliva drift away. ‘And right down the centre of the run. They can kiss our arses, both armies. The bends are gentle, the banks are level and overgrown with willows. We’re heading down the Yaruga and they won’t catch up with us. They’ll soon get bored.’

‘Bullshit,’ the ferryman groaned. ‘The Red Port is ahead of us . . . There’s a bridge there! And shallows! The ferry will get stuck . . . If they overtake us, they’ll be waiting for us . . .’

‘The Nordlings won’t overtake us,’ Regis said, pointing at the left bank from the stern. ‘They have their own worries.’

Indeed, a fierce battle was raging on the right bank. Most of the fighting took place in the forest and only betrayed itself by battle cries, but here and there the black and colourfully uniformed horsemen were delivering blows to each other in the water near the bank. Bodies were splashing into the Yaruga. The tumult and clang of steel quietened, and the ferryboat majestically, but quite quickly, headed downstream.

Finally no soldiers could be seen on the overgrown banks, and no sounds of their pursuers could be heard. Only when Geralt was starting to hope everything would end well did they see a wooden bridge spanning the two banks. The river flowed beneath the bridge, past sandbars and islands, the largest of which supported the bridge’s piers. On the right bank lay the timber port; they could see thousands of logs piled up there.

‘It’s shallow all around,’ the ferryman panted. ‘We can only get through the middle, to the right of the island. The current is carrying us there now, but grab the poles, they might help if we get stuck . . .’

‘There are soldiers on the bridge,’ Cahir said, shielding his eyes with his hand. ‘On the bridge and in the port . . .’

They could all see the soldiers. And they all saw the band of horsemen in black and green cloaks flooding out of the forest behind the port. They were even close enough to hear the noise of battle.

‘Nilfgaard,’ Cahir confirmed drily. ‘The men who were pursuing us. So the men in the port are Nordlings . . .’

‘To the poles!’ the ferryman yelled. ‘Maybe we’ll sneak through while they’re fighting!’

They did not manage to. They were very close to the bridge when it suddenly began to shake from the boots of running soldiers. The footmen were wearing white tunics, decorated with red lozenges over their hauberks. Most of them had crossbows, which they rested on the railing and aimed at the ferryboat approaching the bridge.

‘Don’t shoot, boys!’ Dandelion yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Don’t shoot! We’re with you!’

The soldiers did not hear, or did not want to hear.

The salvo of quarrels turned out to have tragic results. The only human to be hit was the ferryman, who was still trying to steer with his pole. A bolt pierced him right through. Cahir, Milva and Regis ducked down behind the side in time. Geralt seized his sword and deflected one quarrel, but there were too many of them. By an inexplicable miracle Dandelion, who was still yelling and waving his arms, was not hit. However, the hail of missiles caused real carnage among the horses. The grey slumped to its knees, struck by three quarrels. Milva’s black fell, kicking. Regis’s bay too. Roach, shot in the withers, reared and leaped overboard.

‘Don’t shoot!’ Dandelion bellowed. ‘We’re with you!’

This time it worked.

The ferryboat, carried by the current, ploughed into a sandbank with a grinding sound and came to rest. They all jumped onto the island or into the water, escaping the hooves of the agonised, thrashing horses. Milva was the last, for her movements had suddenly become horrifyingly slow. She’s been hit, the Witcher thought, seeing the girl clambering clumsily over the side and dropping inertly on the sand. He leapt towards her, but the vampire was quicker.

‘Something’s broken off in me,’ the girl said very slowly. And very unnaturally. And then she pressed her hands to her womb. Geralt saw the leg of her woollen trousers darkening with blood.

‘Pour that over my hands,’ Regis said, handing Geralt a small bottle he had removed from his bag. ‘Pour that over my hands, quickly.’

‘What is it?’

‘She’s miscarrying. Give me a knife. I have to cut open her clothes. And go away.’

‘No,’ Milva said. ‘I want him to stay . . .’

A tear trickled down her cheek.

The bridge above them thundered with soldiers’ boots.

‘Geralt!’ Dandelion yelled.

The Witcher, seeing what the vampire was doing to Milva, turned his head away in embarrassment. He noticed soldiers in white tunics rushing across the bridge at great speed. An uproar could still be heard from the right bank and the timber port.

‘They’re running away,’ Dandelion panted, running to him and tugging his sleeve. ‘The Nilfgaardians are already on the right bridgehead! The battle is still raging there, but most of the army are fleeing to the left bank! Do you hear? We have to flee too!’

‘We can’t,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Milva’s miscarried. She can’t walk.’

Dandelion swore.

‘We’ll have to carry her then,’ he declared. ‘It’s our only chance . . .’

‘Not our only one,’ Cahir said. ‘Geralt, onto the bridge.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ll hold back their flight. If those Nordlings can hold the right bridgehead long enough, perhaps we’ll be able to escape by the left one.’

‘How do you plan to do it?’

‘I’m an officer, don’t forget. Climb up that pier and onto the bridge!’

On the bridge, Cahir demonstrated that he was indeed experienced at bringing panicked soldiers under control.

‘Where are you going, scum? Where are you going, bastards?’ he yelled. Each roar was accompanied by a punch, as he knocked a fleeing soldier down onto the bridge’s boards. ‘Stop! Stop, you fucking swine!’

Some – but far from all – of the fleeing soldiers stopped, terrified by the roaring and flashing of the sword Cahir was whirling dramatically. Others tried to sneak behind his back. But Geralt had already drawn his sword and joined the spectacle.

‘Where are you going?’ he shouted, catching one of the soldiers in his tracks in a powerful grip. ‘Where? Stand fast! Get back there!’

‘Nilfgaard, sire!’ the soldier screamed. ‘It’s a bloodbath! Let me go!’

‘Cowards!’ Dandelion roared in a voice Geralt had never heard, as he clambered onto the bridge. ‘Base cowards! Chickenhearts! Would you flee to save your skins? To live out your days in ignominy, you varlets?’

‘They are too many, Sir Knight! We stand no chance!’

‘The centurion’s fallen . . .’ another of them moaned. ‘The decurions have taken flight! Death is coming!’

‘We must run!’

‘Your comrades,’ Cahir yelled, brandishing his sword, ‘are still fighting on the bridgehead and at the port! They are still fighting! Dishonour will be his who does not go to their aid! Follow me!’

‘Dandelion,’ the Witcher hissed. ‘Get down onto the island. You and Regis will have to get Milva onto the left bank somehow. Well, what are you waiting for?’

‘Follow me, boys!’ Cahir repeated, whirling his sword. ‘Follow me if the Gods are dear to you! To the timber port! Death to the dogs!’

About a dozen soldiers shook their weapons and took up the cry, their voices expressing very varied degrees of conviction. About a dozen of the men who had already run away turned back in shame and joined the ragtag army on the bridge. An army which was suddenly being led by the Witcher and the Nilfgaardian.

They might really have set off for the timber port, but the bridgehead was suddenly black with the cavalrymen’s cloaks. The Nilfgaardians broke through the defence and forced their way onto the bridge. Horseshoes thudded on the planking. Some of the soldiers who had been stopped darted away, others stood indecisively. Cahir cursed. In Nilfgaardian. But no one apart from the Witcher paid any attention to it.

‘What has been started must be finished,’ Geralt snapped, gripping his sword tightly. ‘Let’s get them! We have to spur our men into action.’

‘Geralt,’ Cahir said, stopping and looking at him uncertainly. ‘Do you want me to . . . to kill my own? I can’t . . .’

‘I don’t give a shit about this war,’ the Witcher said, grinding his teeth. ‘This is about Milva. You joined the company, so make a choice. Follow me or join the black cloaks. But do it quickly.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

And so it was that a witcher and a Nilfgaardian roared savagely, whirled their swords and leapt forward together without a second thought – two brothers in arms, two allies and comrades – in an encounter with their common foe, in an uneven battle. And that was their baptism of fire. A baptism of shared fighting, fury, madness and death. They were going to their deaths, the two of them. Or so they thought. For they could not know that they would not die that day, on that bridge over the River Yaruga. They did not know that they were both destined for other deaths, in other places and times.

The Nilfgaardians had silver scorpions embroidered on their sleeves. Cahir slashed two of them with quick blows of his long sword, and Geralt cut up two more with blows of his sihil. Then he jumped onto the bridge’s railing, running along it to attack the rest. He was a witcher and keeping his balance was a trifle to him, but his acrobatic feat astonished the attackers. And amazed they died, from blows of his dwarven blade, which cut through their hauberks as though they were made of wool, their blood splashing the bridge’s polished timbers.

Seeing their commanders’ valour the now larger army on the bridge raised a cheer, a roar which expressed returning morale and a growing fighting spirit. And so it was that the previously panicked fugitives attacked the Nilfgaardians like fierce wolves, slashing with swords and battle-axes, stabbing with spears and halberds and striking with clubs and maces. The railing broke and horses plunged into the river with their black-cloaked riders. The roaring army hurtled onto the bridgehead, pushing their chance commanders ahead of them, not letting Geralt and Cahir do what they wanted to do. For they wanted to withdraw quietly, return to help Milva and flee to the left bank.

A battle was still raging at the timber port. The Nilfgaardians had surrounded and cut off the soldiers – who had not yet fled – from the bridge. Those in turn were defending themselves ferociously behind barricades built from cedar and pine logs. At the sight of the reinforcements the handful of soldiers raised a joyful cry. A little too hastily, however. The tight wedge of reinforcements swept the Nilfgaardians off the bridge. But now a flanking cavalry counter-attack began on the bridgehead. Had it not been for the barricades and timber port’s woodpiles, which inhibited both escape and the cavalry’s momentum, the infantry would have been scattered in an instant. Pressed against the woodpiles, the soldiers took up a fierce fight.

For Geralt it was something he did not know, a completely new kind of fighting. Swordsmanship was out of the question, it was simply a chaotic melee; a ceaseless parrying of blows falling from every direction. However, he continued to take advantage of the rather undeserved privilege of being the commander; the soldiers crowded around him covering his flanks, protected his back and cleared the area in front of him, creating space for him to strike and mortally wound. But it was becoming more and more cramped. The Witcher and his army found themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder with the bloody and exhausted handful of soldiers – mainly dwarven mercenaries – defending the barricade. They fought, surrounded on all sides.

And then came fire.

One side of the barricade, located between the timber port and the bridge, had been a huge pile of pine branches, as spiky as a hedgehog, an unsurmountable obstacle to horses and infantry. Now that pile was on fire; someone had thrown a burning brand into it. The defenders retreated, assaulted by flames and smoke. Crowded together, blinded, hampering each other, they began to die under the blows of the attacking Nilfgaardians.

Cahir saved the day. Making use of his military experience, he did not allow the soldiers gathering around him on the barricade to be surrounded. He had been cut off from Geralt’s group, but was now returning. He had even managed to acquire a horse in a black caparison, and now, hacking in all directions with his sword, he charged at the flank. Behind him, yelling wildly, halberdiers and spearmen in red-lozenged tunics forced their way into the gap.

Geralt put his fingers together and struck the burning pile with the Aard Sign. He did not expect any great effect, since he had been forced to make do without his witcher elixirs for several weeks. But he succeeded nonetheless. The pile of branches exploded and fell apart, showering sparks around.

‘Follow me!’ he roared, slashing a Nilfgaardian’s temple when the man was trying to push his way onto the barricade. ‘Follow me! Through the fire!’

And so they set off, scattering the still-burning pyre with their spears, throwing the flaming brands they had picked up with their bare hands at the Nilfgaardian horses.

A baptism of fire, the Witcher thought, furiously striking and parrying blows. I was meant to pass through fire for Ciri. And I’m passing through fire in a battle which is of no interest to me at all. Which I don’t understand in any way. The fire that was meant to purify me is just scorching my hair and face.

The blood he was splattered with hissed and steamed.

‘Onward, comrades! Cahir! To me!’

‘Geralt!’ Cahir shouted, sweeping another Nilfgaardian from the saddle. ‘To the bridge! Force your way through to the bridge! We’ll close ranks . . .’

He did not finish, for a cavalryman in a black breastplate, without a helmet, with flowing, bloodied hair, galloped at him. Cahir parried a blow of the rider’s long sword, but was thrown from his horse, which sat down on its haunches. The Nilfgaardian leant over to pin him to the ground with his sword. But he did not. He stayed his thrust. The silver scorpion on his breastplate flashed.

‘Cahir!’ he cried in astonishment. ‘Cahir aep Ceallach!’

‘Morteisen . . .’ no less astonishment could be heard in the voice of Cahir, spread-eagled on the ground.

A dwarven mercenary running alongside Geralt in a blackened and charred tunic with a red lozenge didn’t waste time being astonished by anything. He plunged his bear spear powerfully into the Nilfgaardian’s belly, unseating the enemy with the impetus of the blow. Another leapt forward, stamping on the fallen cavalryman’s black breastplate with a heavy boot, and thrust his spear’s blade straight into his throat. The Nilfgaardian wheezed, puking blood and raking the sand with his spurs.

At the same moment the Witcher received a blow in the base of his spine with something very heavy and very hard. His knees buckled beneath him. Falling, he heard a great, triumphant roar. He saw the horsemen in black cloaks fleeing into the trees. He heard the bridge thundering beneath the hooves of the cavalry arriving from the left bank, carrying a banner with an eagle surrounded by red lozenges.

And thus, for Geralt, ended the great battle for the bridge on the Yaruga. A battle which later chroniclers did not, of course, even mention.

‘Don’t worry, my lord,’ the field surgeon said, tapping and feeling the Witcher’s back. ‘The bridge is down. We aren’t in danger of being attacked from the other bank. Your comrades and the woman are also safe. Is she your wife?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, and I thought . . . For it’s always dreadful, sire, when pregnant women suffer in wars . . .’

‘Be silent. Not a word about it. What are those banners?’

‘Don’t you know who you were fighting for? Who would have thought such a thing were possible . . . That’s the Lyrian Army. See, the black Lyrian eagle and the red Rivian lozenges. Good, I’m done here. It was only a bump. Your back will hurt a little, but it’s nothing. You’ll recover.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I should be thanking you. Had you not held the bridge, Nilfgaard would have slaughtered us on the far bank, forcing us back into the water. We wouldn’t have been able to flee from them . . . You saved the queen! Well, farewell, sire. I have to go, others need me to tend to their wounds.’

‘Thanks.’

He sat on a log in the port, weary, sore and apathetic. Alone. Cahir had disappeared somewhere. The golden-green Yaruga flowed between the piers of the ruined bridge, sparkling in the light of the sun, which was setting in the west.

He raised his head, hearing steps, the clatter of horseshoes and the clanking of armour.

‘This is he, Your Majesty. Let me help you dismount . . .’

‘Thtay away.’

Geralt lifted up his eyes. Before him stood a woman in a suit of armour, a woman with very pale hair, almost as pale as his own. He saw that the hair was not fair, but grey, although the woman’s face did not bear the marks of old age. A mature age, indeed. But not old age.

The woman pressed a batiste handkerchief with lace hems to her lips. The handkerchief was heavily blood-stained.

‘Rise, sire,’ one of the knights standing alongside whispered to Geralt. ‘And pay homage. It is the Queen.’

The Witcher stood up. And bowed, overcoming the pain in his lower back.

‘Did you thafeguard the bridge?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

The woman took the handkerchief away from her mouth and spat blood. Several red drops fell on her ornamented breastplate.

‘Her Royal Highness Meve, Queen of Lyria and Rivia,’ said a knight in a purple cloak decorated with gold embroidery, standing beside the woman, ‘is asking if you led the heroic defence of the bridge on the Yaruga?’

‘It just seemed to happen.’

‘Theemed to happen?’ the queen said, trying to laugh, but not having much success. She scowled, swore foully but indistinctly, and spat again. Before she had time to cover her mouth he saw a nasty wound, and noticed she lacked several teeth. She caught his eye.

‘Yes,’ she said behind her handkerchief, looking him in the eye. ‘Thome thon-of-a-bitch thmacked me right in the fathe. A trifle.’

‘Queen Meve,’ the knight in the purple cloak announced, ‘fought in the front line, like a man, like a knight, opposing the superior forces of Nilfgaard! The wound hurts, but does not shame her! And you saved her and our corps. After some traitors had captured and hijacked the ferryboat, that bridge became our only hope. And you defended it valiantly . . .’

‘Thtop, Odo. What ith your name, hero?’

‘Mine?’

‘Certainly,’ the knight in purple said, looking at him menacingly. ‘What is the matter with you? Are you wounded? Injured? Were you struck in the head?’

‘No.’

‘Then answer the Queen! You see, do you not, that she is wounded in the mouth and has difficulty speaking!’

‘Thtop that, Odo.’

The purple knight bowed and then glanced at Geralt.

‘Your name?’

Very well, he thought. I’ve had enough of this. I will not lie.

‘Geralt.’

‘Geralt from where?’

‘From nowhere.’

‘Has no one bethtowed a knighthood on you?’ Meve asked, once more decorating the sand beneath her feet with a red splash of saliva mixed with blood.

‘I beg your pardon? No, no. Nobody has. Your Majesty.’

Meve drew her sword.

‘Kneel.’

He obeyed, still unable to believe what was happening. He was still thinking of Milva and the route he had chosen for her, fearing the swamps of Ysgith.

The queen turned to the Purple Knight.

‘You will thpeak the formula. I am toothleth.’

‘For outstanding valour in the fight for a just cause,’ the Purple Knight recited with emphasis. ‘For showing proof of virtue, honour and loyalty to the Crown, I, Meve, by grace of the Gods the Queen of Lyria and Rivia, by my power, right and privilege dub you a knight. Serve us faithfully. Bear this blow, shirk not away from pain.’

Geralt felt the touch of the blade on his shoulder. He looked into the queen’s pale green eyes. Meve spat thick red gore, pressed the handkerchief to her face, and winked at him over the lace.

The Purple Knight walked over to her and whispered something. The Witcher heard the words: ‘predicate’, ‘Rivian lozenges’, ‘banner’ and ‘virtue’.

‘That ith tho,’ Meve said, nodding. She spoke more and more clearly, overcoming the pain and sticking her tongue in the gap left by missing teeth. ‘You held the bridge with tholdierth of Rivia, valiant Geralt of nowhere. It jutht theemed to happen, ha, ha. Well, it hath come to me to give you a predicate for that deed: Geralt of Rivia. Ha, ha.’

‘Bow, sir knight,’ the Purple Knight hissed.

The freshly dubbed knight, Geralt of Rivia, bowed low, so that Queen Meve, his suzerain, would not see the smile – the bitter smile – that he was unable to resist.

The Tower of the Swallow

Dedication

To Dun Dâre they came at dead of night For to seek the witcher maid

They ringed the hamlet from all sides And sealed it with a barricade

Seize her they would in perfidy

But their plans were all in vain

Ere the sun arose on the frozen road

Three dozen brigands lay slain

A beggar’s song about the frightful massacre which took place in Dun Dâre on Samhain Eve

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘I can give you everything you desire,’ said the fortune-teller. ‘Riches, power and influence, fame and a long and happy life. Choose.’

‘I wish for neither riches nor fame, neither power nor influence,’ rejoined the witcher girl. ‘I wish for a horse, as black and swift as a nightly gale. I wish for a sword, as bright and keen as a moonbeam. I wish to overstride the world on my black horse through the black night. I wish to smite the forces of Evil and Darkness with my luminous blade. This I would have.’

‘I shall give you a horse, blacker than the night and fleeter than a nightly gale,’ vowed the fortune-teller. ‘I shall give you a sword, brighter and keener than a moonbeam. But you demand much, witcher girl, thus you must pay me dearly.’

‘With what? For I have nothing.’

‘With your blood.’

Flourens Delannoy, Fairy Tales and Stories

CHAPTER ONE

As is generally known, the Universe – like life – describes a wheel. A wheel on whose rim eight magical points are etched, making a complete turn; the annual cycle. These points, lying on the rim in pairs directly opposite each other, include Imbolc, or Budding; Lughnasadh, or Mellowing; Beltane, or Blooming; and Samhain, or Dying. Also marked on the wheel are the two Solstices, the winter one called Midinvaerne and Midaëte, for the summer. There are also the two Equinoxes – Birke, in spring, and Velen, in autumn. These dates divide the circle into eight parts – and so in the elven calendar the year is also divided up like that.

When they landed on the beaches in the vicinity of the Yaruga and the Pontar, people brought with them their own calendar, based on the moon, which divided the year into twelve months, giving the farmer’s annual working cycle – from the beginning, with the markers in January, until the end, when the frost turns the sod into a hard lump. But although people divided up the year and reckoned dates differently, they accepted the elven wheel and the eight points around its rim. Adopted from the elven calendar, Imbolc and Lughnasadh, Samhain and Beltane, both Solstices and both Equinoxes became important holidays, sacred tides for human folk. They stood out from the other dates as a lone tree stands out in a meadow.

Those dates are also set apart by magic.

It was not – and is not – a secret that the eight dates are days and nights during which the enchanted aura is greatly intensified. No longer is anyone astonished by the magical phenomena and mysterious occurrences that accompany the eight dates, in particular the Equinoxes and Solstices. Everyone is now accustomed to such phenomena and they seldom evoke a great sensation.

But that year it was different.

That year people had, as usual, celebrated the autumnal Equinox with a solemn family meal, during which all the kinds of fruits from that year’s harvest had to be arrayed on the table, even if only a little of each. Custom dictated it. Having eaten and given thanks to the goddess Melitele for the harvest, the people retired for the night. And then the nightmare began.

Just before midnight a frightful storm got up and a hellish gale blew, in which a ghastly howling, screaming and wailing were heard above the rustling of trees being bent almost to the ground, the creaking of rafters and the banging of shutters. The clouds driven across the sky assumed outlandish shapes, among which the most common were silhouettes of galloping horses and unicorns. The gale did not abate for a good hour, and in the sudden silence that followed it the night came alive with the trilling and whirring of the wings of hundreds of goatsucker nightjars, those mysterious fowl which – according to folk tales – gather together to sing a demonic death knell over a dying person. This time the chorus of nightjars was as mighty and loud as if the entire world were about to expire.

The nightjars sang their death knell in clamorous voices while the horizon became shrouded in clouds, quenching the remains of the moonlight. At that moment sounded the howl of the fell beann’shie, the harbinger of imminent and violent death, and across the black sky galloped the Wild Hunt – a procession of fiery-eyed phantoms on skeleton horses, their tattered cloaks and standards fluttering behind them. So it was every few years. The Wild Hunt gathered its harvest, but it had not been this terrible for decades – in Novigrad alone over two dozen people went missing without a trace.

After the Hunt had galloped by and the clouds had dispersed, people saw the moon – on the wane, as was customary during the Equinox. But that night the moon was the colour of blood.

Simple folk had many explanations for these equinoctial phenomena, which tended to differ considerably from each other according to the specifics of local demonology. Astrologers, druids and sorcerers also had their explanations, but they were in the main erroneous and cobbled together haphazardly. Few, very few, people were able to connect the phenomena to real facts.

On the Isles of Skellige, for example, a few very superstitious people saw in the curious events a harbinger of Tedd Deireadh, the end of the world, preceded by Ragh nar Roog, the last battle between Light and Darkness. The violent storm which rocked the Islands on the night of the Autumn Equinox was regarded by the superstitious as a wave pushed by the prow of the fearsome Naglfar of Morhögg, a longship with sides built of dead men’s fingernails and toenails, bearing an army of spectres and demons of Chaos. More enlightened or better informed people, however, linked the turmoil of the heavens with the evil witch Yennefer, and her dreadful death. Others yet – who were even better informed – saw in the churned-up sea a sign that someone was dying, someone in whose veins flowed the blood of the kings of Skellige and Cintra.

The world over, the autumn Equinox was a night of spectres, nightmares and apparitions, a night of sudden, suffocating awakenings, fraught with menace, among sweat-soaked and rumpled sheets. Neither did the most illustrious escape the apparitions and awakenings; Emperor Emhyr var Emreis awoke with a cry in the Golden Towers in Nilfgaard. In the North, in Lan Exeter, King Esterad Thyssen leaped from his bed, waking his spouse, Queen Zuleyka. In Tretogor, the arch-spy Dijkstra leaped up and reached for his dagger, waking the wife of the state treasurer. In the huge castle of Montecalvo the sorceress Philippa Eilhart leaped from damask sheets, without waking the Comte de Noailles’ wife. The dwarf Yarpen Zigrin in Mahakam, the old witcher Vesemir in the mountain stronghold of Kaer Morhen, the bank clerk Fabio Sachs in the city of Gors Velen and Yarl Crach an Craite on board the longboat Ringhorn all awoke more or less abruptly. The sorceress Fringilla Vigo came awake in Beauclair Castle, as did the priestess Sigrdrifa of the temple of the goddess Freyja on the island of Hindarsfjall. Daniel Etcheverry, Count of Garramone, awoke in the besieged fortress of Maribor. As did Zyvik, decurion of the Dun Banner, in Ban Gleann fort. And the merchant Dominik Bombastus Houvenaghel in the town of Claremont. And many, many others.

Few, though, were capable of connecting all those occurrences and phenomena with an actual, specific fact. Or a specific person. A stroke of luck meant that three such people were spending the night of the autumn Equinox under one roof. They were in the temple of the goddess Melitele in Ellander.

*

‘Lich fowl . . .’ groaned the scribe Jarre, staring into the darkness filling the temple grounds. ‘There must be thousands of them, whole flocks. They’re crying over someone’s death. Over her death . . . She’s dying . . .’

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ Triss Merigold spun around, raised a clenched fist, and, for a moment, looked as though she would shove the boy or strike him in the chest. ‘Do you believe in foolish superstitions? September is coming to an end and the nightjars are gathering before taking flight! It’s quite natural!’

‘She’s dying . . .’

‘No one is dying!’ screamed the sorceress, paling in fury. ‘No one, do you understand? Stop talking nonsense!’

Several young female adepts appeared in the library corridor, aroused by the nocturnal alarm. Their countenances were grave and ashen.

‘Jarre.’ Triss had calmed down. She placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed hard. ‘You’re the only man in the temple. We’re all watching you, looking for support and succour from you. You must not fear, you must not panic. Master yourself. Do not let us down.’

Jarre took a deep breath, trying to calm the trembling of his hands and lips.

‘It is not fear . . .’ he whispered, avoiding the sorceress’s gaze. ‘I’m not afraid, I’m troubled! About her. I saw her in a dream.’

‘I saw her too.’ Triss pursed her lips. ‘We had the same dream, you, I and Nenneke. Not a word about it.’

‘Blood on her face . . . So much blood—’

‘Be silent, I say. Nenneke approaches.’

The high priestess joined them. She looked weary. She shook her head in answer to Triss’s wordless question. Seeing that Jarre had opened his mouth, she forestalled him.

‘Nothing, sadly. Almost all the girls awoke when the Wild Hunt flew over the temple, but none of them had a vision. Not even one as hazy as ours. Go to bed, lad, you cannot help. Back to the dormitory, girls.’

She rubbed her face and eyes with both hands.

‘Oh . . . The Equinox! This accursed night . . . Go to bed, Triss. We can do nothing.’

The sorceress clenched her fists. ‘This helplessness is driving me to insanity. The thought that somewhere she is suffering, bleeding, that she’s in peril . . . If I only knew what to do, dammit!’

Nenneke, high priestess of the temple of Melitele, turned around.

‘Have you tried praying?’

*

In the South, far beyond the mountains of Amell, in Ebbing, in the land called Pereplut, on the vast marshes crisscrossed by the rivers Velda, Lete and Arete, in a place eight hundred miles as the crow flies from the city of Ellander and the temple of Melitele, a nightmare jerked the old hermit Vysogota from sleep. Once awake, Vysogota could not for the life of him recall his dream, but a weird unease prevented him from falling asleep again.

*

‘It’s cold, cold, cold,’ said Vysogota to himself, as he tramped along a path among the reeds. ‘It’s cold, cold, brrr.’

Yet another trap was empty. Not a single muskrat. A most unsuccessful night. Vysogota cleaned sludge and duckweed from the trap, muttering curses and sniffing through his frozen nostrils.

‘It’s cold, brrr, hooeee!’ he said, walking towards the edge of the swamp. ‘And September not yet over! It’s but four days after the Equinox! Ah, I don’t recall such chills at the end of September, not for as long as I’ve lived. And I’ve lived a long time!’

The next – and penultimate – trap was also empty. Vysogota didn’t even feel like cursing.

‘There’s no doubt,’ he wittered on, as he walked, ‘that the climate grows colder with every passing year. And now it looks as though the cooling will progress apace. Ha, the elves predicted that long since, but who believed in elven forecasts?’

Once again small wings whirred, and incredibly swift grey shapes flashed by above the old man’s head. Once again the fog over the swamps echoed with the wild, intermittent churring of the goatsucker nightjars and the rapid slapping of their wings. Vysogota paid no attention to the birds. He was not superstitious, and there were always plenty of lich fowl on the bogs, particularly at dawn. The air was so thick with them he feared they would collide with him. No, perhaps there weren’t always as many as there were today, perhaps they didn’t always call quite so bloodcurdlingly . . . Ah well, he thought, latterly nature has been playing queer pranks, and it’s been one oddity after another, each one queerer than the last.

He was just removing the last – empty – trap from the water when he heard the neighing of a horse. The nightjars suddenly all fell silent.

There were hummocks on the swamps of Pereplut: dry, raised places, with river birch, alder, dogwood and blackthorn growing on them. Most of the hummocks were surrounded so completely by the bogs that it was impossible for a horse or a rider who didn’t know the paths to reach them. But the neighing – Vysogota heard it once again – was coming from one of them hillocks.

Curiosity got the better of caution.

Vysogota was no expert on horses and their breeds, but he was an aesthete, and was able to recognise and appreciate beauty. And the black horse he saw framed against the birch trunks, with its coat gleaming like anthracite, was extraordinarily beautiful. It was the sheer quintessence of beauty. It was so beautiful it seemed unreal.

But it was real. And quite really caught in a trap, its reins and bridle entangled in the blood-red, clinging branches of a dogwood bush. When Vysogota went closer, the horse put its ears back and stamped so hard the ground shuddered, jerking its shapely head and whirling around. Now it was clear it was a mare. There was something else. Something that made Vysogota’s heart pound frantically, and invisible pincers of adrenaline tighten around his throat.

Behind the horse, in a shallow hollow, lay a body.

Vysogota dropped his sack on the ground. And was ashamed of his first thought; which was to turn tail and run. He went closer, exercising caution, because the black mare was stamping her hooves, flattening her ears, baring her teeth on the bit and just waiting for the opportunity to bite or kick him.

The corpse was that of a teenage boy. He was lying face down, with one arm pinned by his trunk, the other extended to one side with its fingers digging into the sand. The boy was wearing a short suede jacket, tight leather britches and soft knee-high elven boots with buckles.

Vysogota leaned over. And just then the corpse gave a loud groan. The black mare gave a long-drawn-out neigh and thumped its hooves against the ground.

The hermit knelt down and cautiously turned over the injured boy. He involuntarily drew back and hissed at the sight of the ghastly mask of dirt and congealed blood where the boy’s face should have been. He delicately picked moss, leaves and sand from the spittle-and mucous-covered lips, and tried to pull away the matted hair stuck with blood to his cheek. The injured boy moaned softly and tensed up. And began to shake. Vysogota peeled the hair away from the boy’s face.

‘A girl,’ he said aloud, unable to believe what was right in front of him. ‘It’s a girl.’

*

That day, had someone quietly crept up at dusk to the remote cottage in the midst of the swamp with its sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had they peered through the slits in the shutters, in the weak glow of tallow candles, they would have seen a teenage girl with her head thickly bound in bandages, lying with almost corpse-like motionlessness, on a pallet covered in animal skins. They would also have seen an old man with a grey, wedge-shaped beard and long white hair, which fell down onto his shoulders and back from the edge of a broad bald patch that extended from his soiled forehead far beyond his crown. They would have noticed the old man lighting another tallow candle, placing an hourglass on the table, sharpening a quill and hunching over a leaf of parchment. Seen him ponder and mumble something to himself, keeping a close watch on the girl lying on the pallet.

But it would not have been possible. No one could have seen it. The cottage of the hermit Vysogota was well concealed amidst the marshes, in a wilderness permanently shrouded in mist, where no one dared to venture.

*

‘We shall note down as follows,’ Vysogota dipped his quill in the ink, ‘Third hour after my intervention. Diagnosis: vulnus incisivum, an open wound, dealt with great force using an unidentified sharp instrument, probably a curved blade. It encompasses the left part of the face, beginning in the infraorbital region, running across the cheek and extending as far as the parotid plexus and masseter muscle. The wound is deepest – reaching the periosteum – in the initial part beneath the orbit on the zygomatic bone. Probable length of time from when the wound was sustained to when it was first dressed: ten hours.’

The quill scratched on the parchment, but the scratching didn’t last longer than a few moments. Or lines. Vysogota did not find everything he said to himself worthy of being written down.

‘Returning to the dressing of the wound,’ the old man began again, staring at the flickering and smoking candle flame, ‘let us write as follows: I did not excise the edges of the cut, I limited myself to the removal of shreds of dead tissue and coagulated blood. I bathed the wound with willow bark extract. I removed dirt and foreign bodies. I put in sutures. Hemp sutures. Let it be written that I did not have any other kinds of thread at my disposal. I used a poultice of wolfsbane and applied a formed muslin dressing.’

A mouse scampered out into the middle of the chamber. Vysogota threw it a piece of bread. The girl on the pallet breathed restlessly and groaned in her sleep.

*

‘Eighth hour following my intervention. Condition of the patient – unchanged. Condition of the doctor . . . I mean my condition . . . has improved, since I have enjoyed a little sleep . . . I can continue my notes. It behoves me to commit onto these leaves some information about my patient. For posterity. Assuming that posterity reaches these swamps before everything decays and crumbles into dust.’

Vysogota sighed heavily, dipped his quill and wiped it on the edge of his inkwell.

‘As far as the patient is concerned,’ he muttered, ‘let the following be noted down. Age, I would say, around sixteen. Tall, strikingly slim build, but by no means puny, no indication of undernourishment. Musculature and physical construction rather typical for a young elf-woman, but no mixed-blood traits found . . . Can’t be more than one eighth elven. A smaller proportion of elven blood may, of course, not leave any traces.’

Vysogota only now seemed to have realised that he hadn’t written a single word on the page. He put his quill to the parchment, but the ink had dried. The old man was not bothered in the slightest.

‘May it be noted,’ he continued, ‘that the girl has had no children. I emphasise: I refer to old scars. No shortage of fresh wounds on her body. The girl has been beaten. Flogged, and by various means, probably at her father’s hand. She has probably also been kicked.

‘I also found on her body quite a strange distinguishing mark . . . Hmmm . . . Let’s write this down, for the good of science . . . The girl has a red rose tattooed on her loins, right by the pubic mound.’

Vysogota stared at the sharpened quill point before dipping it into the inkwell. This time, though, he did not forget why he had done it – he quickly began to cover the page with even lines of sloping script. He wrote until the quill was dry.

‘She was talking and shouting in befuddlement,’ he said. ‘Her accent and way of expressing herself – if I pass over frequent interjections in profane criminal cant – are quite confusing, difficult to place, but I would risk the assertion that they originate rather from the North than the South. Some of the words . . .’

Once again his quill scratched over the parchment, much too briefly to write down everything he had said a short while before. And then he took up his monologue in exactly the place he had left it.

‘Some of the words and names the girl mumbled in her delirium are worth remembering. And investigating. Everything suggests a very – I mean very – extraordinary person has found their way to old Vysogota’s cottage . . .’

He said nothing for a while and listened.

‘I just hope,’ he muttered, ‘that old Vysogota’s cottage doesn’t prove the end of her road.’

*

Vysogota bent over the parchment and even pressed his quill to it, but wrote nothing, not a single letter. He threw the quill onto the table. He breathed heavily for a while, muttered angrily and blew his nose. He looked at the pallet and listened to the sounds coming from it.

‘It must be stated and noted,’ he said in a weary voice, ‘that things look very ill. All my endeavours may be insufficient, and my exertions in vain. My fears were well-founded. The wound is infected. The girl is most worryingly feverish. Three of the four cardinal symptoms of acute inflammation have appeared. Rubor, calor and tumor can easily be confirmed by eye and touch. When the post-treatment shock passes, the fourth symptom – dolor – will also appear. Let it be writ that almost half a century has passed since I have practiced medicine. I feel the years weighing on my memory and the dexterity of my fingers. I have little practical skill, and there is little I can do. I have painfully few resources or medicaments. The only hope lies in the young body’s immune mechanisms . . .’

*

‘Twelfth hour following my intervention. In accordance with expectations came the fourth cardinal symptom of inflammation: dolor. The patient is crying out in pain, the fever and shivers are growing stronger. I have nothing, not a single physic to give her. I have a small quantity of stink weed elixir, but the girl is too frail to survive its effects. I also have monk’s hood, but monk’s hood would surely kill her.’

*

‘Fifteenth hour following my intervention. Dawn. Patient unconscious. The fever advances rapidly, the shivers intensify. Moreover, powerful spasms of the facial muscles are occurring. If it is tetanus the girl is done for. Let us hope it is only the facial nerve . . . Or the trigeminal nerve. Or both of them . . . The girl would be left disfigured . . . But she would live . . .’

Vysogota glanced at the parchment, on which not a single word was written.

‘On condition,’ he said hollowly, ‘that she survives the infection.’

*

‘Twentieth hour following my intervention. The fever advances. The rubor, calor, tumor and dolor are reaching, I venture, critical limits. But the girl has no chance of survival, of even reaching those limits. Thus do I write . . . I, Vysogota of Corvo, do not believe in the existence of gods. But were they by any chance to exist, let them take this girl into their care. And may they forgive me what I have done . . . If what I did turns out to be in error.’

Vysogota put down his quill, rubbed his swollen and itchy eyelids, and pressed a fist against his temple.

‘I have given her a mixture of stink weed and monk’s hood,’ he said hollowly. ‘The next hours will determine everything.’

*

He was not sleeping, only dozing, when a knocking and a pounding accompanied by a groan wrenched him from his slumber. It was a groan more of fury than of pain.

Outside, the day was dawning. A faint light filtered through the slits in the shutters. The hourglass had run its course long before; as usual Vysogota had forgotten to turn it over. The oil lamp flickered, and the ruby glow of the hearth dimly lit the corner of the chamber. The old man stood up and moved away the makeshift screen of blankets which separated the pallet from the rest of the room, in order to give the patient peace and quiet.

The patient had already picked herself up from the floor where she had fallen a moment earlier, and was sitting hunched on the edge of her pallet, trying to scratch her face under the dressing. Vysogota cleared his throat.

‘I asked you not to rise. You are too feeble. If you need anything, call. I’m always at hand.’

‘Well, I don’t want you to be at hand,’ she said softly, under her breath, but quite clearly. ‘I need to pee.’

When he returned to remove the chamber pot, she was lying on her back on the pallet, fingering the dressing attached to her cheek by strips of bandage wrapped around her forehead and neck. When he went over to her again a moment later she was in the same position.

‘Four days?’ she asked, looking at the ceiling.

‘Five. Almost a day has passed since our last conversation. You slept the whole day. That is good. You need sleep.’

‘I feel better.’

‘I’m gladdened to hear it. Let’s remove the dressing. I’ll help you sit up. Take my hand.’

The wound was healing well and cleanly. This time the removal of the bandages passed without the painful tearing of the dressing from the scab. The girl gingerly touched her cheek. She grimaced, but Vysogota knew it wasn’t only from the pain. Every time she checked the extent of the disfigurement she appreciated the gravity of the wound. She made certain – with horror – that what she had touched before had not been a fevered nightmare.

‘Do you have a looking glass?’

‘I do not,’ he lied.

She looked at him totally clear-headed, possibly for the first time.

‘You mean it’s that bad?’ she asked, cautiously running her fingers over the stitches.

‘It’s a very long cut,’ he mumbled, angry at himself that he was making excuses and justifying himself to a girl. ‘Your face is still swollen. In a few days I shall remove the sutures. Until then I shall be applying wolfsbane and extract of willow. I shall no longer bandage your entire head. It’s healing nicely. Very nicely.’

She did not reply. She moved her mouth and jaw, and wrinkled and contorted her face, testing what the wound permitted and what not.

‘I’ve made pigeon broth. Will you eat some?’

‘I will. But this time I’ll try by myself. It’s humiliating to be spoon-fed when I’m not paralysed.’

Eating took her a long time. She lifted the wooden spoon to her mouth cautiously, using as much effort as if it weighed two pounds. But she managed without the help of Vysogota, who was observing her with interest. Vysogota was inquisitive – and burning with curiosity. He knew that the girl’s return to health would lead to conversations which could throw light on the whole mysterious matter. He knew it and couldn’t wait for that moment. He had lived too long alone in the wilderness.

She finished eating and sank back onto her pillow. For a moment she gazed lifelessly at the ceiling and then turned her head. The extraordinarily large green eyes, Vysogota realised once again, gave her face an innocently childlike expression, now clashing violently with her hideously disfigured cheek. Vysogota knew those looks; a big-eyed, permanent child, were a physiognomy arousing an instinctive sympathetic reaction. A perennial girl, even when her twentieth, thirtieth, why, even fortieth birthday had long ago sunk into oblivion. Yes, Vysogota knew those looks well. His second wife had been like that. And his daughter, too.

‘I must flee from here,’ the girl suddenly said. ‘Urgently. I’m being hunted. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ he nodded. ‘Those were your first words, which contrary to appearances were not ravings. To be more precise, they were among the first. First you asked about your horse and your sword. In that order. Once I had assured you that your horse and sword were in good hands, you became suspicious that I was the comrade of a certain Bonhart and wasn’t treating you but inflicting the torture of hope. When, not without difficulty, I put you right, you introduced yourself as Falka and thanked me for saving you.’

‘I’m glad.’ She turned her head away on the pillow, as though wanting to avoid meeting his eyes. ‘I’m glad I didn’t forget to thank you. I remember that vaguely. I didn’t know what was reality and what was a dream. I was afraid I hadn’t thanked you. My name’s not Falka.’

‘I learned that, too, although rather accidentally. You were talking in your fever.’

‘I’m a runaway,’ she said, without turning around. ‘A fugitive. It’s dangerous to give me shelter. It’s dangerous to know what I’m really called. I must get on my horse and flee, before they catch up with me . . .’

‘A moment ago,’ he said kindly, ‘you had difficulty sitting on a chamber pot. I don’t really see you mounting a horse. But I assure you, you are safe. No one will track you here.’

‘I’m certainly being pursued. They’re on my trail, combing the area . . .’

‘Calm down. It rains every day, no one will find your tracks. You are in a wilderness, in a hermitage. In the home of a hermit who has cut himself off from the world. To such an extent that it would also be difficult for the world to find him. If, however, you wish it, I can look for a way to send tidings about you to your family or friends.’

‘You don’t even know who I am—’

‘You are a wounded girl,’ he interrupted, ‘running from somebody who does not flinch from injuring girls. Do you wish me to pass on some tidings?’

‘There is no one,’ she replied a moment later, and Vysogota’s ear caught a change in her voice. ‘My friends are dead. They were massacred.’

He made no comment.

‘I am death,’ she began again, in a strange-sounding voice. ‘Everyone who encounters me dies.’

‘Not everyone,’ he contradicted, scrutinising her. ‘Not Bonhart, the one whose name you screamed out in the fever, the one you are running from. Your encounter seems to have harmed you rather than him. Did he . . . did he cut your face?’

‘No.’ She pursed her lips, to stifle something which was either a groan or a curse. ‘My face was cut by Tawny Owl. Stefan Skellen. But Bonhart . . . Bonhart hurt me much more gravely. More deeply. Did I talk about that in the fever?’

‘Calm down. You’re weak, you should avoid powerful emotions.’

‘My name is Ciri.’

‘I’ll make you a compress of wolfsbane, Ciri.’

‘Hold on . . . a moment. Give me a looking glass.’

‘I told you—’

‘Please!’

He did as she asked, judging that he had to, that he could delay it no longer. He even brought the oil lamp. So she could better see what had been done to her face.

‘Well, yes,’ she said in an altered, trembling voice. ‘Well, yes. It’s just as I thought. Almost as I thought.’

He went away, pulling the makeshift screen of blankets after him.

She tried hard to sob quietly, so he wouldn’t hear.

*

The following day Vysogota removed half of the stitches. Ciri touched her cheek, hissed like a viper, and complained of an intense pain in her ear and heightened sensitivity in her neck near her jaw. Nonetheless, she got up, dressed, and went outside. Vysogota did not protest. He went out with her. He didn’t have to help her or hold her up. The girl was healthy and much stronger than he had expected.

She only wobbled once outside, and held on to the door frame.

‘Why . . .’ she said, sucking in lungfuls of air. ‘What a chill! Is it a frost or what? Winter already? How long have I been lying here? A few weeks?’

‘Exactly six days. It’s the fifth day of October. But it promises to be a very cold October.’

‘The fifth of October?’ She frowned and hissed in pain. ‘How can it be? Two weeks . . .’

‘What? What two weeks?’

‘Never mind,’ she shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’ve got something wrong . . . But perhaps I haven’t. Tell me, what is it that reeks around here?’

‘Pelts. I hunt muskrat, beaver, coypu and otter, and cure their hides. Even hermits have to make a living.’

‘Where’s my horse?’

‘In the barn.’

The black mare greeted them with loud neighing, joined by the bleating of Vysogota’s goat, which was greatly displeased by having to share its lodgings with another resident. Ciri hugged the horse’s neck, patted it and stroked its mane. The mare snorted and pawed the straw with a hoof.

‘Where’s my saddle? Saddlecloth? Harness?’

‘Here.’

He did not protest, make any comments nor voice his opinion. He leaned on his stick and said nothing. He did not move when she grunted trying to lift the saddle, didn’t budge when she staggered beneath the weight and flopped down heavily onto the straw-covered floor with a loud groan. He did not approach her or help her to stand. He watched intently.

‘Very well,’ she said through clenched teeth, pushing away the mare, which was trying to shove its nose down her collar. ‘I get it. But I have to move on from here, dammit! I must!’

‘Where would you go?’ he asked coldly.

Still sitting on the straw next to her fallen saddle, she touched her face.

‘As far away as possible.’

He nodded, as though her answer had satisfied him, made everything clear and didn’t leave any room for speculation. Ciri struggled to her feet. She didn’t even try to reach down to pick up the saddle or harness. She just checked that there was hay and oats in the manger, and began to rub the horse’s back and sides with a wisp of straw. Vysogota stood in silence. He didn’t have to wait long. The girl staggered against the post supporting the ceiling, now as white as a sheet. Without a word he handed her his stick.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s just—’

‘It’s just you felt giddy, because you’re sick and as weak as a kitten. Let’s go back. You must lie down.’

*

Ciri went out again at sunset, after sleeping for a good few hours. Vysogota, returning from the river, happened upon her by the bramble hedge.

‘Don’t go too far from the cottage,’ he said curtly. ‘Firstly, you’re too weak—’

‘I’m feeling better.’

‘Secondly, it’s dangerous. There is a huge marsh all around us, endless tracts of reeds. You don’t know the paths, you might get lost or drown in the bog.’

‘And you,’ she said, pointing at the sack he was dragging, ‘know the paths, of course. And you don’t walk that far, so the swamp can’t be so huge at all. You tan hides to support yourself, I understand. Kelpie, my mare, has oats, but I don’t see any fields around here. We ate chicken and groats. And bread. Real bread, not flatbread. You couldn’t have got the bread from a trapper. So there’s a village nearby.’

‘Unerringly deduced,’ he calmly agreed. ‘Indeed, I get provisions from the nearest village. The nearest, which doesn’t mean it’s near. It lies on the edge of the swamp. The swamp adjoins the river. I exchange pelts for food, which they bring me by boat. Bread, kasha, flour, salt, cheese, sometimes a coney or a hen. Occasionally news.’

No question was forthcoming, so he continued.

‘A band of horsemen on the hunt were in the village twice. The first time they warned people not to hide you, they threatened the peasants with fire and sword if you were seized in the village. The second time they promised a reward for finding your corpse. Your pursuers are convinced that you’re lying dead in the forests, in a gorge or a ravine.’

‘They won’t rest,’ she muttered, ‘until they find a body. They have to have proof that I’m dead. They won’t give up without that proof. They’ll root around everywhere. Until they finally end up here . . .’

‘It really matters to them,’ he observed. ‘I’d say it matters uncommonly to them . . .’

She pursed her lips.

‘Don’t be afraid. I’ll leave before they find me here. I won’t put you at risk . . . Don’t be afraid.’

‘Why do you think I’m afraid?’ he shrugged. ‘Is there a reason to be afraid? No one will find this place, no one will track you here.

If, however, you stick your nose out of the reeds, you’ll fall straight into your pursuers’ hands.’

‘In other words,’ she tossed her head proudly, ‘I have to stay here? Is that what you mean?’

‘You aren’t a prisoner. You can leave when you want. More precisely: whenever you’re able to. But you can stay with me and wait. Your pursuers will eventually become disheartened. They always get disheartened, sooner or later. Always. You can believe me. I know what I’m saying.’

Her green eyes flashed when she looked at him.

‘And anyway,’ he said quickly, shrugging and avoiding her gaze, ‘you’ll do as you please. I repeat, I’m not holding you a prisoner here.’

‘I don’t think I’ll leave today,’ she said. ‘I’m too weak . . . And the sun will soon be setting . . . And anyway I don’t know the paths. So let’s go back to the cottage. I’m frozen.’

*

‘You said I’ve was lying here for six days. Is that true?’

‘Why would I lie?’

‘Don’t take on. I’m trying to count the days . . . I ran away . . . I was wounded . . . on the day of the Equinox. The twenty-third of September. If you prefer to count according to the elves, the last day of Lughnasadh.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘Why would I lie?’ she screamed and then groaned, grabbing her face. Vysogota looked calmly at her.

‘I don’t know why,’ he said coldly. ‘But I was once a doctor, Ciri. Long ago, but I’m still capable of distinguishing between a wound inflicted ten hours ago and one inflicted four days ago. I found you on the twenty-seventh of September. So you were wounded on the twenty-sixth. The third day of Velen, if you prefer to count according to the elves. Three days after the Equinox.’

‘I was wounded on the Equinox itself.’

‘That’s impossible, Ciri. You must have got the dates wrong.’

‘I most certainly haven’t. You’ve got some antiquated hermit calendar here.’

‘Have it your way. Does the date carry such importance?’

‘No. It doesn’t.’

*

Vysogota removed the last stitches three days later. He had every reason to be pleased and proud of his work – the line was even and clean, there was no need to fear a tattoo of dirt embedded in the wound. However, the satisfaction of the surgeon was spoiled by the sight of Ciri, in sombre silence, contemplating the scar in the looking glass held at various angles and trying vainly to cover it by pulling her hair over her cheek. The scar disfigured her. It was simply a fact. Nothing could be done. Pretending that it was different could not help in any way. Still scarlet, bulging like a cord, surrounded by needle punctures and marked with the scars from the stitches, the scar looked truly horrifying. There was a chance of it undergoing gradual or even rapid improvement. Vysogota knew, though, that there was no chance of the disfiguring scar vanishing.

Ciri was feeling much better, and to Vysogota’s astonishment and pleasure did not talk about leaving at all. She led her black mare, Kelpie, out of the barn. Vysogota knew that in the North the name kelpie was borne by a water spirit, a dangerous sea monster, according to superstition able to assume the form of a splendid steed, dolphin or even a comely woman, although in reality it always looked like a heap of seaweed. Ciri saddled her mare and trotted around the yard and cottage, after which Kelpie went back to the barn to keep the goat company, while Ciri went to the cottage to keep Vysogota company. She even helped him – probably out of boredom – as he worked with the pelts. While he was segregating the coypu according to their size and colouring, she divided the muskrats up into backs and bellies, slitting the skins along slats inserted into them. Her fingers were exceptionally nimble.

While they worked they had quite a strange conversation.

*

‘You don’t know who I am. You can’t even imagine who I am.’

She repeated that banal statement several times and slightly annoyed him with it. Of course, he did not betray his annoyance – he wouldn’t betray his feelings before such a chit. No, he couldn’t allow that, nor could he betray the curiosity that was consuming him.

Groundless curiosity, in truth, for he could have guessed who she was without any difficulty. Gangs of youths hadn’t been rare in Vysogota’s younger days, either. Nor could the years that had passed eliminate the magnetic power with which gangs lured whelps, hungry for adventure and thrills. Very often to their death. Whelps flaunting scars on their faces could count their luck; torture, the noose, the hook or the stake awaited the less fortunate of them.

Since Vysogota’s younger days only one thing had changed – growing emancipation. Not only teenage boys, but also reckless girls, preferring a horse, a sword and adventures to lace-making, the spinning wheel and waiting for the matchmakers.

Vysogota did not say all that straight out. He said it in a roundabout way, but so that she knew that he knew. To make her aware that if someone in the cottage was an enigma, it was certainly not her – a young thug from a band of underage thugs who had miraculously escaped a manhunt. A disfigured teenage girl trying to cloak herself in an aura of mystery . . .

‘You don’t know who I am. But don’t worry. I’ll be leaving shortly. I won’t put you at risk.’

Vysogota had had enough.

‘I’m not at risk,’ he said dryly. ‘For what peril would there be? Even if a search party were to show up here, which I doubt, what ill could befall me? Giving help to fugitive criminals is punishable, but not for a hermit, since a hermit is unaware of worldly matters. It is my privilege to give asylum to anyone who comes to my retreat. You said it correctly: I don’t know who you are. How am I, a hermit, to know who you are, what mischief you’ve been up to and why the law is pursuing you? And which law? For I don’t even know what law applies in this region, or what and whose jurisdiction I live in. And it does not concern me. I am a hermit.’

He had mentioned the hermit’s life a few too many times; he sensed it. But he did not quit. Her furious green eyes pricked him like spurs.

‘I am a penniless anchorite. Dead to the world and its concerns. I’m a simple, uneducated man, unaware of worldly matters . . .’

That was an exaggeration.

‘Like hell you are!’ she yelled, hurling a pelt and the knife to the floor. ‘Do you take me for a fool? I’m not a fool, be sure of that. A hermit, a penniless anchorite? I had a look around when you weren’t here. I looked in the corner, behind that rather filthy curtain. How did learned books get on those shelves, eh, my simple, ignorant man?’

Vysogota threw a coypu skin down on the pile.

‘A tax collector once lived here,’ he said light-heartedly. ‘They are cadasters and bookkeeping ledgers.’

‘You’re lying,’ Ciri grimaced, massaging her scar. ‘You’re lying through your teeth!’

He did not reply, pretending to be assessing the hue of another hide.

‘Perhaps you think,’ the girl began again, ‘that if you have a white beard, wrinkles and you’ve lived a hundred years, you can easily hoodwink a naive young maid, eh? Let me tell you: maybe you would have tricked just any lass. But I’m not just any lass.’

He raised his eyebrows in a wordless, but provocative, question. He didn’t have to wait long.

‘I, my dear hermit, have studied in places where there were plenty of books, including the same titles you have on your shelves. I know plenty of them.’

Vysogota raised his eyebrows even higher. She looked him straight in the eye.

‘This filthy sloven, this ragged orphan,’ she drawled, ‘is saying strange things. Must be a thief or bandit discovered in the bushes with her mush cut up. And yet you ought to know, hermit, that I have read The History of Roderick de Novembre. I’ve looked through the Materia Medica several times. I know the Herbarius you have on your shelf. I also know what the gules cross ermine blazon on the spines of those books means. It means the book was published by the University of Oxenfurt.’

She broke off, still observing him intently. Vysogota was silent, trying not to let his face betray anything.

‘Which is why I think,’ she said, making her habitual sharp, haughty toss of head, ‘that you aren’t a simple hermit at all. That you didn’t die for the world, either, but fled from it. And you’re hiding here, in the wilderness, disguised by appearances and a boundless reed bed.’

‘If that is so,’ Vysogota smiled, ‘then our fates really have become uncannily entwined, my well-read young lady. This destiny has flung us together in a highly mysterious way. After all, you’re also in hiding. You too, Ciri, are skilfully spinning a veil of deception around yourself. I am, however, an old man, full of suspicion and embittered senile mistrust . . .’

‘Mistrust regarding me?’

‘Regarding the world, Ciri. A world in which a deceptive appearance dons the mask of truth to pull the wool over the eyes of another truth – a false one, incidentally, which also tries to deceive. A world in which the arms of the University of Oxenfurt are painted on the doors of bordellos. A world in which wounded thugs pass themselves off as worldly, learned, and perhaps nobly born maidens, intellectuals and polymaths, reading Roderick de Novembre and familiar with the crest of the Academy. In spite of all appearances. In spite of the fact that they carry another mark. A bandit’s tattoo. A red rose tattooed on the groin.’

‘Indeed, you were right.’ She bit her lip, and her face turned a crimson so intense that the line of the scar seemed black. ‘You are an embittered old man. And a nosy old prick.’

‘On my shelf, behind the curtain–’ he nodded toward it ‘– is a copy of Aen N’og Mab Taedh’morc, a collection of elven fairy tales and rhyming parables. There is a story there of a venerable old raven and a youthful swallow, very fitting to our situation and conversation. Because I am a polymath like you, Ciri, let me quote an appropriate excerpt. The raven, as you certainly recall, accuses the swallow of flightiness and unseemly frivolity.

‘Hen Cerbin dic’ss aen n’og Zireael

Aark, aark, caelm foile, te veloe, ell?

Zireael—’

He broke off, rested his elbows on the table, and his chin on his interlocked fingers. Ciri jerked her head, straightened up, and looked at him defiantly. And completed the verse.

‘ . . . Zireael veloe que’ss aen en’ssan irch

Mab og, Hen Cerbin, vean ni, quirk, quirk!’

‘The embittered and mistrustful old man,’ Vysogota said a moment later, without changing his position, ‘apologises to the young polymath. The venerable old raven, sensing everywhere deceit and trickery, asks for forgiveness of the swallow, whose only crime is to be young and full of life. And very pretty.’

‘Now you’re talking drivel,’ she said crossly, involuntarily covering the scar on her cheek. ‘You can forget compliments like that. They won’t correct those wonky stitches you tacked my skin with. Don’t think, either, that you’ll gain my trust by apologising. I still don’t know who you really are. Why you lied to me about those dates and days. Or why you looked between my legs, when I’d been wounded in the face. And if looking was where it finished.’

This time she made him lose his temper.

‘What are you saying, you brat?’ he roared. ‘I could be your father!’

‘Grandfather,’ she corrected him coldly. ‘Or even great-grandfather. But you aren’t. I don’t know who you are. But you are certainly not who you pretend to be.’

‘I am he who found you on the bog, almost frozen to the moss, with a black crust instead of a face, unconscious, and filthy. I am he who took you home, although I didn’t know who you were, and was within my rights to expect the worst. Who bandaged you and put you to bed. Tended to you, when you were expiring with fever. Nursed you. Washed you. Thoroughly. In the tattoo region as well.’

She blushed again, but had no intention of changing her insolent, defiant expression.

‘In this world,’ she growled, ‘deceptive appearances occasionally feign the truth; you said it yourself. I also know the world a little, if you can imagine it. You rescued me, tended my wounds, nursed me. Thank you for that. I’m grateful for your . . . your kindness. Although I know that there is no such thing as kindness without—’

‘Without calculation or the hope of some profit,’ he finished with a smile. ‘Yes, yes, I know, I’m a worldly man. Perhaps I know the world as well as you do, Ciri? Wounded girls, of course, are robbed of everything that has any value. If they’re unconscious or too weak to defend themselves, free rein is normally given to one’s urges and lust, often in immoral and unnatural ways. Isn’t that so?’

‘Nothing is as it seems,’ answered Ciri, her cheeks reddening once more.

‘How true a statement,’ he said, throwing another pelt on one of the piles. ‘And how mercilessly does it lead us to the conclusion that we, Ciri, know nothing about each other. We know only appearances, and appearances are deceptive.’

He waited a while, but Ciri wasn’t hurrying to say anything.

‘Although both of us have managed to carry out something of a provisional inquisition, we still know nothing about each other. I don’t know who you are, you don’t know who I am . . .’

This time he waited with calculation. She looked at him, and in her eyes there was the hint of the question he was expecting. Something strange flashed in her eyes when she posed the question.

‘Who shall begin?’

*

Had someone had crept up after nightfall to the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had peered inside, in the firelight and glow of the hearth they would have seen a grey-bearded old man hunched over a pile of pelts. They would have seen an ashen-haired girl with a hideous scar on her cheek, a scar which in no way suited her huge green childlike eyes.

But no one could have seen that. For the cottage stood among reeds in a swamp where no one dared to venture.

*

‘My name is Vysogota of Corvo. I was once a doctor. A surgeon. I was an alchemist. I was a scholar, a historian, a philosopher and an ethicist. I was a professor at the Academy of Oxenfurt. I had to flee after publishing a paper which was deemed godless. At that time, fifty years ago, it was punishable by death. I had to emigrate. My wife did not want to emigrate, so she left me. And I only ceased my flight when I reached the far South, in the Nilfgaardian Empire. Later I finally became a lecturer in ethics at the Imperial Academy in Castell Graupian, a position I held for almost ten years. But I had to run from there, too, after the publication of another treatise . . . Incidentally, the work dealt with totalitarian power and the criminal character of imperialist wars, but officially I and my work were accused of metaphysical mysticism and clerical schism. It was ruled I had been goaded into action by the expansive and revisionist groups of priests who were actually governing the kingdoms of the Nordlings. Quite amusing in the light of my death sentence for atheism twenty years previously! Indeed, it so happened that the expansive priests in the North had long since been forgotten by their people, but that had not been acknowledged in Nilfgaard. Combining mysticism and superstition with politics was a severely punishable offence.

‘Today, looking back down the years, I think that had I humbled myself and shown remorse, perhaps the scandal would have blown over, and the emperor limited himself to disfavour, without using extreme measures. But I was bitter. I considered some of my arguments timeless, superior to this or that dominion or politics. I felt wronged, unjustly wronged. Tyrannously wronged. So I made active contact with the dissidents secretly fighting the tyrant. Before I knew it, I was in a dungeon with those dissidents, and some of them, when they were shown the torture instruments, pointed me out as the movement’s chief ideologue.

‘The emperor availed himself of his privilege to issue a pardon, though I was sentenced to exile, under the threat of immediate execution should I return to imperial territories.

‘Thus I took offence against the entire world, against kingdoms, empires and universities, against dissidents, civil servants and lawyers. Against my colleagues and friends, who stopped being such at the touch of a magic wand. Against my second wife, who, like my first, thought her husband’s difficulties a suitable reason for a divorce. Against my children, who disowned me. I became a hermit, here, in Ebbing, in the Pereplut Marshes. I inherited a dwelling from an anchorite I had once known. Unfortunately, Nilfgaard annexed Ebbing, and all of a sudden I found myself in the Empire again. Now I have neither the strength nor the inclination to continue wandering, so I must hide. Imperial sentences do not lapse, even in a situation when the emperor who issued it died long ago, and the present emperor has no cause to remember the previous one fondly or share his views. The death sentence remains in force. That is the law and custom in Nilfgaard. Sentences for high treason do not expire, and neither are they subject to the amnesties that every emperor proclaims after his coronation. After the accession to the throne of a new emperor, everybody who was sentenced by his predecessor is given an amnesty . . . except those guilty of high treason. It is unimportant who reigns in Nilfgaard: if news gets out that I’m alive and am breaking my sentence of exile, dwelling in imperial territory, my head is for the noose.

‘So as you see, Ciri, we find ourselves in wholly similar situation.’

*

‘What is ethics? I knew, but I’ve forgotten.’

‘The study of morality. Of the precepts of conduct: of being decorous, noble, decent and honest. Of the heights of goodness, to which probity and morality carry up the human spirit. And of the chasms of evil, into which malice and immorality are flung . . .’

‘The heights of goodness!’ she snorted. ‘Probity! Morality! Don’t make me laugh, or the scar on my face will burst. You were lucky that you weren’t hunted, that they didn’t send bounty hunters after you, people like . . . Bonhart. You’d see what chasms of evil are. Ethics? Your ethics are worth shit, O Vysogota of Corvo. It isn’t the evil and indecent who are flung down into the depths, no! Oh, no! The evil and decisive fling down those who are moral, honest and noble but maladroit, hesitant and full of scruples.’

‘Thanks for the lesson,’ he sneered. ‘In truth, though one may have lived a century, it is never too late to learn something new. Indeed, it is always worth listening to mature, worldly and experienced people.’

‘Mock. Go ahead and mock.’ She tossed her head. ‘While you still can. For now it is my turn, now I shall entertain you with a tale. I’ll tell you what happened to me. And when I’m done we’ll see if you still feel like mocking me.’

*

Had someone crept up after nightfall to the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had they peered inside, in the dimly lit interior they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening raptly to a tale told by an ashen-haired girl sitting on a log by the fireplace. They would have noticed that the girl was speaking slowly, as though having difficulty finding the words; that she was nervously rubbing her cheek, which was disfigured by a hideous scar, and that she was interweaving her story with long silences. A tale about the lessons she had received, of which all, to the last one, turned out to be false and misleading. About the promises made to her which were not kept. A story about how the destiny she’d been ordered to believe in betrayed her disgracefully and deprived her of her inheritance. About how each time she began to believe in her destiny she was made to suffer misery, pain, injustice and humiliation. About how those she trusted and loved betrayed her, did not come to her aid when she was afflicted, when she was menaced by dishonour, agony and death. A tale about the ideals to which she was instructed to remain loyal, and which disappointed, betrayed and abandoned her when she needed them, proving of what little value they were. About how she finally found help, friendship – and love – with those among whom she should have sought neither help nor friendship. Not to mention love.

But no one could have seen that, much less heard it. For the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof was well hidden among the fog, in a swamp where no one dared venture.

CHAPTER TWO

A west wind brought a storm that night.

The purple-black sky burst along the line of lightning, exploding in a long drawn-out clatter of thunder. The sudden rain struck the dust of the road with drops as viscous as oil, roared on the roofs, smeared the dirt on the skins covering the windows. But the powerful wind quickly chased off the downpour, drove the storm somewhere far, far away, beyond the horizon, which was blazing with lightning.

And then dogs began to bark. Hooves thudded and weapons clanged. A wild howling and whistling made the hair stand up on the heads of the peasants who had woken and now sprang up in panic, barring their doors and shutters. Hands, wet with sweat, tightened on the hafts of axes and the handles of pitchforks. Clenched them tightly. But helplessly.

Terror sped through the village. Were they the hunted or the hunters? Insane and cruel from ferocity or fear? Will they gallop through, without stopping? Or will the night soon be lit up by the glare of blazing thatch?

Quiet, quiet, children . . .

Mamma, are they demons? Is it the Wild Hunt? Phantoms from hell? Mamma, mamma!

Quiet, quiet, children. They are not demons, not devils . . .

Worse than that.

They are people.

The dogs barked. The gale blew. Horses neighed, horseshoes thudded. The gang raced through the village and the night.

*

Hotspurn rode up onto the hillock, reined in and turned his horse around. He was prudent and cautious, and did not like taking risks, particularly when vigilance cost nothing. He didn’t hurry to ride down to the postal station by the small river. He preferred to have a good look first.

There were no horses or horse-drawn vehicles outside the station, only a single small wagon harnessed with a pair of mules. There was some writing on the tarpaulin which Hotspurn could not make out at a distance. But it did not look dangerous. Hotspurn was capable of sensing danger. He was a professional.

He rode down to the bank, which was covered in bushes and osiers, spurred his horse decisively into the river, crossed at a gallop among gouts of water, many splashing him above his saddle. Some ducks swimming by the bank flew away with a loud quacking.

Hotspurn urged his horse on and rode into the station courtyard through the open fence. Now he could read the writing on the tarpaulin, proclaiming ‘Master Almavera, Tattoo Artist’. Each word was painted in a different colour and began with an excessively large, decoratively illuminated letter. And on the wagon’s box, above the right front wheel, was a small split arrow rendered in purple paint.

‘Dismount!’ he heard behind him. ‘On the ground, and fast! Hands away from your hilt!’

They approached and surrounded him noiselessly: Asse from the right in a silver-studded black leather jacket, Falka from the left in a short, green suede jerkin and beret with feathers. Hotspurn removed his hood and pulled the scarf from his face.

‘Ha!’ Asse lowered his sword. ‘It’s you, Hotspurn. I would have recognised you, but for that black horse!’

‘What a gorgeous little mare,’ said Falka with delight, sliding her beret over one ear. ‘Black and gleaming like coal, not a light hair on her. And so well-shaped! Oh, she’s a beauty!’

‘Aye, came up for less than five-score florins,’ smiled Hotspurn. ‘Where’s Giselher? Inside?’

Asse nodded. Falka, looking at the mare as though bewitched, patted her on the neck.

‘When she ran through the water,’ said Falka, raising her huge green eyes up to Hotspurn, ‘she looked like a veritable kelpie! Had she emerged from the sea and not a river, I would have believed she was a real one.’

‘Have you seen a real kelpie, Miss Falka?’

‘Only in a painting.’ The girl suddenly grew serious. ‘But that would be a long story. Come inside. Giselher’s waiting.’

*

There was a table by the window, which let in a little light. Mistle was half-lying on the table, resting on her elbows, almost naked from the waist down with nothing on but a pair of black stockings. Between her shamelessly spread legs knelt a skinny, long-haired individual in a brownish-grey smock. It could not have been anyone but Master Almavera, tattoo artist, busy tattooing a colourful picture on Mistle’s thigh.

‘Come closer, Hotspurn,’ invited Giselher, drawing a stool away from the next table, where he was sitting with Iskra, Kayleigh and Reef. The latter two, like Asse, were also dressed in black calfskin covered in buckles, studs, chains and other elaborate silver accessories. Some craftsman must have made a fortune on them, thought Hotspurn. The Rats, when the whim to dress up seized them, would pay tailors, shoemakers and leatherworkers handsomely. Naturally, neither did they miss any opportunity to simply wrest any clothing or jewellery that took their fancy from anyone they assailed.

‘I see you found our message in the ruins of the old station?’ Giselher said, stretching. ‘Ha, what am I saying, you wouldn’t be here otherwise, would you? You rode here pretty quickly, I must say.’

‘Because the mare is gorgeous,’ Falka interjected. ‘I’ll bet she’s fleet too!’

‘I found your message.’ Hotspurn did not take his eye off Giselher. ‘What about mine? Did it reach you?’

‘It did . . .’ stammered the leader of the Rats. ‘But . . . Well, to put it briefly . . . There wasn’t time. And then we got drunk and were forced to rest a little. And later another path came up . . .’

Damned pups, thought Hotspurn.

‘To put it briefly, you didn’t do the job?’

‘Well, no. Forgive me, Hotspurn. Couldn’t be done . . . But next time, ho! Without fail!’

‘Without fail!’ repeated Kayleigh with emphasis, though no one had asked him to repeat it.

Damned, irresponsible pups. Got drunk. And then another path came up . . . To a tailor to get some fancy costumes, I’ll be bound.

‘Want a drink?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Fancy some of this?’ Giselher pointed at a small decorative lacquer casket among some demijohns and beakers. Now Hotspurn knew why a strange light was flashing in the Rats’ eyes, why their movements were so nervous and quick.

‘First-rate powder,’ Giselher assured him. ‘Won’t you take a pinch?’

‘No, thank you.’ Hotspurn glanced knowingly at a red stain and a dwindling bloody streak on the sawdust of the chamber, clearly indicating which way a body had been dragged. Giselher noticed the look.

‘One of the lackeys thought he’d play the hero,’ he snorted. ‘So Iskra had to scold him.’

Iskra laughed throatily. She clearly very aroused by the narcotic.

‘I scolded him so much he choked on his blood,’ she crowed. ‘And the others were cowed at once. That’s what you call terror!’

She was dripping in jewels as usual, and even had a diamond stud in her nose. She was not wearing leather, but a short cherry-red jacket with a fine brocade pattern. Her look was established enough to be all the rage among the gilded youth of Thurn. Like the silk scarf wrapped around Giselher’s head. Hotspurn had even heard of girls asking for ‘Mistle’ haircuts.

‘That’s what you call terror,’ he repeated pensively, still looking at the patch of blood on the floor. ‘What about the station keeper? His wife? And son?’

‘No, no,’ Giselher scowled. ‘Think we did for all of them? Not at all. We locked them in the pantry for a while. Now the station, as you see, is ours.’

Kayleigh swilled wine around his mouth, then spat it out on the floor. He took a small quantity of fisstech from the casket with a tiny spoon, meticulously sprinkled it on the spit-moistened tip of his index finger and rubbed the narcotic into his gums. He handed the casket to Falka, who repeated the ritual and passed the fisstech to Reef. The Nilfgaardian turned it down, busy looking at a catalogue of colourful tattoos, and handed the box to Iskra. The she-elf passed it to Giselher without taking any.

‘Terror!’ she growled, narrowing her flashing eyes and sniffing. ‘We have the station in the grip of terror! Emperor Emhyr holds the entire world this way, and we only this hovel. But the principle’s the same!’

‘Owww, dammit!’ yelled Mistle from the table. ‘Be careful what you prick! Do that one more time and I’ll prick you! Right through!’

The Rats – apart from Falka and Giselher – roared with laughter.

‘If you want to be beautiful you have to suffer!’ Iskra called.

‘Prick her, master, prick her,’ Kayleigh added. ‘She’s hardened between the legs!’

Falka swore copiously and threw a beaker at him. Kayleigh ducked and the Rats roared with laughter again.

‘So.’ Hotspurn decided to put an end to the gaiety. ‘You hold the station in the grip of terror. But what for? Other than the satisfaction you derive from terrorising station keepers’ families?’

‘We,’ Giselher answered, rubbing fisstech into his gums, ‘are lying in wait. Should someone stop to change horses or rest, they’ll be stripped clean. It’s more comfortable here than on a crossroads or in the thicket by the highway. But, as Iskra has just said, the principle’s the same.’

‘But today, since daybreak, only this one’s fallen into our grasp,’ Reef interjected, pointing at Master Almavera, his head almost hidden between Mistle’s parted thighs. ‘A pauper, like every artist. Had nothing to rob, so we’re robbing him of his art. Take a look at how ingeniously he draws.’

He bared his forearm and displayed a bloody tattoo: a naked woman who wiggled her buttocks when he clenched his fist. Kayleigh also showed off. A green snake with an open maw and a scarlet, forked tongue writhed around his arm, above a spiked bracelet.

‘A tasteful piece,’ Hotspurn said indifferently. ‘And helpful when corpses are being identified. However, you failed with the robbery, my dear Rats. You’ll have to pay the artist for his skill. There was no time to warn you; for seven days, from the first of September, the sign has been a purple split arrow. He has one painted on his wagon.’

Reef swore under his breath and Kayleigh laughed. Giselher waved a hand indifferently.

‘Too bad. If needs must we’ll pay him for his needles and dye. A purple arrow, say you? We’ll remember. If someone rides up with the sign of the arrow between now and tomorrow, he won’t be harmed.’

‘You plan to stay here till tomorrow?’ Hotspurn said with slightly exaggerated astonishment. ‘That’s imprudent, Rats. It’s risky and dangerous!’

‘You what?’

‘Risky and dangerous!’

Giselher shrugged, Iskra snorted and cleared her nose onto the floor. Reef, Kayleigh and Falka looked at Hotspurn as though he’d just declared that the sun had fallen into the river and must be fished out before the crayfish pinched it. Hotspurn understood that he had merely appealed to the reckless pups’ good sense, of which they had little. That he had alerted these braggarts to risk and danger. Braggarts – all reckless bravado – for whom those concepts were utterly alien.

‘They’re coming for you, Rats.’

‘What of it?’

Hotspurn sighed.

Mistle – without having taken the trouble to dress – came over to them and interrupted the discussion. She placed a foot on the bench and – twisting her hips – demonstrated to all and sundry the work of Master Almavera: a crimson rose on a green stem with two leaves, on her inner thigh, right by her groin.

‘Well?’ she asked, hands on hips. Her bracelets, which almost reached her elbows, flashed brilliantly. ‘What do you say?’

‘Exquisite!’ Kayleigh snorted, brushing his hair aside. Hotspurn had noticed that the Rat had rings in his ears. There was no doubt that similar earrings – like studded leather or silk scarves – would soon be the latest thing among the gilded youth in Thurn and the whole of Geso.

‘Your turn, Falka,’ said Mistle. ‘What will you have?’

Falka touched her friend’s thigh, leaned over and examined the tattoo. From very close. Mistle ruffled Falka’s ashen-grey hair tenderly. Falka giggled and, without further ado, began to undress.

‘I want the same rose,’ she said. ‘In the same place as you, darling.’

*

‘How many mice you have here, Vysogota!’ Ciri said, breaking off her story and looking down at the floor, where a veritable mouse circus was taking place in the circle of light thrown by the oil lamp. One could only imagine what was happening in the gloom beyond the light.

‘A cat would come in useful. Or, better still, two.’

‘The rodents,’ the hermit coughed, ‘are coming inside because winter is drawing nigh. And I had a cat. But it wandered off somewhere, the good-for-nothing, and never came back.’

‘It was probably taken by a fox or marten.’

‘You never saw that cat, Ciri. If something took it, it would have had to be a dragon. Nothing smaller.’

‘Was he that ferocious? Oh, that’s a pity. He wouldn’t have let these mice scamper all over my bed. Pity.’

‘Yes, it is a pity. But I think he’ll return. Cats always do.’

‘I’ll build up the fire. It’s cold.’

‘It is. The nights are perishingly cold now . . . And it’s not even halfway through October yet . . . Go on, Ciri.’

For a while Ciri sat motionless, staring into the fireplace. The fire sprang to life with the new wood, crackled, roared, and threw golden light and flickering shadows onto the girl’s scarred face.

‘Go on.’

*

Master Almavera pricked, and Ciri felt the tears tingling in the corners of her eyes. Although she had prudently intoxicated herself before the operation with wine and white powder, the pain was almost unbearable. She clenched her teeth. She did not groan, naturally, but pretended not to pay attention to the needle and to scorn the pain. She tried blithely to take part in the conversation the Rats were having with Hotspurn, an individual who wished to be thought of as a merchant, but who – apart from the fact that he lived off merchants – had nothing in common with trade.

‘Dark clouds have gathered above your heads,’ Hotspurn said, his dark eyes sweeping over the Rats’ faces. ‘Isn’t it bad enough that the Prefect of Amarillo is hunting you, that the Varnhagens are pursuing you, that the Baron of Casadei—?’

‘Him?’ Giselher grimaced. ‘I can understand the prefect and the Varnhagens, but what has that Casadei got against us?’

‘The wolf is dressed in sheep’s clothing,’ Hotspurn said, smiling, ‘and pitifully bleats baa, baa, no one likes me, no one understands me. Wherever I appear they throw stones at me. They shout “Hallo”. Why, oh why? Why such unfairness and injustice? The daughter of the Baron of Casadei, my dear Rats, after her adventure by the River Wagtail, grows ever weaker and feverish . . .’

‘Aaah,’ Giselher recalled. ‘That carriage with those four spotted horses! That maiden?’

‘That one. Now, as I said, she ails, wakes up in the night screaming, recalling Mr Kayleigh . . . But especially Miss Falka. And the brooch, a keepsake of her departed mamma, which Miss Falka wrested from her dress. Various words are repeated all the while.’

‘It wasn’t like that at all!’ Ciri yelled from the table, able to react to the pain by shouting. ‘We showed the baron’s daughter contempt and disrespect by letting her get away with it! The wench should have been ravaged!’

‘Indeed.’ Ciri sensed Hotspurn’s gaze on her naked thighs. ‘Verily a great dishonour not to have ravaged her. No wonder then, that the offended Casadei has assembled an armed squad and offered a reward. He has sworn publicly that you will all hang head down from the corbels on the walls of his castle. He also swore that for the brooch wrenched from his daughter he will flay Miss Falka. Alive.’

Ciri swore, and the Rats roared in wild laughter. Iskra sneezed and covered herself in snot; the fisstech was irritating her mucous membranes.

‘We disdain our pursuers,’ she declared, wiping her nose, mouth, chin and the table. ‘The prefect, the baron, the Varnhagens! They can hunt us, but they won’t catch us! We are the Rats! We zigzagged back and forth on the far side of the Velda and now those dolts are at sixes and sevens, going the wrong way along a cold trail. They will have gone too far to turn around by the time they catch on.’

‘Let them turn around!’ Asse said heatedly. He had returned some time before from sentry duty. No one had replaced him and no one seemed about to. ‘We’ll slaughter them and that’s that!’

‘Exactly!’ Ciri screamed from the table, having already forgotten how they had fled from their pursuers through the villages beside the Velda and how terrified she had been.

‘Very well.’ Giselher slammed his open palm down on the table, abruptly putting an end to the noisy chatter. ‘Speak, Hotspurn. For I can see you wish to tell us something else, something of greater note than the prefect, the Varnhagens, the Baron of Casadei and his sensitive daughter.’

‘Bonhart is on your trail.’

A very long silence fell. Even Master Almavera stopped working for a moment.

‘Bonhart,’ Giselher repeated in a slow, drawling voice. ‘That grey-haired old blackguard? We must have really annoyed someone.’

‘Someone wealthy,’ Mistle added. ‘Not everyone can afford Bonhart.’

Ciri was about to ask who this Bonhart was, but Asse and Reef – speaking almost at once, in unison – were quicker.

‘He’s a bounty hunter,’ Giselher explained grimly. ‘Years ago he took the king’s shilling, they say. Then he was a wandering merchant, and finally began killing people for the bounty. He’s a whoreson like no other.’

‘They say,’ Kayleigh said quite carelessly, ‘that if you wanted to bury everyone Bonhart has put to the sword in one graveyard, it would have to measure a good half-acre.’

Mistle poured a pinch of the white powder into the dimple between her thumb and forefinger, and sniffed it up vigorously.

‘Bonhart broke up Big Lothar’s gang,’ she said. ‘He carved up him and his brother, the one they called Muchomorek.’

‘Stabbed them in the back, they say,’ Kayleigh threw in.

‘He killed Valdez, too,’ Giselher added. ‘And when Valdez perished, his gang fell apart. One of the better ones. A solid, hard firm. Good scrappers. I thought about joining them at one time. Before we teamed up.’

‘It’s all true,’ Hotspurn said. ‘There’s never been a gang like Valdez’s and there never will be again. A merry air is sung about how they fought their way out of a trap at Sarda. Aye, bold they were, aye, daredevils they were! Few are their equal.’

The Rats suddenly fell silent and fixed their eyes on him, blazing and furious.

‘The six of us,’ Kayleigh drawled after a brief silence, ‘once broke through a troop of Nilfgaardian horse!’

‘We sprang Kayleigh from the Nissirs!’ Asse snapped.

‘Few are our equal!’ Reef hissed.

‘That is so, Hotspurn.’ Giselher threw out his chest. ‘The Rats are second to no other gang, not even Valdez’s mob. Daredevils, you say? Well I’ll tell you something about she-devils. Iskra, Mistle and Falka – the very three sitting here before you – rode in broad daylight down the high street in Druigh, and when they realised that the Varnhagens were in the tavern, they galloped right through it! Right through, I tell you! They rode in through the front and out into the courtyard. And the Varnhagens were left standing open-mouthed over broken beer mugs and spilled beer. Will you say that wasn’t dashing?’

‘He won’t,’ Mistle cut in before Hotspurn could reply, smiling nastily. ‘He won’t, because he knows who the Rats are. And his guild knows too.’

Master Almavera had finished the tattoo. Ciri thanked him with a haughty expression, dressed, and sat down with the company. She snorted, feeling the strange, appraising – and seemingly mocking – gaze of Hotspurn on her. She glowered at him, ostentatiously cuddling up to Mistle. She had already learned that such behaviour discomfited and cooled the zeal of gentlemen with flirtation in mind. In the case of Hotspurn she acted with a little more exaggeration, for the pretend merchant was not so intrusive in that way.

Hotspurn was an enigma to Ciri. She had only seen him once before and Mistle had told her the rest. Hotspurn and Giselher, she had explained, knew each other and had been comrades for ages, and had agreed signals, passwords and meeting places. During those rendezvous Hotspurn passed on information – and then they travelled to the road indicated and robbed the indicated merchant, convoy or caravan. Sometimes they killed a specific person. There was always also an agreed sign; they were not allowed to attack merchants with that sign on their wagons.

At first Ciri had been astonished and slightly disappointed; she looked up to Giselher, and considered the Rats a model of freedom and independence. She loved their freedom, their contempt for everything and everybody. And now they unexpectedly had to carry out contracts. Like hired thugs, they were being told who to beat up. But that was not all; someone was ordering them to beat someone up and they were sheepishly complying.

It’s quid pro quo. Mistle had shrugged when Ciri bombarded her with questions. Hotspurn gives us orders, but also information, thanks to which we survive. Freedom and contempt have their limits. Anyway, it’s always like that. You’re always somebody’s tool.

Such is life, Little Falcon.

Ciri was surprised and disappointed, but she got over it quickly. She was learning. She had also learned not to be too surprised or to expect too much – for then the disappointment was less acute.

‘I, my dear Rats,’ Hotspurn said in the meantime, ‘might have a remedy for your difficulties. For the Nissirs, barons, prefects, and even Bonhart. Yes, yes. For even though the noose is tightening around your necks, I might have a way for you to slip out of it.’

Iskra snorted, Reef cackled. But Giselher silenced them with a gesture, allowing Hotspurn to continue. ‘The word is out,’ the merchant said a moment later, ‘that an amnesty will be proclaimed any day now. That even if a sentence is hanging over someone, why, even if the noose is hanging over them, it will be waived if they simply present themselves to the authorities and confess their guilt. That applies to you too.’

‘Bollocks!’ Kayleigh cried, eyes watering a little because he had just inhaled a pinch of fisstech. ‘It’s a Nilfgaardian trick, a ruse! We old warhorses won’t be taken in like that!’

‘Hold hard,’ Giselher halted him. ‘Don’t be hasty, Kayleigh. Hotspurn, as we know, doesn’t usually dissemble nor break his word. He usually knows what he’s saying and why. So he surely knows and will tell us where this sudden Nilfgaardian generosity has come from.’

‘Emperor Emhyr,’ Hotspurn said calmly, ‘is taking a wife. We shall soon have an empress in Nilfgaard. Which is why they’re to proclaim an amnesty. The emperor is reportedly mighty content, so he wishes contentment on others too.’

‘I don’t give a shit about imperial contentment,’ Mistle announced haughtily. ‘And I won’t be availing myself of the amnesty, because that Nilfgaardian kindness smells like fresh shavings. As though someone’s been sharpening a stake. Ha!’

Hotspurn shrugged. ‘I doubt that it’s trickery. It’s a political matter. And a great one. Greater than you, Rats, than all of the local mobs put together. It’s politics.’

‘You what?’ Giselher frowned. ‘I don’t understand a damned thing you’re saying.’

‘Emhyr’s marriage is political, and political issues are to be secured through that wedding. The emperor is forging a union through marriage, he wants to unify the empire more securely, put an end to border unrest, bring peace. For do you know who he’s marrying? Cirilla, the heiress to the throne of Cintra.’

‘Lies!’ Ciri yelled. ‘Hogwash!’

‘By what right do you accuse me of lying, Miss Falka?’ Hotspurn raised his eyes towards her. ‘Perhaps you are better informed?’

‘Certainly am!’

‘Quiet, Falka.’ Giselher grimaced. ‘He pricked your tail on the table and you were quiet, and now you’re bawling? What is this Cintra, Hotspurn? Who is this Cirilla? Why should it be so important?’

‘Cintra,’ Reef interjected, pouring fisstech on his finger, ‘is a little state in the North over which the empire fought with the local rulers. About three or four years ago.’

‘Agreed,’ Hotspurn confirmed. ‘The imperial forces conquered Cintra and even crossed the River Yarra, but had to withdraw later.’

‘Because they took a beating at Sodden Hill,’ snapped Ciri. ‘They almost lost their breeches they retreated so fast!’

‘Miss Falka, I see, is familiar with recent history. It’s creditable, creditable at such a young age. May one ask where Miss Falka attended school?’

‘One may not!’

‘Enough!’ Giselher demanded quiet again. ‘Talk about this Cintra, Hotspurn. And about the amnesty.’

‘Imperator Emhyr,’ the so-called merchant said, ‘has decided to turn Cintra into a parasitic state . . .’

‘A what?’

‘Parasitic. Like ivy, which can’t exist without a powerful tree trunk around which it wraps itself. And the tree trunk is, of course, Nilfgaard. There are other such states, such as Metinna, Maecht, Toussaint . . . Where local dynasties govern, or pretend to govern.’

‘That’s called a parent’s antinomy,’ Reef boasted. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘Nonetheless, the problem with Cintra was that the royal line died out . . .’

‘Died out?’ It was as though green sparks would shoot from Ciri’s eyes at any moment. ‘Died out, my hat! The Nilfgaardians murdered Queen Calanthe! Simply murdered her!’

‘I do own–’ with a gesture Hotspurn quieted Giselher, who was once again about to berate Ciri for interrupting ‘–that Miss Falka continues to dazzle us with her knowledge. The queen of Cintra did indeed fall during the war. It is believed that her granddaughter, Cirilla, the last of the royal blood, also fell. Thus Emhyr did not have much from which to create that apparent autonomy – as Mr Reef so wisely said. Until Cirilla suddenly showed up again, as if from nowhere.’

‘Huh. Just fairy tales,’ snorted Iskra, resting on Giselher’s arm.

‘Indeed.’ Hotspurn nodded. ‘A little like a fairy tale, it must be confessed. They say that this Cirilla was imprisoned by an evil witch somewhere in the far North, in a magical tower. But Cirilla managed to flee and beg for asylum in the empire.’

‘That is one damn great load of false hogwash and balderdash!’ yelled Ciri, reaching for the casket of fisstech with shaking hands.

‘While Imperator Emhyr, so the rumour goes–’ Hotspurn continued unperturbed ‘–fell madly in love with her when he saw her and wants to take her for his wife. So he offers an amnesty.’

‘Little Falcon is right,’ Mistle said firmly, emphasising her words by banging her fist on the table. ‘That’s balderdash! I can’t bloody under-bloody-stand what this is all about. One thing I know for certain: basing any hopes of Nilfgaardian benevolence on that balderdash would be even greater balderdash.’

‘That’s right!’ Reef said, supporting her. ‘There’s nothing in the imperial marriage for us. No matter whom the emperor marries, another betrothed will always be waiting for us. One twisted out of hemp!’

‘This isn’t about your necks, my dear Rats,’ Hotspurn reminded them. ‘This is politics. There’s no let-up to the endless rebellions, uprisings and disorder on the northern marches of the empire, particularly in Cintra and its surroundings. And if the imperator takes the heiress of Cintra for a wife, Cintra will calm down. There’ll be a solemn amnesty, and the rebellious parties will come down from the mountains, stop besetting the imperial forces and making trouble. Why, if the Cintran ascends the imperial throne, perhaps the rebels will join the imperial army! And you know, after all, that in the North, on the far side of the River Yarra, there is war. And every soldier counts.’

‘Aha.’ Kayleigh grimaced. ‘Now I get it! That’s their amnesty! They’ll give us a choice: here’s a sharpened stake and there’s the imperial livery. You can have a stake up your arse or the livery on your back. And off to war, to die for the empire!’

‘Indeed,’ Hotspurn said slowly, ‘anything can happen in war. Nonetheless, not everyone must fight, my dear Rats. Of course, after fulfilling the terms of the amnesty, after disclosing and admitting one’s guilt, a certain kind of . . . substitute service might be possible.’

‘What?’

‘I know what this is about.’ Giselher’s teeth flashed briefly in his weather-beaten face, blue from stubble. ‘The merchant’s guild, my little ones, would like to take us in. Caress and nurse us. Like a doting mother.’

‘Whore mother, more like,’ Iskra grunted under her breath. Hotspurn pretended not to hear.

‘You are completely right, Giselher,’ he said coldly. ‘The guild may, if it so wishes, hire you. Officially, for a change. And take you in. Give you protection. Also officially and, also, for a change.’

Kayleigh was going to say something, Mistle too, but a swift glance from Giselher kept them both silent.

‘Tell the guild, Hotspurn,’ the leader of the Rats said icily, ‘that we are grateful for the offer. We shall think it over, reflect on it and discuss it. And decide what to do.’

Hotspurn stood up.

‘I ride.’

‘Now, with darkness falling?’

‘I shall overnight in the village. I feel awkward here. And tomorrow straight to the border with Metinna, then down the main highway to Forgeham, where I’ll stay until the Equinox, and who knows? Maybe longer. For I shall wait there for anyone who has thought it through, and is ready to turn themselves in and wait for the amnesty under my protection. And I advise you not to dilly-dally, either, with your reflecting and your pondering. For Bonhart is liable to outpace the amnesty.’

‘You keep frightening us with Bonhart,’ Giselher said slowly, also standing up. ‘Anyone would think he was just around the corner . . . When he’s probably over the hills and far away . . . ’

‘. . . in Jealousy,’ Hotspurn finished calmly. ‘In the inn called The Chimera’s Head. About thirty miles hence. If not for your zigzags by the Velda, you probably would have run into him yesterday. But that doesn’t worry you, I know. Farewell, Giselher. Farewell, Rats. Master Almavera? I’m riding to Metinna, and I’m always happy to have company on the road . . . What did you say? Gladly? As I thought. Pack up your things then. Pay the master, Rats, for his artistic efforts.’

*

The postal station smelled of fried onions and potato soup. They had been cooked by the station keeper’s wife, temporarily released from her imprisonment in the pantry. A candle on the table spat, pulsated, and swayed with a whisker of flame. The Rats leaned so tightly over the table that the flame warmed their almost-touching heads.

‘He’s in Jealousy,’ Giselher said softly. ‘In The Chimera’s Head. Only a day’s ride from here. What do you think of that?’

‘The same as you,’ Kayleigh snarled. ‘Let’s ride over and kill the whoreson.’

‘Let’s avenge Valdez,’ Reef said. ‘And Muchomorek.’

‘Then various Hotspurns,’ Iskra hissed, ‘won’t shove other people’s fame and daring down our throats. We’ll kill Bonhart, that scavenger, that werewolf. We’ll nail his head above the inn door, to match the name! So everyone will see he wasn’t a hard man, but a mere mortal like everyone else, one who finally took on someone better than himself. That’ll show folk which gang is number one, from Korath to Pereplut!’

‘They’ll be singing songs about us at markets!’ Kayleigh said heatedly. ‘Why, and in castles!’

‘Let’s ride!’ Asse slammed his hand down hard on the table, ‘Let’s ride and destroy the bastard.’

‘And afterwards,’ Giselher pondered, ‘we’ll think about that amnesty . . . that guild . . . Why are you twisting up your face, Kayleigh, as though you’ve bitten a louse? They’re on our heels and winter’s coming. Here’s what I think, little Rats: let’s winter, warming our arses by the fireplace, blanketed from the cold by the amnesty, swigging mulled amnesty beer. We’ll see out this amnesty nice and politely . . . more or less . . . till the spring. And in the spring . . . when the grass peeps out from under the snow . . .’

The Rats laughed in unison, softly, ominously. Their eyes flared like those of real rats when they approach a wounded man incapable of defending himself at night in a dark alley.

‘Let’s drink,’ Giselher said, ‘to Bonhart’s confusion! Let’s eat that soup, and then go to bed. Rest, for we set off before sunrise.’

‘That’s right,’ Iskra snorted. ‘Let’s follow Mistle and Falka’s example. They’ve been in bed for an hour.’

The postal station keeper’s wife trembled by the cauldron, hearing once again their soft, evil, hideous giggling.

*

Ciri raised her head. For a long time she said nothing, eyes fixed on the barely flickering flame of the lamp, where the last fish oil was burning down.

‘I slipped out of the station like a thief,’ she continued the story. ‘Before dawn, in total darkness . . . But I didn’t manage to flee unseen. Mistle must have woken when I was getting out of bed. She caught me in the stable, when I was saddling the horse. But she didn’t show any surprise. And she didn’t try to stop me. The sun was starting to rise . . .’

‘Now it’s not too far till our dawn,’ yawned Vysogota. ‘Time to sleep, Ciri. You can take up the story tomorrow.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ She also yawned, stood and stretched vigorously. ‘Because my eyelids are getting heavy. But at this pace, hermit, I’ll never finish. How many evenings have we had together? At least ten. I’m afraid that the whole story might take a thousand and one nights.’

‘We have time, Ciri. We have time.’

*

‘Who do you want to run from, Little Falcon? From me? Or from yourself?’

‘I’ve finished running. Now I want to catch up with something. Which is why I must return . . . to where everything began. I must. Please understand, Mistle.’

‘So that was why . . . why you were so nice to me today. For the first time in so many days . . . The last time? To bid farewell? And then forget me?’

‘I’ll never forget you, Mistle.’

‘You will.’

‘Never. I swear. And it wasn’t the last time. I’ll find you. I’ll come to you . . . I’ll come in a golden carriage and six. With a retinue of courtiers. You’ll see. I’ll soon have . . . possibilities. Great possibilities. I’ll change your fortunes . . . You’ll see. You’ll find out what I’ll be capable of doing. Of changing.’

‘You need great power to do that,’ Mistle sighed. ‘And tremendous magic . . . ‘

‘And that’s also possible.’ Ciri licked her lips. ‘Magic too . . . I can recover . . . everything I once lost can be restored. And be mine once more. I promise you, you’ll be astonished when we meet again.’

Mistle turned her closely-cropped head away, eyes fixed on the pink and blue streaks the dawn had painted above the eastern edge of the world.

‘Indeed,’ she said quietly. ‘I shall be astonished if we ever meet again. If I ever see you again, little one. Go. Let’s not drag this out.’

‘Wait for me,’ Ciri sniffed. ‘And don’t get yourself killed. Think about the amnesty Hotspurn was talking about. Even if Giselher and the others don’t want to . . . You think about it, Mistle. It may be a way to survive . . . Because I will come back for you. I swear.’

‘Kiss me.’

The dawn broke. The light grew and it became colder and colder.

‘I love you, Waxwing.’

‘I love you, Little Falcon. Now go.’

*

‘Of course, she didn’t believe me. She was convinced I’d got cold feet, that I’d rush after Hotspurn to look for help, to beg for that tempting amnesty. How could she know what feelings had overcome me, as I listened to what Hotspurn had said about Cintra and my grandmamma Calanthe? And about how some “Cirilla” would become the wife of the Emperor of Nilfgaard? That same emperor who had murdered my grandmamma. And who had sent that black knight with feathers on his helmet after me. I told you, remember? On the Isle of Thanedd, when he held out his hand to me, I made him bleed! I ought to have killed him . . . But somehow I couldn’t . . . I was a fool! Oh, never mind. Perhaps he bled to death on Thanedd . . . Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Go on. Tell me how you rode after Hotspurn, to recover your inheritance. To recover what belonged to you.’

‘There’s no need to sneer, no need to mock. Yes, I know it was stupid, I see it now, I saw it then too . . . I was cleverer in Kaer Morhen and in the temple of Melitele, there I knew that what had passed could not return, that I wasn’t the Princess of Cintra but someone completely different, that I had no inheritance. All of that was lost and I had to reconcile myself to it. It was explained to me wisely and solemnly, and I accepted it. Calmly, too. And then it suddenly began to come back. First, when they tried to impress me with the Baron of Casadei’s daughter’s title . . . I’d never been bothered about such things, but suddenly I fell into a fury, put on airs and yelled that I was more titled and of better birth than she. And from then on I began to think about it. I felt the fury growing in me. Do you understand that, Vysogota?’

‘I do.’

‘And Hotspurn’s story was the last straw. I was almost boiling with rage . . . I had been told so much about destiny in the past . . . But here was someone else about to benefit from my destiny, thanks to simple fraud. Someone had passed themselves off as me, as Ciri of Cintra, and would have everything, would live in the lap of luxury . . . I couldn’t think of anything else . . . I suddenly realised I was hungry, cold, sleeping outdoors, that I had to wash in freezing streams . . . Me! When I ought to have a gold-plated bathtub! Water perfumed with spikenard and roses! Warmed towels! Clean bed linen! Do you understand, Vysogota?’

‘I do.’

‘I was suddenly ready to ride to the nearest prefecture, to the nearest fort, to those black-cloaked Nilfgaardians whom I so feared and whom I hated so much . . . I was ready to say, “I am Ciri, you Nilfgaardian morons. Your stupid emperor ought to take me as his wife. Some impudent fraud has been shoved into your emperor’s arms, and that idiot hasn’t realised he’s being swindled”. I was so determined I would have done it, given the opportunity. Without a thought. Do you understand, Vysogota?’

‘I do.’

‘Fortunately, I calmed down.’

‘To your great fortune.’ He nodded gravely. ‘The matter of the imperial marriage bears all the hallmarks of a political scandal, a battle of factions or fractions. Had you revealed yourself, thwarting other influential forces, you wouldn’t have escaped the dagger or poison.’

‘I understood that too. And remembered it. I remembered it well. To reveal who I was would mean death. I had the chance to convince myself of it. But let us not get ahead of the story.’

They were silent for some time, working with the skins. A few days before, the catch had been unexpectedly good. Many muskrats and coypus, two otters and a beaver had been caught in the traps and snares. So they had a great deal of work.

‘Did you catch up with Hotspurn?’ Vysogota finally asked.

‘I did.’ Ciri wiped her forehead with her sleeve. ‘Quite quickly, actually, because he was in no hurry. And he wasn’t at all surprised when he saw me!’

*

‘Miss Falka!’ Hotspurn tugged at the reins, gracefully spinning the black mare around. ‘What a pleasant surprise! Although I confess it’s not such a great one. I expected it, I can’t conceal that I expected it. I knew you would make the right choice, miss. A wise choice. I noticed a flash of intelligence in your lovely and charming eyes.’

Ciri rode closer, so that their stirrups almost touched. Then she hawked at length, leaned over and spat on the sand of the highway. She had learned to spit in that hideous but effective way when it was necessary to dampen somebody’s enthusiasm.

‘I understand,’ Hotspurn smiled slightly, ‘you wish to take advantage of the amnesty?’

‘No.’

‘To what, then, should I ascribe the joy which the sight of your comely face evokes in me, miss?’

‘Must there be a reason?’ she snapped. ‘You said you’d be pleased to have company on the road.’

‘Nothing has changed.’ He grinned more broadly. ‘But if I’m wrong about the issue of the amnesty, I’m not certain we should keep company. We find ourselves, as you see, at a crossroads. A junction, the four points of the compass, the need for a choice . . . Symbolism, as in that well-known legend. If you ride east you will not return . . . If you ride west you will not return . . . If you ride north . . . Hmm . . . Amnesty lies north of this post—’

‘You can shove your amnesty.’

‘Whatever you say, miss. So where, if I may ask, does your road lead? Which path from this symbolic crossroads will you choose? Master Almavera, artist of the needle, drove his mules westwards, towards the small town of Fano. The eastern highway leads to the settlement of Jealousy, but I would very much advise against that.’

‘The River Yarra,’ Ciri said slowly, ‘is the Nilfgaardian name for the River Yaruga, right?’

‘Such a learned maiden–’ he leaned over and looked her in the eye ‘–and she doesn’t know that?’

‘Can’t you answer in a civilised fashion, when you’re asked in a civilised fashion?

‘I was only joking! Why bristle so? Yes, it’s the same river. In elven and Nilfgaardian it’s the Yarra, in the North it’s the Yaruga.’

‘And at the mouth of that river,’ continued Ciri, ‘lies Cintra?’

‘That’s right. Cintra.’

‘From where we are now, how far is it to Cintra? How many miles?’

‘Plenty. And it depends what kind of miles you count it in. Almost every nation has its own, so it’s easy to make a mistake. It’s more convenient, using the method of all wandering merchants, to calculate such distances in days. Reaching Cintra would take twenty-five to thirty days.’

‘Which way? Due north?’

‘Miss Falka seems very curious about Cintra. Why?’

‘I want to ascend to the throne there.’

‘Very well, very well.’ Hotspurn raised his hand in a defensive gesture. ‘I understood the gentle deflection, I won’t ask any more questions. The most direct road to Cintra, paradoxically, doesn’t lead due north, for wildernesses and boggy lakes would hinder your progress. First, you should head towards the town of Forgeham, and then north-west to Metinna, the capital of a country with exactly the same name. Afterwards you ought to ride across the plain of Mag Deira, on the merchant’s road to the town of Neunreuth. Only from there should you head for the north road, which runs along the valley of the River Yelena. From there it’s easy – military units and transports ply the road without let-up via Nazair and the Marnadal Stairs, which is a pass leading north to the Marnadal Valley. And the Marnadal Valley is Cintra.’

‘Hmm . . . ‘ Ciri’s eyes were fixed on the misty horizon, at the blurred line of black hills. ‘To Forgeham and then north-west . . . You mean . . . Which way?’

‘You know what, miss?’ Hotspurn smiled slightly. ‘I’m heading towards Forgeham, and then to Metinna. See, down that track, that line of yellow sand between those young pines? Ride that way with me, and you won’t lose your way. Amnesty or no amnesty, but it will be pleasant to travel with such a charming maiden.’

Ciri measured him up with the coldest glance she could manage. Hotspurn bit his lip with a puckish smile.

‘So?’

‘Let’s ride.’

‘Bravo, Miss Falka. Wise decision. I said that you were as wise as you were beautiful. I was right.’

‘Stop calling me “miss”, Hotspurn. In your mouth it sounds insulting, and I won’t let myself be insulted with impunity.’

‘As you wish, miss.’

*

The day did not fulfil the beautiful dawn’s promise. It was grey and wet. The damp fog dimmed the intensity of the autumnal leaves of the trees leaning over the road, displaying a thousand shades of ochre, red and yellow.

The damp air smelled of bark and mushrooms.

They rode at a walk over a carpet of fallen leaves, but Hotspurn often spurred his black mare to a gentle trot or canter. During those moments Ciri looked on in delight.

‘Does she have a name?’

‘No.’ Hotspurn flashed his teeth. ‘I treat my mounts functionally. I change them regularly and don’t became attached to them. I think giving horses names is pretentious, if one doesn’t run a stable. Do you agree with me? Blacky the horse, Fido the dog and Felix the cat. Pretentious!’

*

Ciri didn’t like his gaze or ambiguous smiles, and especially disliked the slightly mocking tone he used when talking and answering questions. So she adopted a simple tactic – she remained silent, spoke in monosyllables and did not provoke him. When possible. It was not always possible. Particularly when he talked about that amnesty of his. Thus when once again – and quite sternly – she expressed her reluctance, Hotspurn surprisingly changed his approach; he abruptly began trying to prove that in her case an amnesty was not necessary, it simply did not apply to her. The amnesty concerned criminals, he said, not victims of crimes. Ciri roared with laughter.

‘You’re a victim yourself, Hotspurn!’

‘I was speaking seriously,’ he assured her. ‘Not in order to arouse your girlish glee, but to suggest a way of saving your skin in the event of being captured. Something like that won’t work on the Baron of Casadei, nor can you expect clemency from the Varnhagens. The most favourable outcome is that they would hang you on the spot, quickly and, all being well, quite painlessly. Were you, however, to fall into the hands of the prefect and stood before the austere, but just, imperial law . . . Ha, then I would suggest the following line of defence: break down in tears and declare that you were the innocent victim of a coincidence.’

‘And who would believe that?’

‘Everybody would.’ Hotspurn leaned over in the saddle and looked her in the eye. ‘Because that’s the truth. You are an innocent victim, Falka. You aren’t even sixteen, so according to the empire’s law you’re a minor. You ended up in the Rats’ gang by accident. It’s not your fault that one of the bandits, Mistle, whose unnatural tastes are no secret, took a fancy to you. You were dominated by Mistle, sexually abused and forced to—’

‘Now it’s all clear,’ Ciri interrupted, amazed by her own calm. ‘It’s finally clear what this is all about, Hotspurn. I’ve seen men like you before.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Just like every cockerel,’ she said, still composed, ‘your comb bristles at the thought of me and Mistle. Like every stupid tomcat it dawns in your stupid noggin to try to cure me of this sickness which is contrary to nature, to turn the deviant back onto the road of truth. But do you know what is truly disgusting and contrary to nature in all that? Your thoughts!’

Hotspurn observed her in silence, with a somewhat mysterious smirk on his thin lips.

‘My thoughts, dear Falka,’ he said a moment later, ‘may not be decent, may not be nice, and they are obviously not innocent . . . But, by the Gods, they are in keeping with nature. With my nature. You do me a disservice, thinking that my attraction to you has its basis in some . . . perverted curiosity. Ha, you also do yourself a disservice, by not being aware – or not wanting to realise – that your captivating appeal and uncommon beauty are capable of bringing any man to his knees. That the charm of your glance—’

‘Listen, Hotspurn,’ she interrupted. ‘Do you want to bed me?’

‘What intelligence,’ he said, spreading his hands. ‘I’m simply lost for words.’

‘Then I’ll help you.’ She spurred her horse a little, in order to look at him over her shoulder. ‘Because I have plenty of words. I feel honoured. In other circumstances, who knows . . . If you were someone else, ha! But you, Hotspurn, do not attract me at all. Nothing, simply nothing, about you attracts me. And actually, I’d say, it’s the reverse: everything about you puts me off. You can see for yourself that in such circumstances the sexual act would be contrary to nature.’

Hotspurn laughed, also spurring on his horse. The black mare danced on the track, gracefully lifting her shapely head. Ciri fidgeted in the saddle, fighting with a strange feeling which had suddenly woken in her, somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach, but which quickly and doggedly struggled outside, onto her skin, quivering from the touch of her clothing. I’ve told him the truth, she thought. I don’t like him, by the devil, it’s his horse I like, that black mare. Not him, but his horse . . . What damned foolishness! No, no, no! Even if I wasn’t thinking of Mistle, it would be ridiculous and stupid to yield to him just because the sight of that black mare dancing on the track excites me.

Hotspurn let her ride closer and looked her in the eyes with a strange smirk. Then he jerked the reins again, making the mare take short steps, circle and walk gracefully sideways. He knows, thought Ciri, the old rascal knows what I’m feeling.

Damn it. I’m simply curious!

‘Some pine needles,’ Hotspurn said gently, riding up very close and extending a hand, ‘have got caught in your hair. I’ll remove them if you allow. And I’ll add that the gesture springs from my gallantry, not from perverted lust.’

The touch – which came as no surprise to her at all – caused her pleasure. She was still very far from a decision, but just to be sure she reckoned the days from her last bleeding. Yennefer had taught her that; to count in advance and with a cool head, because afterwards, when things got hot, a strange aversion to counting developed, linked to a tendency to ignore the potential result.

Hotspurn looked her in the eye and smiled, just as though he knew that the reckoning had come out in his favour. If only he weren’t so old! Ciri sighed. He’s got to be at least thirty . . .

‘Tourmalines,’ said Hotspurn, his fingers gently touching her ear and earring. ‘Pretty, but only tourmalines. I would gladly give you emeralds. They are precious and have a more intense green, which would suit your looks and the colour of your eyes much better.’

‘Know,’ she drawled, looking at him insolently. ‘If it came to it, I’d demand emeralds in advance. Because no doubt it’s not just horses you treat functionally, Hotspurn. No doubt after a heady night you’d think recalling my first name was pretentious. Fido the dog, Felix the cat and the maiden: Mary-Jane!’

‘’Pon my honour,’ he laughed artificially, ‘you can chill the most feverish desire, O Snow Queen.’

‘I’ve been well schooled.’

*

The fog had lifted a little, but it was still gloomy. And soporific. Until the languorous mood was brutally interrupted by yelling and the thudding of hooves. Some horsemen rushed out from behind a clump of oaks they had just passed.

The two of them reacted as quickly and as smoothly as if they had been practicing it for weeks. They spurred and reined their horses around, breaking into a gallop, a furious dash, pressed to their horses’ manes, urging their mounts on with shouts and kicks of their heels. Above their heads crossbow bolts whirred, and up came a shouting, a clanging and a thudding of hoofbeat.

‘Into the trees!’ Hotspurn yelled. ‘Turn into the forest! Into the undergrowth.’

They turned without slowing. Ciri pressed herself harder and lower to her horse’s neck, for the branches lashing her as she sped past threatened to knock her from the saddle. She saw a crossbow bolt flake a splinter from the trunk of an alder they were passing. She shouted at her horse to go faster, expecting the thud of a bolt in her back at any moment. Hotspurn, riding just in front of her, suddenly groaned strangely. They cleared a deep hollow and rode recklessly down a precipice into a thorny thicket. Just then Hotspurn slid from his saddle and tumbled into a cranberry bush. The black mare neighed, kicked, thrashed her tail and rushed on. Ciri did not think twice. She dismounted and slapped her horse on the rump. As it ran after the black mare she helped Hotspurn up. The two of them dived into the bushes, into an alder copse, fell over, tumbled down the slope and into some tall ferns at the bottom of the ravine. Moss cushioned their fall.

The thudding of their pursuers’ hooves resounded from the precipice above them. Fortunately they were riding higher up through the forest, after the fleeing horses. It seemed that their disappearance among the ferns had gone undetected.

‘Who are they?’ Ciri hissed, pulling crushed russula mushrooms from under Hotspurn and shaking them from her hair. ‘The prefect’s men? The Varnhagens?’

‘Common bandits . . .’ Hotspurn spat out leaves. ‘Thugs . . .’

‘Offer them an amnesty,’ she said, spitting sand. ‘Promise them—’

‘Be quiet. They’ll hear.’

‘Heeeyy! Heeeyyy! Over heeere!’ they heard from above. ‘Over on the leeeft! On the leeeft!’

‘Hotspurn?’

‘What?’

‘You have blood on your back.’

‘I know,’ he answered coldly, pulling a wad of linen from his jacket and turning over on his side. ‘Shove this under my shirt. By my left shoulder blade . . .’

‘Where were you hit? I can’t see the bolt . . .’

‘It was an arbalest . . . Iron shot. The head of a horseshoe nail, most probably. Leave it there, don’t touch it. It’s right by the backbone.’

‘Dammit. What can I do?’

‘Keep quiet. They’re returning.’

Hooves pounded, someone whistled piercingly. Somebody yelled, called, and ordered somebody else to go back. Ciri listened intently.

‘They’re riding off,’ she murmured. ‘They’ve given up the chase. They didn’t even catch the horses.’

‘Good.’

‘We won’t catch them either. Will you be able to walk?’

‘I won’t have to.’ He smiled, showing her a cheap-looking bracelet fastened to his wrist. ‘I bought this trinket with the horse. It’s magical. The mare has carried it since she was a foal. When I rub it, like this, it’s as though I were calling her. As though she were hearing my voice. She’ll run here. It’ll take some time, but she’ll come for certain. With a bit of fortune your roan will follow her.’

‘And with a bit of bad luck you’ll ride off by yourself?’

‘Falka,’ he said, becoming grave. ‘I won’t. I’m counting on your help. I’ll have to be held up in the saddle. My toes are already going numb. I may lose consciousness. Listen: this ravine will lead you to a narrow river valley. You’ll ride uphill, against the current, northwards. You’ll carry me to a place called Tegamo. You’ll find somebody there who’ll know how to get this iron out of my back without me ending up dead or paralysed.’

‘Is that the nearest village?’

‘No. Jealousy is nearer, it’s in a valley about twenty miles in the opposite direction, downstream. But don’t go there under any circumstances.’

‘Why?’

‘Under no circumstances,’ he repeated, frowning. ‘It’s not about me, it’s about you. Jealousy means death for you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t have to. Simply trust me.’

‘You told Giselher—’

‘Forget Giselher. If you want to live, forget about all of them.’

‘Why?’

‘Stay with me. I’ll keep my word, Snow Queen. I’ll cover you with emeralds . . . I’ll shower you in them. . .’

‘Indeed, this is a wonderful time for making jokes.’

‘It’s always a good time for jokes.’

Hotspurn suddenly seized her, pulled her close and began to undo her blouse. Unceremoniously, but unhurriedly. Ciri pushed him away.

‘Indeed!’ she snapped. ‘A wonderful time for that too!’

‘It’s always a good time for that. Especially for me, right now. I told you, it’s my spine. There may be complications tomorrow . . .’

‘What are you doing? Oh, damn it . . .’

This time she pushed him away harder. Too powerfully. Hotspurn blanched, bit his lip and groaned in pain.

‘I’m sorry. But if somebody is wounded they ought to lie still.’

‘Being close to you makes me forget the pain.’

‘Stop that!’

‘Falka . . . Be nice to a suffering man.’

‘You’ll really suffer if you don’t take your hand away. This second!’

‘Quiet . . . The thugs are liable to hear us . . . Your skin is like silk . . . Don’t wriggle.’

Oh, dammit, thought Ciri, let it be. In any case, what difference does it make? I’m curious. I can be curious. There’s no real feeling in it. I’ll treat him functionally and that’s that. And forget him unpretentiously.

She yielded to his touch and the pleasure it brought. She turned her head away, but decided that was exaggeratedly modest and fraudulently prudish; she didn’t want to be a goody-goody being seduced. She looked him straight in the eyes, but that seemed too bold and provocative; she didn’t want to be like that either. So she simply closed her eyes, hugged him around the neck and helped him with the buttons, because he was having difficulty with them and wasting time. The touch of fingers was joined by the touch of lips. She was close to forgetting about the entire world when Hotspurn suddenly froze stiff. For a while she lay patiently, remembering that he was wounded and the wound must be bothering him. But it went on a little too long. His saliva was cooling on her nipples.

‘Hey, Hotspurn? Are you asleep?’

Something oozed onto her chest and side. She touched it with her fingers. Blood.

‘Hotspurn!’ she shoved him off her. ‘Hotspurn, have you died?’

Foolish question, she thought. I mean, I can see.

I can see he’s died.

*

‘He died with his head on my breast.’ Ciri turned her head away. The glow from the fireplace played red on her disfigured cheek. Perhaps there was a blush there too. Vysogota could not be certain.

‘The only thing I felt then,’ she added, still turned away, ‘was disappointment. Does that shock you?’

‘No. Actually not.’

‘I understand. I’m trying not to embellish the story, not correct anything. Not keep anything back. Although occasionally I feel like it, especially that last part.’ She sniffed, rubbing a knuckle into the corner of her eye.

‘I covered him with branches and stones. Any old thing I could find, I confess. It grew dark, I had to sleep there. The bandits were still hanging around, I could hear their shouts and I was certain they weren’t ordinary bandits. I just didn’t know who they were hunting: me or him. But I had to stay quiet. The whole night. Until dawn. Next to a corpse. Brrr.’

‘At dawn,’ she began again a moment later, ‘the sound of our pursuers had long since faded away and I could set off. I had a mount. The magical bracelet I took from Hotspurn’s arm really worked. The black mare returned. Now she belonged to me. That was my present. That’s the custom on the Isles of Skellige, did you know? A girl has the right to a costly gift from her first lover. So what if mine died before he managed to actually become my lover?’

*

The mare banged her front hooves on the ground, neighed and turned in profile as though ordering Ciri to admire her. Ciri could not suppress a sigh of admiration at the sight of the dolphin-like neck; straight and slender, but powerfully muscled, the small shapely head with its concave forehead, the high withers and her build of delightful proportions.

She approached cautiously, showing the mare the bracelet on her wrist. The mare gave a long drawn-out snort, flattened her twitching ears, but allowed herself to be caught by the bridle and stroked on her velvety nose.

‘Kelpie,’ Ciri said. ‘You’re as black and agile as a sea-kelpie. You’re as magical as a kelpie. So you’ll be “Kelpie”. And I don’t care if that’s pretentious or not.’

The mare snorted, stuck her ears up, and shook her silky tail, which reached her hocks. Ciri – favouring a high saddle position – shortened the stirrup leathers and felt the unusual, flat saddle. It had no saddle tree or pommel. She fitted her boot to the stirrup and seized the horse by the mane.

‘Nice and easy, Kelpie.’

The saddle, in spite of appearances, was quite comfortable. And for obvious reasons much lighter than standard cavalry saddles.

‘Now,’ Ciri said, patting the mare on her hot neck, ‘let’s see if you’re as fleet as you are beautiful. If you’re a real racer or just a hack. What do you say to a twenty-mile gallop, Kelpie?’

*

Had someone quietly crept up deep in the night to the remote cottage in the midst of the swamp with its sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had they peered through the slits in the shutters, they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening to the story told by a teenage girl with green eyes and ashen hair.

They would have seen the dying glow in the fireplace come alive and grow bright, as though sensing what would be told.

But that was not possible. No one could have seen it. The cottage of old Vysogota was well hidden among the reeds in the swamp. In a wilderness permanently covered in mist, where no one dared to venture.

*

‘The stream’s valley was level, and good for riding, so Kelpie ran like the wind. Of course, I wasn’t riding uphill but downstream. I remembered that curious name: Jealousy. I recalled what Hotspurn had said to Giselher at the station. I understood why he had warned me about that village. There must have been an ambush in Jealousy. When Giselher made light of the offer of the amnesty and working for the guild, Hotspurn deliberately mentioned the bounty hunter quartered in the village. He knew the Rats would swallow the bait, ride there and fall into the trap. I had to get to Jealousy before them, cut off their route and warn them. Turn them back. All of them. Or at least just Mistle.’

‘I conclude,’ Vysogota mumbled, ‘that you didn’t manage to.’

‘At that time,’ she said softly, ‘I thought that a large force, armed to the teeth, was waiting in Jealousy. In my wildest dreams it never occurred to me that the trap was a single man . . .’

She was silent, staring into the gloom.

‘Nor did I have any idea what kind of man he was.’

*

Birka had once been a wealthy village, charming and picturesquely situated – its yellow thatch and red tiles crowded into a valley with steep, forested sides, which changed colour with the seasons. In autumn, especially, Birka delighted the artistic eye and sensitive heart.

It was like that until the settlement changed its name. Here is what happened:

A young farmer from a nearby elven colony was madly in love with the miller’s daughter from Birka. The miller’s prankish daughter ridiculed the elf’s wooing and continued to sleep around with neighbours, friends and even relatives. They began to mock the elf and his blind love. The elf – somewhat untypically for his race – exploded with anger and vengeance, exploded horribly. One night, with a strong wind blowing the right way, he started a fire and burned Birka down.

The victims of the fire, now ruined, lost heart. Some roamed the world and others fell into idleness and drunkenness. The money gathered for the rebuilding of the village was regularly defrauded and squandered on drink, and the settlement became a vision of misery and despair: it was a jumble of ghastly, carelessly thrown together shacks beneath the bare and black-charred slope of the valley. Before the fire Birka had been oval-shaped, with a central square; now the few solidly built houses, granaries and a distillery formed something like a long main street, which was topped by the façade of The Chimera’s Head, built by the efforts of the community and kept by the widow Goulue.

And for seven years no one had used the name ‘Birka’. People said ‘Flaming Jealousy’, or for short; simply ‘Jealousy’.

The Rats rode down the main street. It was a chill, overcast, gloomy morning.

People fled into their homes, hid in their sheds or their wattle-and-daub shacks. Those who had shutters slammed them closed, those who had doors bolted them. Whoever still had vodka drank it to give them courage. The Rats rode at a walk, ostentatiously slowly, stirrup against stirrup. An indifferent contempt was painted on their faces, but their narrowed eyes closely observed the windows, porches and alleyways.

‘One bolt from a crossbow!’ Giselher warned, loudly. ‘One clang of a bowstring, and there’ll be a bloodbath here!’

‘And the red flame will be let slip!’ Iskra added in her high, melodious soprano. ‘Only earth and water will remain!’

Some of the villagers certainly had crossbows, but no one wanted to find out if the Rats’ words were empty.

The Rats dismounted. They covered the final furlong separating them from The Chimera’s Head on foot, side by side, their spurs, adornments and jewellery rhythmically jangling and clinking.

At the sight of them, three Jealousy residents, soothing the previous day’s hangover with beer, bolted from the steps of the inn.

‘Hope he’s still here,’ Kayleigh muttered. ‘We’ve taken our time. There was no need for that rest, we should have come right away, even travelled at night . . .’

‘Fool.’ Iskra bared her little teeth. ‘If we want bards to sing songs about this, it can’t be done at night, in the darkness. People must see it! Morning is best, when everybody’s still sober, right, Giselher?’

Giselher did not reply. He picked up a stone, swung and hurled it against the door of the inn.

‘Come out, Bonhart!’

‘Come out, Bonhart!’ the Rats called in unison. ‘Come out, Bonhart!’

Footsteps could be heard inside. Slow and heavy ones. Mistle felt a shiver crawling over the nape of her neck and her shoulders. Bonhart stood in the doorway.

The Rats involuntarily took a step back. The heels of their high boots dug into the ground and their hands shot to their sword hilts. The bounty hunter held his sword under one arm. That way he had his hands free; in one he held a peeled boiled egg and in the other a hunk of bread.

He slowly walked to the balustrade and looked down on them, from high up. He stood in the porch, and was huge. Immense, though he was as gaunt as a ghoul.

He looked at them, sweeping his watery eyes over each in turn. Then he bit off a morsel of egg and after it a piece of bread.

‘Where’s Falka?’ he asked indistinctly. Bits of yolk fell from his moustache and lips.

*

‘Run, Kelpie! Run, my beauty! Fast as you can!’

The black mare neighed loudly, extending her neck in a headlong gallop. A hail of gravel shot out from under her hooves, though it seemed as if they were barely touching the ground.

*

Bonhart stretched lazily, his leather jerkin creaking. He slowly pulled down and adjusted his elk-hide gloves.

‘What could this be?’ he grimaced. ‘You want to kill me? And why?’

‘For Muchomorek, for starters,’ Kayleigh answered.

‘And for our amusement,’ said Iskra.

‘And to get you off our backs,’ Reef threw in. ‘Aaaah,’ Bonhart said slowly. ‘So that’s what it’s about! And if I swear to leave you alone, will you leave me alone?’

‘No, you grey cur, we will not.’ Mistle smiled charmingly. ‘We know you. We know you won’t drop it, that you’ll trudge along our trail and wait for a chance to stab one of us in the back. Come down!’

‘Easy does it.’ Bonhart smiled too, malevolently stretching his mouth wide beneath his grey whiskers. ‘We can always find time to cavort around, there’s no need to be hasty. First I’ll make you an offer, Rats. I’ll permit you to choose.’

‘What are you mumbling about, you old fool?’ Kayleigh shouted, crouching. ‘Speak clearly!’

Bonhart nodded and scratched a thigh.

‘There’s a bounty on you, Rats. A goodly one. And life must go on.’

Iskra snorted and opened her eyes wide like a wildcat. Bonhart crossed his arms on his chest, holding his sword in the crook of his arm.

‘That goodly reward,’ he repeated, ‘is for you dead, and it’s a little larger for taking you alive. But, to tell the truth, it’s all the same to me. I have nothing against you personally. I was thinking yesterday that I’d dispatch you all, for a bit of amusement and diversion, but you’ve come yourselves, saving me the bother. You’ve won my heart by so doing. Thus I shall let you choose. How do you prefer me to take you: the playful way or the painful way?’

The muscles on Kayleigh’s jaw twitched. Mistle leaned over, ready to leap. Giselher caught her arm.

‘He means to enrage us,’ he hissed. ‘Let the bastard talk.’

Bonhart snorted.

‘Well?’ he repeated. ‘The easy way or the hard way? I advise the first. For you see, the easy way hurts much, much less.’

The Rats drew their weapons at the same instant. Giselher made a few crosscuts and struck a swordfighter’s pose. Mistle spat copiously on the ground.

‘Come down here, skinny old man,’ she said, apparently calmly. ‘Come here, you blackguard. We’ll kill you like a grizzled old dog.’

‘So you wish it the hard way,’ Bonhart said, looking somewhere above the rooftops. He slowly drew his sword, throwing down his scabbard, and unhurriedly descended from the porch, his spurs clanking.

The Rats swiftly spread out across the street. Kayleigh went furthest to the left, almost to the wall of the distillery. Beside him stood Iskra, twisting her thin lips in her usual, dreadful smile. Mistle, Asse and Reef went off to the right. Giselher remained in the centre, staring at the bounty hunter from under narrowed eyelids.

‘Very well, Rats.’ Bonhart looked from side to side, looked up at the sky, and then raised his sword and spat on the blade. ‘If we’re to cavort, let us cavort. Let the music play!’

They leaped at each other like wolves, like lightning, silently, with no warning. Blades wailed in the air, filling the narrow street with the plaintive clang of steel. At first all that could be heard was the clang of sword hilts, gasps, groans and quickened breathing.

And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the Rats began to scream. And die.

Reef lurched out of the melee first, his back smacking against a wall, splashing blood on the dirty whitewash. Asse reeled out after him, staggering, curled over and fell on his side, by turns bending and straightening his knees.

Bonhart whirled around and leapt like a mad thing, surrounded by the glint and whistle of his blade. The Rats backed away from him, lunging forward, slashing and jumping aside, furiously, fiercely, pitilessly. And ineffectively. Bonhart parried, struck, parried, struck, and attacked, attacked relentlessly, without respite, dictating the tempo of the bout. And the Rats backed away. And died.

Iskra, slashed in the neck, fell over in the mud, cowering like a kitten, blood gushing from an artery onto Bonhart’s calves and knees as he walked past her. The bounty hunter parried the attacks of Mistle and Giselher with a broad swing, then whirled and carved Kayleigh open with a lightning-fast blow, striking him with the very tip of his sword; from collar bone to hip. Kayleigh released his sword, but did not fall, just curled up and seized his chest and belly in both hands, as blood trickled through his fingers. Bonhart once more whirled away from Giselher’s thrust, parried Mistle’s attack and smote Kayleigh again, this time turning the side of his head into scarlet pulp. The fair-haired Rat fell, splashing into a puddle of blood mixed with mud.

Mistle and Giselher hesitated for a moment. And instead of fleeing, yelled with a single voice, savagely and furiously. And leaped at Bonhart.

And found death.

*

Ciri burst into the settlement and galloped down the main street. Splashes of mud spurted from beneath the mare’s hooves.

*

Bonhart shoved Giselher, who was lying by the wall, with his heel. The Rats’ leader gave no sign of life. Blood had stopped gushing from his shattered skull.

Mistle, on her knees, searched for her sword, groping in the mud and dung with both hands, not seeing that she was kneeling in a quickly spreading puddle of red. Bonhart walked slowly over towards her.

‘Noooooo!’

The hunter raised his head.

Ciri leaped from her speeding horse, staggered and dropped onto one knee.

Bonhart smiled.

‘A she-rat,’ he said. ‘The seventh Rat. I’m glad you are here. I needed you to complete the set.’

Mistle had found her sword, but was unable to lift it. She wheezed and threw herself at Bonhart’s feet. Her trembling fingers dug into the legs of his boots. She opened her mouth to scream, but instead of a cry, a shining crimson stream burst forth. Bonhart kicked her hard, knocking her over in the muck. Mistle, both hands now holding her mutilated belly, managed to raise herself again.

‘Noooo!’ Ciri screamed. ‘Miiiistle!’

The bounty hunter paid no attention to her yell. He did not even turn his head. He swung his sword and struck vigorously, as though with a scythe. A powerful blow that jerked Mistle up from the ground and flung her over to the wall, as limp as a cloth doll, like a rag smeared with red.

A scream died in Ciri’s throat. Her hands trembled as she reached for her sword.

‘Murderer,’ she said, astonished at the strangeness of her voice, at the strangeness of her lips, which had suddenly become horrendously dry.

‘Murderer! Bastard!’

Bonhart observed her curiously, tilting his head slightly.

‘Are you going to die too?’ he asked.

Ciri walked towards him, skirting around him in a semi-circle. The sword in his raised and extended hands moved around, deceiving, beguiling.

The bounty hunter laughed loudly.

‘Die!’ he repeated. ‘The she-rat wants to die!’

He moved around slowly, standing on the spot, not allowing himself to be lured into the trap of the semi-circle. But it was all the same to Ciri. She was boiling over with ferocity and hatred, trembling with the lust for murder. She wanted to strike that ghastly old man, feel her blade cut into his body. She wanted to see his blood gushing from severed arteries in the final beats of his heart.

‘Well, little Rat.’ Bonhart raised his bloody sword and spat on the blade. ‘Before you die, show me what there is in you! Let the music play!’

*

‘Truly, no one knows how that they did not slaughter each other during the first clash,’ Nycklar, the son of the coffin maker said, six days later. ‘They wanted to slaughter each other, that was clear to see. She to murder him and he her. They flew at each other, came together for a split second and there was a mighty clash of swords. They exchanged mebbes two, mebbes three blows each. There ain’t a man what could of counted it, by sight or by hearing. So swiftly did they strike, m’lord, that not a man’s eye nor ear could have grasped it. And how they danced and leaped around each other, like two weasels!’

Stefan Skellen, called Tawny Owl, listened attentively, playing with a knout.

‘They leaped apart,’ the boy went on, ‘but neither of them was even grazed. The she-rat was as wrathful as the very Devil, and was hissing like a tomcat when someone wants to take his mouse away. But Mr Bonhart was wholly serene.’

*

‘Falka,’ Bonhart said, smiling and grinning like a veritable ghoul. ‘Truly can you dance and whirl a blade! You have aroused my curiosity, wench. Who are you? Tell me, before you perish.’

Ciri panted. She felt terror beginning to seize her. She understood what she was up against.

‘Tell me who you are, and I’ll spare your life.’

She gripped her hilt more tightly. She had to, had to, get through his parries, slash him, before he closed up. She could not let him deflect her blows, she could not withstand his blows with her sword, she could not risk – even once more – the pain and paralysis which pierced and spread through her elbow and forearm when she parried. She could not waste energy dodging his blows, which were missing her by barely a hair’s breadth. Get through his defence, she thought. Right now. In this clash. Or die.

‘You will die, she-rat,’ he said, moving towards her with his sword extended far out in front of him. ‘Do you not fear? That is only because you know not what death looks like.’

Kaer Morhen, she thought, as she sprang. Lambert. The comb. The somersault.

She took three steps and performed a half-pirouette, and when he attacked she ignored his feint, threw a backward somersault, dropped into a nimble crouch and lunged at him, ducking under his blade and twisting her wrist for the cut, for a fearful blow, aided by a powerful twist of her hip. Suddenly she was seized by euphoria; she would feel the blade cutting into his body.

Instead, there was the hard, moaning impact of metal on metal. And a sudden flash in her eyes, a shock and pain in her head. She felt herself falling, felt herself hitting the ground. He parried and twisted, she thought. I’m dying, she thought. Bonhart kicked her in the belly. A second kick, accurately and painfully aimed at her elbow, knocked the sword from her hand. Ciri grabbed her head and felt a dull pain, but there was neither a wound nor blood beneath her fingers. He hit me with his fist, she thought to her horror. I was just punched. Or struck with the pommel of his sword. He didn’t kill me. He thrashed me like an unruly brat.

She opened her eyes.

The hunter stood over her, terrible and gaunt as a skeleton, towering over her like a diseased, leafless tree, stinking of sweat and blood.

He seized her by the hair, lifted her violently, forced her to stand, but at once jerked her, knocking the ground from under her feet, and dragged her, wailing like the damned, towards Mistle, who was lying at the foot of the wall.

‘So you don’t fear death, do you?’ he snarled, bending her head downwards. ‘Then have a look, she-rat. That is death. That is how you die. Look, those are guts. That is blood. And that is shit. That’s what’s inside us all.’

Ciri tensed up, bent over, still gripped by his hand, and dry-retched hoarsely. Mistle was still alive, but her eyes were already misty, glazed, fishlike. Her hand, like a hawk’s talons, clenched and unclenched, clawing the mud and dung. Ciri smelled the acrid, penetrating odour of urine. Bonhart cackled.

‘That is how you’ll die, little Rat. In your own piss!’

He released her hair. Ciri collapsed onto all fours, racked by dry, choking sobs. Mistle was right beside her. Mistle’s hand, slender, delicate, soft; Mistle’s hand . . .

It was no longer moving.

*

‘He didn’t kill me. He tied my hands to the hitching post.’

Vysogota sat motionless. He had been sitting like that for a long time. He was even holding his breath. Ciri continued her tale, but her voice was becoming more and more hushed, more and more unnatural, more and more unpleasant.

‘He ordered the people who had gathered to bring him a sack of salt and a keg of vinegar. And a saw. I didn’t know . . . I couldn’t understand what he meant to do . . . I still didn’t know what he was capable of. I was tied . . . to the hitching post . . . He called some servants, ordered them to hold me by the hair . . . and by the eyelids. He showed them how; so I couldn’t turn my head away or close my eyes . . . So I had to watch what he was doing. “You have to take pains so the goods won’t go off,” he said. “So they won’t decay . . .”’

Ciri’s voice cracked, stuck dryly in her throat. Vysogota, suddenly realising what he was hearing, felt the saliva well up in his mouth like a flood wave.

‘He cut off their heads,’ Ciri said dully. ‘With a saw. Giselher, Kayleigh, Asse, Reef, Iskra . . . And Mistle. He sawed off their heads . . . One after the other. In front of my eyes.’

*

If someone were to have quietly crept up that night to the remote cottage in the midst of the swamp with its sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, were they to have peered through the slits in the shutters, in the dimly-lit interior they would have seen a grey-bearded old man in a sheepskin coat and an ashen-haired girl with her face disfigured by a scar on her cheek. They would have seen the girl racked with sobs, choking on tears in the arms of the old man, while he tried to calm her, awkwardly and mechanically stroking and patting her trembling shoulders.

But it was not possible. No one could have seen it. The cottage was well concealed amidst the marshes. In a wilderness ever covered in mist, where no one dared to venture.

I have often been asked what made me decide to write my memoirs. Many people seemed interested in the moment my memoirs began, namely what fact, event or incident gave rise to the writing. Formerly, I gave various explanations and often lied, but now, howbeit, I pay homage to the truth. For today, now that my hair has thinned and is going white, I know the truth is a precious seed, while a lie is but contemptible chaff.

And the truth is thus: the event which gave rise to everything, to which I owe the first notes, from which my subsequent life’s work was formed, was the accidental discovery of paper and pencil among the things that my company and I stole from the Lyrian military convoys. It happened . . .

Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

CHAPTER THREE

. . . it happened on the fifth day after the September new moon, on the thirtieth day of our expedition, to be precise, reckoning from when we set out from Brokilon, and six days after the Battle on the Bridge.

Now, my dear future reader, I shall go back in time somewhat and describe the events which took place directly following the glorious Battle on the Bridge, which was so fraught with consequences. First though, I shall enlighten the considerable number of readers who know nothing about the Battle on the Bridge, either owing to their having other interests or as a result of their general ignorance. Let me clarify: that battle was waged on the last day of the month of August in the Year of the Great War in Angren, on the bridge connecting the two banks of the River Yaruga in the vicinity of a border post called the Red Timber Port. The sides of this armed conflict were: the Nilfgaardian Army; a corps from Lyria commanded by Queen Meve; and our glorious company. Which consisted of myself, i.e. the undersigned; and also the Witcher, Geralt; the vampire, Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy; the archer, Maria Barring, known as Milva; and Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, a Nilfgaardian, who liked stubbornly to maintain that he was not such.

It may also be unclear to you, dear reader, why Queen Meve was in Angren, when it was believed she had perished during the Nilfgaardian incursion into Lyria, Rivia and Aedirn in July, which ended in the total conquest of those lands and their occupation by the imperial army. However, Meve had not perished in battle, as was thought, nor was she captured by Nilfgaard. Banding together a loyal mobile force from the surviving Lyrian Army under her colours and enlisting anyone she could, including mercenaries and common felons, the valiant Meve took up a partisan war against Nilfgaard. And the wildness of Angren suited guerrilla warfare perfectly; now striking from an ambuscade, now lurking in some undergrowth – for there was undergrowth in abundance in Angren. If truth be told, there is nothing worth mentioning in that land aside from undergrowth.

The regiment of Meve – now called the White Queen by her army – swiftly grew in might and acquired such daring that it was able to cross to the Yaruga’s left bank, in order, to prowl freely and foment unrest far in the enemy’s rear.

Now let us return to our sheep; that is, the Battle on the Bridge. The tactical situation was as follows. Queen Meve’s partisans, having rampaged on the Yaruga’s left bank, wanted to flee to the Yaruga’s right bank, but happened upon the Nilfgaardians, who were rampaging along the Yaruga’s right bank and wanted to flee to the Yaruga’s left bank. We, from a central position, i.e. the very middle of the River Yaruga, happened upon the above and were surrounded on both sides, from the left and right, by armed men. Having nowhere to flee, we became heroes and covered ourselves in undying glory. The battle, incidentally, was won by the Lyrians, since they achieved what they had intended: i.e. a flight to the right bank. The Nilfgaardians bolted in an unknown direction and in so doing lost the battle. I realise that this all sounds passing confusing and I shall not omit to consult with some military theoretician on the text before publication. For the moment, I am relying on the authority of Cahir aep Ceallach, the only soldier in our company – and Cahir confirmed that winning battles by means of a rapid escape from the battlefield is permissible from the point of view of most military doctrines.

The contribution of our company to the battle was indisputably meritorious, but also had negative consequences. Milva, who was with child, met with a tragic misadventure. The rest of us were fortunate enough not to suffer any serious injuries. But neither did anyone profit, nor even receive any thanks. The exception being Geralt the Witcher. For Geralt the Witcher, in spite of his repeated, but clearly duplicitously professed, indifference and his frequently declared neutrality, displayed in the battle a fervour as great as it was exaggeratedly spectacular. In other words, he fought in a truly effective way, if not to say: for effect. He was noticed, and Meve, the Queen of Lyria, knighted him with her own hand. It quickly turned out that there was more unpleasantness than benefit from that accolade.

For I must tell you, gentle reader, that Geralt the Witcher was always a modest, prudent and composed man, with a soul as simple and uncomplicated as the shaft of a halberd. The unexpected promotion and apparent generosity of Queen Meve changed him, however, and had I not known him better, I would have said that it made him conceited. Instead of vanishing from the scene as quickly and anonymously as possible, Geralt became mixed up in the royal retinue, enjoyed his honour, took delight in the grace and favour, and relished his fame.

But fame and renown were the last things we needed. I shall remind those that do not remember that the very same Geralt the Witcher – now dubbed a knight – was being sought by the intelligence services of all the Four Kingdoms in connection with the matter of the sorcerers’ rebellion on the Isle of Thanedd. Attempts were made to charge me – an innocent person, as honest as the day is long – with the crime of espionage. To that one ought to add Milva, who had collaborated with dryads and Scoia’tael, and who was embroiled – as it transpired – in the infamous massacre on the borders of Brokilon Forest. To that one ought to add Cahir aep Ceallach, a Nilfgaardian, a citizen of an enemy nation, whose presence on the wrong side of the battle would have been arduous to explain or justify. It so happened that the only member of our company whose curriculum vitae was not besmirched by political or criminal issues was the vampire. The exposure or identification of any one of us threatened us all with impalement on sharpened aspen stakes. Each day spent – initially, indeed, pleasantly, safely and with full bellies – in the shade of the Lyrian standards aggrandised that risk.

Geralt, when I emphatically reminded him of that, became somewhat dispirited, but put forward his arguments, of which he had two. Firstly, following her disagreeable accident, Milva still required care and attention, and there were barber-surgeons in the army. Secondly, Queen Meve’s army was marching east, towards Caed Dhu. And our company, before it changed direction and became embroiled in the battle described above, had also been heading to Caed Dhu, for we hoped to obtain some information from the druids dwelling there to aid our search for Ciri. Patrols and lawless gangs prowling in Angren had driven us from our straight road to the aforementioned druids. Now, under the protection of the friendly Lyrian Army, in the grace and favour of Queen Meve, the way to Caed Dhu was wide open; why, it seemed straightforward and safe. I warned the Witcher that it only appeared so, that it was but a semblance and that royal favours are deceptive and inconstant. The Witcher did not want to listen. But it was soon proved who was right. When news got out that a Nilfgaardian punitive expedition was marching towards Angren in great force from the Klamat Pass in the East, the Lyrian Army wasted no time in turning back towards the Mahakam Mountains in the North. As may easily be imagined, that change of direction did not suit Geralt in the slightest; he was hurrying to the druids, not to Mahakam! As naïve as a child, he ran to Queen Meve to obtain an exemption from the army and a royal blessing for his private business. And in that moment queenly love and favour ended, and admiration for the hero of the Battle for the Bridge vanished like so much smoke. The knight, Sir Geralt of Rivia, was reminded in a cool, though resolute, tone of his knightly duties towards the crown. The still ailing Milva, the vampire Regis and the undersigned were instructed to join the column of fugitives and civilians moving behind the convoy. Cahir aep Ceallach, a sturdy youth who in no way resembled a civilian, was given a white and blue sash and conscripted into a so-called free company, which meant a cavalry unit drawn from various bits of rabble picked up by the Lyrian corps on the road. In this way our company was sundered and everything suggested that our expedition was definitively and resoundingly over.

As you might imagine, dear reader, it was not the end at all, nay, ‘twas not even the beginning! Milva, once she had learned of this development, immediately declared herself fit and well. She was first to give the order to withdraw. Cahir flung his royal livery into the bushes and bolted from the free company, and Geralt fled the opulent tents of the select knighthood.

I shall not go on at length about the details, and modesty does not permit me the excessive display of my own – not insignificant – contribution to the undertaking. I merely state the fact: on the night of the fifth of September our entire company clandestinely took leave of Queen Meve’s corps. Before parting from the Lyrian Army we stocked up liberally, without asking the quartermaster’s permission for so doing. I consider the word ‘theft’ – as used by Milva – to be too blunt. For we deserved some sort of payment for our involvement in the memorable Battle of the Bridge. And if not a payment, then at least compensation and reparations for the losses we incurred! Passing over Milva’s tragic accident, not counting Geralt and Cahir’s cuts and bruises, all our horses were killed or crippled, apart from my faithful Pegasus and the skittish Roach, the Witcher’s mare. Thus, in lieu of compensation, we took three full-blooded cavalry steeds and one colt. We also took various bits of tackle, whatever fell into our hands; for the sake of fairness I shall add that we subsequently had to throw half of it away. As Milva said, that can happen when you steal in the dark. The most useful things were taken from the army stores by the vampire Regis, who can see better in the dark than by day. Regis additionally diminished the defensive capabilities of the Lyrian Army by one fat, mousy-grey mule, which he led from the pen so expertly that not a single beast snorted or stamped a hoof. Stories about animals smelling vampires and reacting to their smell in panicked fear cannot thus be believed; unless it refers to certain animals and certain vampires. I shall add that we kept said mousy-grey mule for some time. Following the loss of the colt, which later bolted in the forests of Riverdell, alarmed by wolves, the mule carried what was left of our belongings. The mule was called Draakul. It was so named by Regis immediately after being stolen and so it remained. Regis was clearly entertained by the name, which no doubt had some amusing significance in the culture and speech of vampires, but which he did not wish to explain to us, claiming it was an untranslatable pun.

In this way our company found itself on the road again, and the previously lengthy list of folk who did not like us grew even longer. Geralt of Rivia, an unblemished knight, had quit the ranks of the knighthood before his promotion had been confirmed by a single deed, and before the court heraldist had created a coat of arms for him. Cahir aep Ceallach had already managed to fight in and desert from both armies in the great conflict between Nilfgaard and the Nordlings, earning a sentence of death in absentia in both. The rest of us were in no better a situation. After all, a noose is a noose and the importance of why one is to hang is extremely slight; whether for discrediting knightly honour, desertion or christening an army mule ‘Draakul’.

Let it not then astonish you, reader, that we made truly titanic efforts to considerably increase the distance between us and Queen Meve’s corps. We rode south with all possible speed towards the Yaruga, intending to cross to the left bank. Not only in order to put the river between us and the queen and her partisans, but because the wildernesses of Riverdell were less dangerous than war-torn Angren; it would have been far more judicious to travel to the druids in Caed Dhu along the left and not the right bank. Paradoxically so – since the left bank of the Yaruga belonged to the hostile Nilfgaardian Empire. The father of the left-bank conception was Geralt the Witcher, who, after leaving the fraternity of swaggering knighthood, had regained the greater part of his reason, ability to think logically, and customary caution. The future was to show that the Witcher’s plan was fraught with consequences and determined the fate of the entire expedition. But more about that later.

When we reached the Yaruga there were already plenty of Nilfgaardians there who had crossed the reconstructed bridge at the Red Timber Port and were continuing the offensive against Angren; and probably further, against Temeria, Mahakam and the Devil only knows where else the Nilfgaardian general staff was planning to attack. Crossing the river right away was out of the question; we had to hide and wait for the army to move on. So for two whole days we hunkered in the riverside osiers, cultivating rheumatism and feeding the mosquitoes. To make matters worse, the weather soon declined: it drizzled, was windy as hell, and our teeth were chattering from the cold. I do not recall such a cold September among the many Septembers engraved in my memory. It was then, my dear reader, having found paper and pencil among the supplies borrowed from the Lyrian convoys, to kill time and forget about our discomforts, that I began to record and immortalise some of our adventures.

The foul rainy weather and enforced inactivity spoiled our mood and prompted various dark thoughts. Particularly in the Witcher. Geralt had long since begun counting the days separating him from Ciri; and each day we were not on the road pushed him – in his opinion – further and further away from the girl. Now, in the wet osiers, in the cold and rain, the Witcher became gloomier and more evil with each passing hour. I also noticed he was limping heavily, and when he thought no one could see or hear he swore and hissed from the pain. For you ought to know, dear reader, that Geralt had suffered broken bones during the sorcerers’ rebellion on the Isle of Thanedd. The fractures had knitted and been healed thanks to the magical efforts of the dryads of Brokilon Forest, but apparently had not stopped troubling him. Thus the Witcher was suffering, so to say, from both bodily and spiritual pain. It made him absolutely livid, so we steered clear of him.

And once again he was persecuted by dreams. On the morning of the ninth of September, while he was sleeping off his guard duty, he terrified us all by springing up with a cry and drawing his sword. It looked as though he were in a frenzy, but fortunately it subsided at once.

He went away, but was soon to return with a gloomy demeanour. He announced, in so many words, that he was breaking up the company with immediate effect and continuing on his way alone, since awful things were occurring somewhere, time was running out, it was becoming dangerous, and he didn’t want to put anyone at risk or take responsibility for anyone. He talked and argued so tediously and unconvincingly that no one wanted to discuss it with him. Even the usually eloquent vampire dismissed him with a shrug, Milva by spitting, and Cahir with the terse reminder that he was responsible for himself, and that as far as risks went he did not carry a sword to give his belt ballast. Afterwards, however, everybody fell silent and stared knowingly at the undersigned, no doubt expecting me to avail myself of the opportunity and go back home. I probably do not have to say that they were most disappointed.

The incident persuaded us, nonetheless, to discard our lethargy and drove us to a bold deed; that of crossing the Yaruga. I confess that the undertaking aroused my anxiety, for the plan was to swim across at night; to quote Milva and Cahir, ‘hanging on to the horses’ tails’. Even if it had been a metaphor – and I suspect it was not – I somehow could not imagine it for myself or my steed, Pegasus, upon whose tail I would have to depend during the crossing. Swimming, to put it mildly, was – and is – not one of my strong points. Had Mother Nature wanted me to swim, in the act of creation and the process of evolution she would have equipped me with webbed fingers. And the same applied to Pegasus.

My fears turned out to be in vain, at least with regard to swimming behind a horse’s tail. For we crossed using a different method. Who knows if it was not even more insane? We crossed in a truly impudent manner; beneath the reconstructed bridge at the Red Timber Port, under the very noses of the Nilfgaardian guard and patrols. The undertaking, it turned out, only appeared to be a demented effrontery and mortal gamble, and in reality passed off without a hitch. After the frontline units had crossed the bridge, transport after transport, vehicle after vehicle, flock after flock wandered this way and that. There were also crowds of various kinds, including civilian flotsam and jetsam, among which our company did not stand out at all, nor were we conspicuous. Thus on the tenth day of September we all crossed to the left bank of the Yaruga, only once being hailed by the guard, at whom Cahir, wrinkling his brow imperiously, shouted back something menacing about imperial service, backing up his words with the classically military and ever effective ‘for fuck’s sake’. Before anyone had time to grow curious about us, we were already on the left bank of the Yaruga and deep in the Riverdell forest; for there was only a single highway there, heading south, and neither the direction nor the profusion of Nilfgaardians hanging around it suited us.

At our first camp in the forests of Riverdell I was also visited at night by a strange dream. Unlike Geralt’s it was not about Ciri, but the sorceress Yennefer. The dream was curious, unsettling; Yennefer, in black and white as usual, was hovering in the air above a huge, grim mountain castle, and from below other sorceresses were shaking their fists and hurling abuse at her. Yennefer swirled the long sleeves of her dress and flew away, like a black albatross, over the boundless sea, straight into the rising sun. From that moment the dream transformed into a nightmare. On awaking the details vanished from my memory, and there remained only vague, not very sensible, images, but they were ghastly: of torture, screaming, pain, fear and death . . . In a word: horror.

I did not share that dream with Geralt. Not a word did I breathe of it. And rightly so, as it later turned out.

*

‘She was called Yennefer! Yennefer of Vengerberg. And she was a most famous sorceress! May I not live to see the dawn if I lie!’

Triss Merigold shuddered and turned, trying to see through the crowd and blue smoke densely filling the tavern’s main chamber. She finally rose from the table, somewhat regretfully abandoning a fillet of sole in anchovy butter, a local speciality and a genuine delicacy. She was not roaming the taverns and inns of Bremervoord to eat delicacies, however, but to obtain information. Apart from that, she had to watch her figure.

The crowd of people she had to squeeze among was already dense and tight; in Bremervoord people loved stories and passed up no opportunity to listen to new ones. And the sailors who visited there in great numbers never disappointed; they always had a fresh new repertoire of sea tales. Naturally, the vast majority were invented, but that didn’t make the slightest difference. A tale is a tale. And has its own rules.

The woman who was telling the story – and who had mentioned Yennefer – was a fisherwoman from the Isles of Skellige; stout, broad-shouldered, with close-cropped hair, and – like her four companions – dressed in a waistcoat of narwhal skin, worn to a sheen.

‘It were the nineteenth day of the month of August, in the morning after the second night of the full moon,’ the islander began, raising a mug of ale to her lips. Her hand, Triss noticed, was the colour of old brick, and her exposed, knotty arm must easily have measured twenty inches in girth. Triss’s waist measured twenty-two.

‘At the crack of dawn,’ the fisherwoman continued, her eyes sweeping over her audience’s faces, ‘our smack put to sea, into the sound ‘twixt An Skellig and Spikeroog, to the oyster grounds, where we usually set our salmon gillnets. We made great haste, for a storm were nigh, the heavens darkening cruelly from the West. We ‘ad to pluck the salmon from the nets quick, for otherwise, as you knows yoursel’, when at last, after a storm, you can venture forth to sea, only rotten, chewed heads remain in the nets, and all the catch is for naught.’

Her audience, residents of Bremervoord and Cidaris in the main, mostly living from the sea and dependent on it for their existence, nodded and murmured their understanding. Triss usually saw salmon in the form of pink slices, but also nodded and murmured, because she didn’t want to stand out. She was there incognito, on a secret mission.

‘We sail into port . . .’ the fisherwoman went on, draining her mug and indicating that one of the listeners could buy her another. ‘We sail in and are a-emptyin’ the nets and blow me if Gudrun, Sturla’s daughter, doesn’t start yelling at the top of her voice! And pointing to starboard! We look, and summat’s flying through the air, and it ain’t a bird! My heart stopped for a tick, for at once I’m thinking it’s a wyvern or young gryphon, they sometimes fly over Spikeroog, true enough, but generally in the winter, usually with a west wind a-blowing. But meanwhile that black thing, if it don’t splash into the water! And a wave shoves it! Direckly into our nets. It gets tangled up in the net and splashes around in the water like a seal, then all of us – we were eight fishwives in all – catch the net and heave it on board! And do our gobs fall open! Blow me if it ain’t a woman! In a black gown, as black as any crow. She’s all caught up in the net, ‘twixt two salmon, of which one – as I live and breathe – must of weighed almost three stone!’

The fisherwoman from Skellige blew the froth from her refilled mug and took a deep draught. None of the listeners commented or expressed any disbelief, although not even the oldest among them could remember a salmon of such impressive weight being landed.

‘The black-haired woman in the net,’ the islander continued, ‘is coughing, spitting seawater and thrashing about, and Gudrun, who’s expecting, is frantically yelling “It’s a kelpie! A kelpie! A havfrue!” But any fool could see it weren’t no kelpie, for a kelpie would of ripped up the net long since; and besides, what monster would let itself be a-lugged onto a fishing smack? And it ain’t no havfrue neither, for it don’t ‘ave a fishy tail, and a mermaid always ‘as one! And it fell into the sea from the sky, didn’t it, and who’s seen a kelpie or havfrue flying in the sky? But Skadi, Una’s daughter, she’s always hasty, so she starts yelling “Kelpie!” too and ups and grabs the gaff! And aims at the net with it! And there’s a blue flash from the net and Skadi squeals! The gaff goes left, she goes right, strike me down if I’m lying, she throws three somersets and bangs arse-down on the deck! Ha, turns out a sorceress in a net’s worse than a jellyfish, a scorpena or a numbing eel! And on top o’ that the witch starts cursing something ‘orrible! And the net starts a-hissing, a-stinking and a-steaming, as she works ‘er magic inside! We sees it won’t be no picnic . . .’

The islander drained her mug and wasted no time in reaching for the next one.

‘Ain’t no picnic–’ she belched loudly, and wiped her nose and mouth ‘–to catch a witch in a net! We can feel – as I live and breathe – that the magic’s making the smack roll harder. No time to ‘ang around! Britta, Karen’s daughter, presses the net with ‘er foot, and I grabs an oar and whack! Whack!! Whack!!!’

The ale splashed high and spilled over the table, and several mugs fell on the floor. The listeners wiped their cheeks and brows, but none of them uttered a word of complaint or admonishment. A tale is a tale. And has its own rules.

‘The witch understood who she were up agin’.’ The fisherwoman stuck out her ample bosom and gazed around defiantly. ‘And that you can’t fool around with the fishwives of Skellige! She said she were surrenderin’ to us willin’ like, and vowed not to cast any charms or incantations. And gave ‘er name as Yennefer of Vengerberg.’

Her listeners murmured. Barely two months had passed since the events on the Isle of Thanedd, and the names of the traitors bribed by Nilfgaard were remembered. The name of the celebrated Yennefer too.

‘We takes ‘er,’ the fisherwoman continued, ‘to jarl Crach an Craite in Kaer Trolde on Ard Skellig. Never seen her after that. The jarl was away on an expedition, but they said when he returned he first received the witch harshly, but later treated her polite and courteous. Hmm . . . And I was just waiting to see what kind of surprise the sorceress would conjure up for me for whacking her with an oar. I thought she’d badmouth me before the jarl. But no. Never said a word, never complained, I know that. Honrable witch. Afterwards, when she killed herself I even felt sorry for ‘er . . .’

‘Yennefer’s dead?’ Triss screamed, so overwhelmed she forgot about the importance of remaining incognito and the secrecy of her mission. ‘Yennefer of Vengerberg’s dead?’

‘Aye, she’s dead,’ the fisherwoman said, finishing her beer. ‘Dead as a doornail. Killed ‘erself with her own charms, making magic spells. Didn’t ‘appen long since, last day of August, just ‘fore the new moon. But that’s quite another story . . .’

*

‘Dandelion! You’re asleep in the saddle!’

‘I’m not asleep. I’m thinking creatively!’

*

So we rode, dear reader, through the forests of Riverdell, heading East, towards Caed Dhu, searching for the druids who were meant to help us to find Ciri. I shall tell you how it went. Before that, though, for the sake of historical truth, I shall write a little about our company and each of its members.

The vampire Regis was more than four hundred years old. If he was not lying, it meant he was the oldest of us all. Of course, it might have been poppycock, but who could check? I preferred to suppose that our vampire was being truthful, for he had also declared that he had given up drinking people’s blood irrevocably and for good. Owing to that declaration we fell asleep more calmly in our camps. I noticed that in the beginning, Milva and Cahir would fearfully and anxiously feel their necks after awaking, but they quickly stopped doing that. The vampire Regis was – or seemed to be – an utterly honourable vampire. If he said he would not drink their blood, then he would not.

He did possess flaws, however, which did not result at all from his vampiric nature. Regis was an intellectual, and liked to demonstrate it. He had the annoying habit of giving statements and truths with the tone and expression of a prophet, to which we swiftly stopped reacting, since the statements he gave were either genuine truths, or sounded like the truth, or could not be proved, which, in essence, amounted to the same thing. But what was truly unbearable was Regis’s habit of answering a question before the person asking had finished formulating it – why, occasionally even before the questioner had begun formulating it. I always took that seeming expression of supposed high intelligence more as an expression of boorishness and arrogance; and those qualities, which suit university or courtly circles, are hard to bear in a companion with whom one travels stirrup by stirrup, day in day out, and who sleeps under the same blanket at night. Serious squabbles did not, however, occur, owing to Milva. Unlike Geralt and Cahir, whose inborn opportunism evidently allowed them to adapt to the vampire’s mannerism, and even led them to compete with him in that regard, the archer Milva preferred simple and unpretentious solutions. When Regis, for the third time, gave her an answer to a question as she was halfway through asking, she cursed him roundly, using words and expressions capable of making even a hoary mercenary blush in embarrassment. Surprisingly enough it worked; the vampire lost his annoying mannerism in the blink of an eye. The conclusion thus being that the most effective defence against intellectual domination is roundly to affront the domineering intellectual.

Milva, it seems to me, had been greatly affected by her tragic accident – and loss. I write ‘it seems to me’ for I am aware that being a man I cannot imagine what such a loss means for a woman. Though I am a poet and a man of the quill, even my educated and trained imagination betrays me here and I can do nothing.

The archer swiftly regained her physical fitness, which could not be said for her mental state. It often happened that she would not utter a word throughout the whole day, from dawn to dusk. She would disappear and remain isolated, which worried everyone somewhat. Until finally a crisis occurred. Milva released the tension like a dryad or a she-elf; violently, impulsively and not very comprehensibly. One morning, in front of our eyes, she drew a knife and without a word cut off her plait just above her shoulders. ‘It doesn’t befit me, for I’m not a maiden,’ she said, seeing our jaws hanging open. ‘But nor am I a widow,’ she added, ‘so that’s the end of my mourning.’ From that moment on she was her old self; brusque, biting, mouthy and inclined to use unparliamentary language. From which we happily concluded that she had come through the crisis.

The third – and no less curious – member of the company was the Nilfgaardian, who kept trying to prove he was not one. He was called, so he claimed, Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach . . .

*

‘Cahir Mawr Dyffryn, son of Ceallach,’ Dandelion declared, pointing his pencil at the Nilfgaardian, ‘I have reconciled myself with many things which I don’t like, and actually can’t stand, in this honourable company. But not with everything! I can’t bear it when people look over my shoulder when I’m writing! And I don’t intend to put up with it!’

The Nilfgaardian moved away from the poet, and after a moment’s thought seized his saddle, sheepskin and blanket and dragged them over to Milva, who was dozing.

‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘Forgive my obtrusiveness, Dandelion. I glanced involuntarily, out of pure curiosity. I thought you were creating a map or drawing up some tallies—’

‘I’m not a bookkeeper!’ the poet said, losing his temper and standing up. ‘Nor am I a cartographer! But even if I were, it doesn’t justify taking a sly look at my notes!’

‘I have apologised,’ Cahir repeated dryly, making his bed in the new place. ‘I have reconciled myself with and become accustomed to many things in this honourable company. But I’m still accustomed to apologising only once.’

‘Indeed,’ the Witcher joined in, totally unexpectedly – for everyone, himself included – taking the side of the young Nilfgaardian. ‘You’ve become devilishly touchy, Dandelion. One cannot fail to notice that it is somehow connected to the paper, which you have recently begun to deface with a bit of lead while we camp.’

‘It’s true,’ Regis agreed, putting more birch branches on the campfire. ‘Our minstrel has become touchy, not to say secretive, discreet and loving of solitude recently. Oh, no, having witnesses when performing his natural needs doesn’t bother him at all which, in our situation, one cannot indeed be astonished by. His shameful secrecy and oversensitivity to being watched extends solely to his scribbled notes. Is, perhaps, a poem being written in our presence? A rhapsody? An epic? A romance? A canzone?’

‘No,’ Geralt retorted, shifting towards the fire and muffling his back with a blanket. ‘I know him. It can’t be verse, because he’s not cursing, mumbling or counting the syllables on his fingers. He’s writing in silence, so it must be prose.’

‘Prose!’ The vampire flashed his pointed fangs – which he usually tried not to do. ‘A novel, perhaps? Or an essay? A morality play? Dammit, Dandelion! Don’t torture us so! Reveal what you are writing.’

‘My memoirs.’

‘Your what?’

‘From these notes,’ Dandelion displayed a tube stuffed with paper, ‘will arise the work of my life. My memoirs, bearing the title Fifty Years of Poetry.’

‘Nonsensical title,’ Cahir declared dryly. ‘Poetry has no age.’

‘And if one concedes that it does,’ added the vampire, ‘it is decidedly older than that.’

‘You don’t understand. The title means that the author of the work has spent fifty years, no more and no less, in the service of Lady Poetry.’

‘In that case, it’s even more nonsensical,’ said the Witcher. ‘You aren’t even forty yet. Your writing ability was thrashed into you in the temple elementary school, at the age of eight. Even if we allow that you were writing rhymes in school, you’ve not been serving Lady Poetry for longer than thirty years. But as I well know, for you’ve often told me about it, you only began seriously rhyming and composing melodies when you were nineteen, inspired by your love for Countess de Stael. That makes it the nineteenth year of your service, Dandelion. So how did you come up with this titular fifty years? Is it meant to be some kind of metaphor?’

‘I,’ the bard said, puffing up, ‘trace broad horizons with my thought. I describe the present, but I pass into the future. I intend to publish this mighty work in some twenty or thirty years, and then no one will be able to cast doubt on the titular reckoning.’

‘Ha. Now I get it. If anything astonishes me, it’s the foresight. You aren’t usually bothered about tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow still doesn’t bother me much,’ the poet declared with superiority. ‘I’m thinking about posterity. About eternity!’

‘From the point of view of posterity,’ Regis observed, ‘it isn’t too ethical a beginning to write now, in advance. On the basis of the title, posterity has the right to expect a work written from a genuine fifty-year perspective, by a person with a genuine fifty-year store of knowledge and experience—’

‘A person whose experience amounts to half a century,’ Dandelion interrupted unceremoniously, ‘must be – from the very nature of the case – a seventy-year-old, decayed old gimmer with his brain eroded by the hag of sclerosis. Someone like that should be sitting on the veranda breaking wind, not dictating their memoirs, for people would only laugh. I won’t make that error. I’ll write my biography at the height of my creative powers. Later, just before publication, I shall merely make cosmetic corrections.’

‘It does have its merits,’ Geralt said as he massaged and cautiously flexed his painful knee. ‘Particularly for us. For though without doubt we appear in his work, though without doubt he has mauled us, in half a century we won’t be especially concerned about it.’

‘What’s half a century?’ the vampire smiled. ‘A moment, a fleeting instant . . . Aha, Dandelion, a minor observation. In my opinion, Half a Century of Poetry sounds better than Fifty Years.’

‘I don’t deny it,’ said the troubadour, crouching over a page and scribbling on it with a pencil. ‘Thanks, Regis. Something constructive at last. Does anyone else have any comments?’

‘I do,’ Milva began unexpectedly, poking her head out from her blanket. ‘Why are you goggling at me? Because I’m unlettered? But I’m not stupid! We’re on an expedition, we’re going to rescue Ciri, we’re travelling through enemy lands with sword in hand. This rubbish of Dandelion’s might fall into enemy mitts. And we know the poetaster, it’s no secret he’s a gasbag, a sensation-seeker as well as a gossip. So let him have a care with what he’s scrawling. So we don’t accidentally get hung because of his scribblings.’

‘You’re exaggerating, Milva,’ the vampire said gently.

‘Greatly, I’d say,’ Dandelion continued.

‘I’d say the same,’ Cahir added carelessly. ‘I don’t know what it’s like with the Nordlings, but in the Empire, possession of a manuscript isn’t considered a crimen, nor is literary activity punishable.’

Geralt swept his eyes over him and snapped the stick he was playing with.

‘But libraries are torched in cities captured by that cultured nation,’ he said in an unaggressive tone, but with a distinct sneer. ‘Never mind, though. Maria, I agree that you’re exaggerating. Dandelion’s scribblings, as usual, don’t have any importance. Not regarding our safety.’

‘Oh, sure!’ said the archer, getting hot under the collar and sitting up. ‘I know what I know! When the royal bailiff were taking a census round our way, my stepfather took to his heels, bolted into the forest and stayed there for a fortnight without poking his nose out. Wherever there’s parchment there’s a judgement, he used to say, and whoever’s name is captured in ink today is broke on the wheel tomorrow. And he was right, the rotten bastard! I hope that whoreson’s sizzling in hell!’

Milva threw off her blanket and – now quite wide awake – moved closer to the fire. It looked, Geralt observed, like another long fireside conversation was in the offing.

‘You weren’t fond of your stepfather, I deduce,’ Dandelion observed after a moment’s silence.

‘I weren’t,’ Milva said, audibly grinding her teeth. ‘For he were a rotten bastard. He made advances when mother wasn’t looking, interfered with me. He wouldn’t listen, so finally I couldn’t stand it no more and took a rake to him, and when he fell over I gave him a kick or two, in the ribs and the privates. Two days later he were lying and spitting blood . . . So I decided to flee into the world, without waiting to see if he got better. Later I heard rumours he’d died, and mother soon after him . . . Oi, Dandelion! Are you writing that down? Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare, hear me?’

*

It was strange that Milva was trekking with us, and the fact that a vampire was accompanying us was astonishing. Nonetheless, strangest – if not simply incomprehensible – were the motives of Cahir, who had suddenly changed from an enemy into – if not a friend – then certainly an ally. The youngster had proved that at the Battle on the Bridge, unhesitatingly standing with sword in hand beside the Witcher against his countrymen. By this deed he gained our appreciation and conclusively dispelled our suspicions. In writing ‘our’, I have in mind myself, the vampire and the archer. For Geralt, though he had fought shoulder to shoulder with Cahir, though they had looked death in the eye side by side, was still mistrustful of the Nilfgaardian and did not like him. He did, admittedly, try to hide his resentment, but he was – as I believe I have already mentioned – as simple as a spear shaft, incapable of pretending, and his aversion crept out at every turn, like an eel from a rotten trap. The reason was clear: it was Ciri.

It had been my lot to be on the Isle of Thanedd that July new moon when the bloody battle took place between sorcerers loyal to the kings and traitors incited by Nilfgaard. The traitors were helped by the Squirrels – rebellious elves – and Cahir, son of Ceallach. Cahir had been on Thanedd, he had been sent there on a special mission; he was to have seized and abducted Ciri. Ciri wounded him defending herself; Cahir had a scar on his left hand, at the sight of which my mouth always went dry. It must have been hellishly painful and he still could not bend two of his fingers.

And after all that, we rescued him on the Ribbon, when his own countrymen were carrying him away to cruel torture in fetters. Why, I ask? For what misdeeds did they want to execute him? Or was it only for the defeat on Thanedd? Cahir is not garrulous, but I have a sensitive ear even for monosyllables. The lad is not yet thirty, but looks as though he were a high-ranking officer in the Nilfgaardian Army. Since he speaks the Common Speech impeccably, which is seldom found among Nilfgaardians, I think I know what kind of army Cahir served in and why he was promoted so quickly. And why he was sent on such strange missions. Including foreign ones.

For Cahir was the man who had tried once before to abduct Ciri. Almost four years before, during the massacre of Cintra. The destiny guiding the girl’s fate had made itself felt for the first time. By coincidence I talked about this with Geralt on the third day after crossing the Yaruga, ten days before the Equinox, as we were negotiating the forests of Riverdell. That conversation, although very short, was fraught with unpleasant and worrying overtones. And at that moment there was writ on the face and in the eyes of the Witcher a harbinger of the horror which was to explode during the Equinox, after we were joined by the fair-haired Angouême.

*

The Witcher wasn’t looking at Dandelion. He wasn’t looking ahead. He was looking at Roach’s mane.

‘Just before her death,’ he began, ‘Calanthe forced an oath on several of her knights. They were not to let Ciri fall into Nilfgaardian hands. During the flight, those knights were killed, and Ciri was left alone amidst corpses and conflagration, in the web of streets of the burning city. She would not have got out alive, that is beyond doubt. But he found her. Cahir. He carried her out of the pit of fire and death. He rescued her. Heroically! Nobly!’

Dandelion reined Pegasus back somewhat. They were riding at the rear, and Regis, Milva and Cahir were about a quarter of a furlong ahead, but the poet didn’t want a single word of their conversation to reach the ears of their companions.

‘The problem was,’ the Witcher continued, ‘that our Cahir was only acting nobly by order. He was noble as a cormorant is: he did not swallow the fish because he had a ring on his throat. He was meant to take the fish to his master. He failed, so the master was angry at the cormorant! The cormorant is now out of favour! Is that why he’s searching for friendship in the company of fish? What do you think, Dandelion?’

The troubadour ducked in the saddle to avoid an overhanging linden branch. The branch already bore completely yellow leaves. ‘But he saved her life, you said so yourself. Thanks to him Ciri left Cintra in one piece.’

‘And she cried out in the night, seeing him in her dreams.’

‘But he did save her. Stop dwelling on it, Geralt. Too much has changed, why, it changes every day. Brooding achieves nothing, save distress, which clearly does you no good. He rescued Ciri. That fact was, is, and will remain a fact.’

Geralt finally tore his gaze away from the horse’s mane and raised his head. Dandelion glanced at his face and swiftly looked away.

‘The fact remains a fact,’ the Witcher repeated in an angry, metallic voice. ‘Oh, yes! He yelled that fact in my face on Thanedd, and his voice stuck in his throat from terror, for he was staring at my sword edge. That fact and that cry were supposed to be the arguments which would stop me murdering him. Well, it did and I don’t think it can now be undone. Which is a pity. For a chain ought to have been begun then, on Thanedd. A long chain of death, a chain of revenge, about which tales would still be told after a hundred years have passed. Tales which people will be afraid to listen to after dark. Do you understand that, Dandelion?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then to hell with you.’

*

That conversation was hideous and the Witcher’s expression had been hideous too. Oh, I did not like it when he was in a mood such as that and went off on such a tack.

I must, though, confess that the vivid comparison with the cormorant had played its role. I began to worry. The fish in its beak, taken to be clubbed, gutted and fried! A truly nice analogy, joyful prospects . . .

However, good sense belied such fears. After all, if we were to continue with the fishy metaphors, then who were we? Small fry. Small, bony fry. In exchange for such a meagre haul the cormorant Cahir could not count on imperial grace. In any case, he was far from the pike he wanted to be thought of as. He was small fry, just like us. When the war was raking both the earth and people’s fates like an iron harrow, who was paying the slightest attention to small fry?

I am certain that no one in Nilfgaard remembers Cahir now.

*

Vattier de Rideaux, chief of the Nilfgaardian military intelligence, listened to the imperial reprimand.

‘So,’ Emhyr var Emreis continued scathingly, ‘an institution which devours three times as much of the state budget as education, culture and the arts taken together is incapable of finding one man. This man simply disappears, goes into hiding, although I spend astronomical sums on an institution from which nothing has any right to remain concealed! One man, guilty of treason, blatantly mocks an institution to which I have given so many privileges and funds as would give even innocent men sleepless nights. Oh, trust me, Vattier, when the council next speaks of trimming the funds for clandestine services, I shall prick up my ears. You may trust that!’

‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ Vattier de Rideaux croaked, ‘will make, I have no doubt, the right decision, after weighing up all the pros and cons. Both the failures and the successes of the intelligence service. Your Majesty may also be certain that the traitor, Cahir aep Ceallach, will not escape punishment. I have taken steps—’

‘I do not pay you for undertakings, but for results. And those are miserable, Vattier, miserable! What about Vilgefortz? Where the hell is Cirilla? What are you mumbling now? Louder!’

‘I think Your Highness ought to wed the girl we are holding in Darn Rowan. We need that marriage, we need the legality of Cintra’s sovereign fiefdom to subdue the Isles of Skellige and the rebels in Attre, Strept, Mag Turga and the Slopes. We need a general amnesty, peace at the rear and along supply lines . . . We need the neutrality of Esterad Thyssen of Kovir.’

‘I know. But the girl from Darn Rowan is not Ciri. I cannot wed her.’

‘May Your Imperial Majesty forgive me, but does it matter if she is not authentic? The political situation requires your nuptials. Urgently. The bride will be in a veil. And when we finally find the genuine Cirilla, the girls will simply be . . . exchanged.’

‘Have you taken leave of your senses, Vattier?’

‘The fake one was only shown briefly at court. No one has seen the real girl in Cintra for four years, and rumour has it she spent more time in Skellige than in Cintra. I guarantee that no one will see through the deceit.’

‘No!’

‘Your Imperial—’

‘No, Vattier! Find the real Ciri! Pull your finger out. Find Ciri. Find Cahir. And Vilgefortz. Vilgefortz in particular. For he has Ciri, I’m certain of it’

‘Your Imperial Highness . . .’

‘Go on, Vattier! Speak!’

‘At one time I suspected the so-called Vilgefortz case was nothing but a provocation. That the sorcerer had been murdered or is being imprisoned, and the spectacular and clamorous hunt allows Dijkstra to slander us and to justify his brutal repression.’

‘I’ve had similar suspicions.’

‘Ah, you have? This was not made public in Redania, but my agents inform me that Dijkstra found one of Vilgefortz’s hideouts, and within in it evidence of the sorcerer’s bestial experiments on people. To be precise, on human foetuses . . . and women with child. If Vilgefortz had Cirilla, I fear that continued searches for her—’

‘Silence, dammit!’

‘On the other hand,’ Vattier de Rideaux quickly added, looking at the emperor’s furious face, ‘all of that may be disinformation. Intended to denigrate the sorcerer. That would be Dijkstra’s style.’

‘You’re paid to find Vilgefortz and take Ciri from him, for God’s sake! Not to digress and make conjectures! Where is Tawny Owl? Still in Geso? Why? He allegedly “left no stone unturned and looked into every hole in the ground”. Allegedly the girl “is not there and never was”. Apparently “the astrologer was either mistaken or is lying”. Those are all quotations from his reports. What is he still doing there?’

‘Coroner Skellen, I dare observe, undertakes none too transparent measures . . . He is recruiting for his unit, the one Your Highness ordered him to set up, in Fort Rocayne, Maecht, where he has established his base. That unit, I take the liberty to add, is an extremely doubtful bunch. But it is odd that towards the end of August, Lord Skellen hired a notorious assassin—’

‘What?’

‘He engaged a hired thug, with instructions to eliminate a criminal gang marauding around Geso. A commendable act, but is it a task for the imperial coroner?’

‘Is invidia speaking through you, Vattier, by any chance? And does it not give your reports colour and fervour?’

‘I merely state the facts, Your Highness.’

‘I want–’ the emperor stood up abruptly ‘–to see the facts. I’m tired of hearing about them.’

*

It was an extremely hard day. Vattier de Rideaux was weary. In his schedule for that day he had planned an hour or two of paperwork, intended to protect him from drowning in pending documents, but the thought of it made him shudder. No, he thought, easy does it. It can wait. I’m going home . . . No, not yet. My wife can wait. I’ll go to Cantarella. To my gorgeous Cantarella, with whom I can relax so pleasantly.

He quickly made up his mind. He simply rose, took his cloak and left, a gesture full of disgust holding off his secretary, who was trying to force a leather portfolio of urgent documents onto him. Tomorrow! Tomorrow is another day!

He left the palace by the rear exit, which opened onto the gardens, and walked along a path lined with cypresses. He passed an ornamental pond, where a carp introduced by Emperor Torres was approaching the venerable age of a hundred and thirty-two years, as testified by a golden commemorative medal attached to the gills of the immense fish.

‘Good evening, viscount.’

Vattier released the dagger concealed in his sleeve with a short movement of his forearm. The hilt slid into his hand by itself.

‘Very risky, Rience,’ he said coldly. ‘Very risky, showing your burned countenance in Nilfgaard. Even as a magical teleprojection.’

‘You noticed? And Vilgefortz assured me that if you didn’t touch me you wouldn’t guess it was an illusion.’

Vattier put the dagger away. He had not guessed it was an illusion at all, but now he knew.

‘You are too great a coward, Rience,’ he said, ‘to show yourself here in person. You know what would befall you if you did.’

‘Is the emperor still so determined to seize me? And my master Vilgefortz?’

‘Your insolence is disarming.’

‘Go to hell, Vattier. We’re still on your side, Vilgefortz and I. Well, I admit we tricked you with the counterfeit Cirilla, but it was done in good faith, in good faith, may I be drowned if I lie. Vilgefortz believed that since the real one had vanished, a fake one was better than none at all. We reckoned it was all the same to you—’

‘Your insolence has stopped being disarming and has begun to be insulting. I have no intention of wasting time talking to an insulting mirage. When I finally get my hands on you we shall have a conversation, a long conversation. So until that time . . . apage, Rience.’

‘What’s come over you, Vattier? In the past, if even the Devil himself appeared to you, you wouldn’t forget to investigate – before the exorcism – if you couldn’t, by any chance, profit in some way.’

Vattier did not grace the illusion with a glance. Instead he watched the algae-covered carp idly churning up the sludge in the pond.

‘Profit in some way?’ he repeated slowly, pouting his lips contemptuously. ‘From you? And what could you give me? The real Cirilla, perhaps? Perhaps your patron, Vilgefortz? Perhaps Cahir aep Ceallach?’

‘Hold hard!’ Rience raised an illusory hand. ‘You mentioned him.’

‘Who?’

‘Cahir. We shall bring you Cahir’s head. I, and my master, Vilgefortz . . .’

‘Have mercy, Rience,’ Vattier snorted. ‘Reverse the order.’

‘As you wish. Vilgefortz, with my humble help, will give you the head of Cahir, son of Ceallach. We know where he is and can pluck him out like a lobster from a pot, if you wish.’

‘So you have such capabilities, well, well. Such good stoolpigeons in Queen Meve’s army?’

‘Are you testing me?’ Rience grimaced. ‘You really don’t know? Must be the latter. Cahir, my dear viscount, is . . . We know where he is. We know where he’s headed and in what company. You want his head? You shall have it.’

‘A head,’ Vattier smiled, ‘which won’t be able to tell anyone what really happened on Thanedd.’

‘That’s probably for the best,’ said Rience cynically. ‘Why give Cahir the chance to talk? Our task is to ease – not exacerbate – the animosity between Vilgefortz and the emperor. I shall bring you the mute head of Cahir aep Ceallach. We’ll do it in such a way that it looks like your, and only your, achievement. Delivery in the next three weeks.’

The ancient carp in the fishpond fanned the water with its pectoral fins. That beast, thought Vattier, must be very wise. But why does it need that wisdom? It’s still the same sludge and the same water lilies.

‘Your price, Rience?

‘A trifle. Where is Stefan Skellen and what is he plotting?’

*

‘I told him what he wanted to know.’ Vattier de Rideaux stretched out on the pillows, playing with a ringlet of Carthia van Canten’s golden hair. ‘You see, my sweet, one has to approach some matters wisely. And to approach them wisely means to conform. If one behaves differently, one won’t get anything. Just the putrid water and foul-smelling sludge in a fishpond. And so what if the pond is made of marble and is three paces from the palace? Aren’t I right, my sweet?’

Carthia van Canten, known by the pet-name of Cantarella, did not answer. Vattier in no way expected an answer. The girl was eighteen and – to put it mildly – no genius. Her interests, at least for the moment, were limited to making love with – at least for the moment – Vattier. Cantarella was a natural talent in sexual matters, combining enthusiasm and wholeheartedness with technique and artistry. That was not the most important thing about her, though.

Cantarella spoke little and seldom, while listening willingly and splendidly. With Cantarella one could unload oneself, relax, spiritually unwind and psychologically regenerate oneself.

‘A man in this service can expect nothing but reprimands,’ Vattier said bitterly. ‘Just because he hasn’t found some Cirilla or other! And is the fact that, thanks to the work of my men, the army is achieving successes unimportant? Does the fact that the general staff knows the enemy’s every move mean nothing? And how many strongholds have my agents opened for the imperial forces, which would have taken weeks to storm? But no, there is no praise for that. Only some Cirilla or other is important!’

Puffing up angrily, Vattier de Rideaux took a glass of excellent Est Est of Toussaint from Cantarella’s hands, a wine with a vintage that remembered the days when Emperor Emhyr var Emreis was a cruelly damaged little boy, devoid of any rights to the throne and Vattier de Rideaux was a young officer of the intelligence service, insignificant in the hierarchy.

It had been a good year. For wine.

Vattier sipped it, played with Cantarella’s shapely breasts and went on. Cantarella listened splendidly.

‘Stefan Skellen, my sweet,’ muttered the chief of the imperial intelligence service, ‘is a wheeler-dealer and a conspirator. But I shall know what he’s up to before Rience gets there . . . I already have an agent there . . . Very close to Skellen . . . Very close . . .’

Cantarella untied the sash fastening Vattier’s dressing gown, and leaned forward. Vattier felt her breath and moaned in anticipation of the pleasure. That’s talent, he thought. And then the soft, hot touch of velvety lips drove all thoughts from his head.

Carthia van Canten slowly, deftly and skilfully supplied Vattier de Rideaux, the chief of the imperial intelligence service, with sexual bliss. That wasn’t Carthia’s only talent. But Vattier de Rideaux had no idea about her others.

He didn’t know that despite appearances Carthia van Canten possessed a splendid memory and intelligence as lively as quicksilver.

Everything Vattier told her, every piece of information, every word he uttered, Carthia passed on to the sorcereress Assire var Anahid the next day.

*

Yes, I would stake my head that everyone in Nilfgaard forgot about Cahir long ago, including his betrothed, if he had one.

But more about that later, for now we return to the day and place the Yaruga was crossed. We rode quite briskly eastwards, meaning to reach the region of the Black Forest known in the Elder Speech as Caed Dhu. For there dwelt the druids, who were capable of divining where Ciri was residing, or foretelling her location from the weird dreams that were vexing Geralt. We rode through Upper Riverdell, also known as Left Bank, a wild and deserted land situated between the Yaruga and the Slopes, set at the foot of the Amell Mountains, delineated to the east by the Dol Angra valley, and to the west by a boggy lakeland whose name has slipped my mind.

No one laid any specific claim to that land, and so it was never rightly known to whom it actually belonged or who governed it. In that respect, it seems, the successive monarchs of Temeria, Sodden, Cintra and Rivia – who, with varying results, treated Left Bank as a fiefdom of their kingdoms and occasionally tried to drive home their arguments using fire and sword – had some say. And subsequently the Nilfgaardian Army arrived from beyond the Amell Mountains and no one had anything more to say. Or any doubts about issues of fiefdom or territorial rights. Everything south of the Yaruga belonged to the Empire. As I write these words, plenty of lands to the north also belong to the Empire. Owing to a lack of precise information, I do not know how many or how far to the north.

Going back to Riverdell, permit me, dear reader, a digression concerning historical processes. The history of a given territory is often created and formed by accident, as a side effect of the conflicts between external forces. A given land’s history is very often created by foreigners. Foreigners are the cause – but the effects are always invariably borne by the local people.

That rule fully applied to Riverdell.

Riverdell had its own folk, indigenous Riverdellers. The unceasing years of scrambles and struggles had transformed them into beggars and forced them to migrate. Their villages and settlements had gone up in smoke, and the ruins of homesteads and fields were transformed into fallow land and swallowed up by the wilderness. Trade fell into decline and caravans avoided the neglected roads and tracks. The few Riverdellers who remained turned into coarse boors. They mainly differed from wolverines and bears by the fact that they wore britches. At least some of them did. I mean some of them wore britches and some of them differed from the beasts. They were – generally speaking – an unobliging, crude and boorish nation.

And utterly devoid of a sense of humour.

*

The dark-haired daughter of the forest beekeeper tossed her plait over her shoulder, and resumed turning the quern with furious vigour. Dandelion’s efforts were in vain; the poet’s words seemed not to register with their audience. Dandelion winked at the rest of the company, pretending to sigh and raise his eyes to the ceiling. But he did not quit.

‘Let me,’ he repeated, grinning. ‘Let me grind, while you fetch some ale from the cellar. There must be a hidden cellar somewhere around here and a keg in the vault. Am I right, fair one?’

‘You might leave the wench alone, m’lord,’ the forest beekeeper’s wife – a tall, willowy woman of astonishing beauty – said crossly as she busied herself around the kitchen. ‘I already told ‘ee there ain’t no ale ‘ere.’

‘You bin told near a dozen times, m’lord,’ the forest beekeeper said, backing up his wife, breaking off from his conversation with the Witcher and the vampire. ‘I shall make you pancakes with honey, and then you’ll eat. But leave the wench in peace to grind the corn for meal, for without meal even a sorcerer cannot make a pancake! Let ‘er be, let ‘er grind in peace.’

‘Did you hear that, Dandelion?’ called the Witcher. ‘Leave the girl alone and go and do something useful. Or write your memoirs!’

‘I fancy a drink. I fancy a drink before eating. I have some herbs, I’ll brew myself an infusion. Granny, would there be any hot water in this cottage? Hot water, I’m asking. Would there be any?’

An old woman, the forest beekeeper’s mother, sitting on the stove bench, raised her head from the sock she was darning.

‘There would, petal, there would,’ she muttered. ‘Only it be cold b’ now.’

Dandelion groaned and sat down, resigned, at the table, where the company was chatting with the beekeeper, whom they had happened upon in the forest early that morning. The beekeeper was short, thickset, swarthy and terribly hairy. No wonder, then, that he had given the company a scare when he loomed out of the undergrowth unexpectedly; they had taken him for a lycanthrope. To make it funnier still, the first to yell ‘Werewolf! Werewolf!’ had been the vampire, Regis. There was something of a commotion, but the matter was quickly cleared up, and the beekeeper, though at first sight surly, turned out to be hospitable and courteous. The company accepted the invitation to his homestead. His homestead – called, in forest-beekeeping jargon, a ‘shanty’ – stood in a cleared glade, where the beekeeper, his mother, his wife and their daughter lived. The latter two were women of exceptional, though somewhat curious, looks, clearly indicating that there was a dryad or hamadryad among their forebears.

During the conversations that ensued, the forest beekeeper at first gave the impression one could talk to him solely about bees, beehives carved into trees, hollows, rope harnesses, bear fences, beeswax, honey and honey-gathering, but that was just a semblance.

‘With politics? And what should be happening with it? The same as usual. We ‘ave to pay more and more duty. Three urns of honey, and an entire length of wax. I can barely supply it. I sit on my ropes from dawn to dusk, gouging out hollows . . . Who do I pay the duty to? To whoever calls, how am I to know who’s in power now? Some time since, you know, they bin speakin’ Nilfgaardian. I ‘ear we’re now an imporial provenance, or summat like ‘at. They pay for the honey – if I sell any – in imporial coin, with the emprer’s head struck on it. ‘Is mush is more comely, though cruel, you’ll know ‘im right away. If you get my drift . . .’

Two dogs – one black and the other ruddy – sat facing the vampire, raised their heads and started to howl. The beekeeper’s hamadryad wife turned back from the hearth and hit them with her broom.

‘It be an evil sign,’ the beekeeper said, ‘when hounds howl in broad daylight. Kind of thing . . . What was I sposed to be talkin’ ‘bout?’

‘About the druids of Caed Dhu.’

‘Eh! So you wasn’t jestin’, m’lord? You rightly mean to go to the druids? Sick of life, are you? That way is death! He who dares to venture into the Mistletoers’ clearings is seized, shoved into a wicker doll and roasted over a slow flame.’

Geralt looked at Regis and Regis winked at him. They both knew the popular rumours about the druids, and every last one was fabricated. Milva and Dandelion, though, began listening with greater curiosity than before. And evident alarm.

‘There’s some as say,’ the forest beekeeper continued, ‘that the Mistletoers are getting their own back, for the Nilfgaardians vexed ‘em first, by entering their holy oak groves down in Dol Angra and by walloping the druids for no reason. Others say the druids started it, capturing and tormenting a couple of imporial men to death, and now Nilfgaard are getting their revenge. ‘Ow it rightly is, no one knows. But one thing brooks no doubt; the druids catch people, puts ‘em in the Wicker Woman and burns ‘em. To venture among ‘em is certain death.’

‘We are not afraid,’ Geralt said calmly.

‘Certainly,’ the forest beekeeper eyed the Witcher, Milva and Cahir up and down. Cahir was just entering the cottage, having groomed the horses. ‘It is evident you are fearless folk, valorous and armed. Eh, wouldn’t be no fear journeying with the likes of you . . . you know . . . But the Mistletoers ain’t in the Black Grove presently, your toils and travels would be in vain. Nilfgaard pressed ‘em, drove ‘em from Caed Dhu. They ain’t there presently.’

‘How so?’

‘Thus it is. The Mistletoers ‘ave fled.’

‘Fled where?

The forest beekeeper glanced at his hamadryad wife and said nothing for a moment.

‘Fled where?’ the Witcher repeated.

The beekeeper’s tabby cat sat down before the vampire and miaowed frightfully. The hamadryad hit it with her broom.

‘It be an evil sign when a tomcat mews in broad daylight,’ the beekeeper mumbled, strangely embarrassed. ‘But the druids . . . you know . . . They fled for the Slopes. Right enough. I speak the truth. To the Slopes.’

‘A good sixty miles south,’ Dandelion estimated in quite a casual – even cheerful – voice. But he fell silent when he saw the Witcher’s expression.

Only the ominous miaowing of the cat, promptly driven outside, could be heard in the silence that fell.

‘Well,’ the vampire began, ‘what difference does it make to us?’

*

The next morning brought more surprises. And riddles, which were quickly solved. ‘A pox on it,’ said Milva, who was the first to scramble out of the hay barrack, awoken by the commotion. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed. Look at that, Geralt.’

The clearing was full of people. At first glance it could be seen that five or six forest beekeeping families were gathered there. The Witcher’s trained eye also picked out several fur trappers and at least one tar maker. Taken together, there were twelve men, ten women, ten adolescents of both sexes and the same number of little children. The gathering was equipped with six wagons, twelve oxen, ten cows and four goats, a fair number of sheep, and also plenty of dogs and cats, whose barking and miaowing could definitely be considered a bad omen in such circumstances.

‘I wonder,’ Cahir said, rubbing his eyes, ‘what this means?’

‘Trouble,’ Dandelion replied, shaking the hay from his hair. Regis said nothing, but wore a curious expression.

‘Please break your fast, noble lords,’ said their friend the forest beekeeper, approaching the rick accompanied by a broad-shouldered man. ‘Breakfast is ready. Milky porridge. And honey . . . And if I may introduce Jan Cronin, headman of us forest beekeepers . . .’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ the Witcher lied, without returning the bow, partly because his knee was paining him intensely. ‘And this crowd, how did they get here?’

‘Type of thing . . .’ the beekeeper scratched the back of his head. ‘As you see, winter’s coming . . . The trees have bear fences, the hollows have been gouged out . . . Time we returned to the Slopes and Riedbrune . . . Store away the honey, for winter, you know . . . But it is perilous to be in the forests . . . alone . . .’

The headman cleared his throat. The beekeeper glanced at Geralt’s face and seemed to shrink a little.

‘You are mounted and armed,’ he grunted. ‘Valorous and bold, anyone can see it. Wouldn’t be no fear travelling with the likes of you . . . And it’d be commodious for you . . . We know every path, every track, every copse and holt . . . And we can feed you . . .’

‘And the druids,’ Cahir said coldly, ‘have left Caed Dhu. And headed for the Slopes. Where you want to go. What a remarkable coincidence.’

Geralt walked slowly over to the forest beekeeper and grabbed him by the front of his coat. But a moment later thought better of it, released him and smoothed down his garments. He said nothing. And asked nothing. But in any case the beekeeper hurried to explain.

‘I spoke the truth! I swear! May the earth swallow me up if I lie! The Mistletoers have gone from Caed Dhu! They ain’t there!’

‘And they’re in the Slopes, are they?’ Geralt growled. ‘Where you are headed, you and this rabble of yours? And you want to travel with an armed escort? Speak, fellow. But take heed, the earth is indeed liable to cleave open!’

The beekeeper lowered his eyes and looked down apprehensively at the ground beneath his feet. Geralt kept meaningfully silent. Milva, finally understanding what it was all about, cursed foully. Cahir snorted contemptuously.

‘Well?’ the Witcher urged. ‘Where were the druids making for?’

‘Who knows, m’lord?’ the beekeeper finally mumbled. ‘But they may be in the Slopes . . . Just as well as they might be anywhere else. There’s a plenitude of mighty oak groves in the Slopes, and druids are fond of oaks . . .’

Aside from headman Cronin, both hamadryads – mother and daughter – were now standing behind the beekeeper. It’s fortunate the daughter takes after her mother and not her father, the Witcher thought, for the beekeeper suits his wife as well as a wild boar suits a mare. He noticed that several more women were standing behind the hamadryads. They were much less comely, but were looking at him just as pleadingly.

He glanced at Regis, not knowing whether to laugh or curse. The vampire shrugged.

‘Let me start by saying,’ he said, ‘that the forest beekeeper is right, Geralt. It is quite probable that the druids have gone to the Slopes. It is perfectly fitting terrain for them.’

‘Is that probability–’ the Witcher’s gaze was very, very cold, ‘–sufficiently great, in your view, to prompt us to abruptly change our course and head off blindly with these folk here?’

Regis shrugged again.

‘What difference does it make? Think it over. The druids are not in Caed Dhu, so we ought to eliminate that direction of travel. Neither can a return to the Yaruga, I venture, be an option. And so all remaining directions are equally good.’

‘Really?’ The temperature of the Witcher’s voice now equalled his gaze. ‘And which of those that remain, in your view, would be most advisable? The one with the forest beekeepers? Or a quite different one? Will you – in your infinite wisdom – undertake to stipulate that?’

The vampire turned slowly towards the forest beekeeper, the forest beekeeper headman, the hamadryads and the other women.

‘What is it,’ he asked gravely, ‘you fear so much, good folk, that you seek an escort? What arouses this fear in you? Speak plainly.’

‘Oh, m’lord,’ Jan Cronin whined, and the most genuine horror appeared in his eyes. ‘I’m glad you asked . . . Our way goes through the Dank Wilderness! And it’s ghastly there, m’lord! There are, m’lord, brukolaks, vampyrodes, endryags, gryphoons and all kind of monstrosities! Why, barely two Sundays since, a leshy snatched my son-in-law, he only managed a rasp and that was him, dead. Do you not wonder that we’re afeared to go that way with our women and bairns? Eh?’

The vampire glanced at the Witcher and his face was very grave.

‘My boundless wisdom,’ he said, ‘suggests I stipulate that the most advisable direction is whichever is most advisable for the Witcher.’

*

We set off northwards, towards the Slopes, a land lying at the foot of the Amell Mountains. We set off in a great procession which contained everything: young women, forest beekeepers, fur trappers, women, children, young women, domestic livestock, household paraphernalia, and young women. And a hell of a lot of honey. Everything was sticky from the honey, even the girls.

The train moved at walking and wagon speed, but the pace of the march did not falter, for we did not stray, but marched with ease – the beekeepers knew the tracks, paths and causeways between the lakes. But that knowledge came in useful, oh, how it did, for it began to drizzle and suddenly the whole of bloody Riverdell was plunged into a fog as thick as cream. Without the beekeepers we would surely have lost our way or sunk somewhere in the mire. Neither did we have to waste time or energy organising and preparing vittles – we were fed thrice a day, amply, if simply. And were permitted to laze around for some time after each repast.

In short, it was wonderful. Even the Witcher, that old sourpuss and bore, began to smile and enjoy life more, for he reckoned we were covering fifteen miles a day, which we had never once managed since leaving Brokilon. The Witcher had no work, for though the Dank Wilderness was so dank it would have been difficult to imagine anything danker, we did not encounter any monsters. Sure, at night spectres howled a little, forest weepers moaned and will o’ the wisps capered on the bogs. But nothing remarkable.

It was a tiny bit worrying, in truth, that once again we were travelling in quite an accidentally chosen direction and once again without a precisely defined destination. But, as the vampire Regis articulated, it is better to go forward without an aim than loiter without an aim, and with surety much better than to retreat without an aim.

*

‘Dandelion! Strap that tube of yours on securely! It would be a shame for half a century of poetry to break free and get lost in the ferns.’

‘No fear! I shan’t lose it, be certain of it. Nor let anyone take it from me! Anyone wanting this tube will have to wrest it from my cooling corpse. Might one know, Geralt, what provokes your peals of laughter? Let me hazard a guess . . . Congenital imbecility?’

*

It so happened that a team of archaeologists from the University of Castell Graupian, conducting excavations in Beauclair, dug through a layer of charcoal – indicating a great fire – to an even older layer, estimated to date from the 13th century. In that layer, a cavern formed by the remains of walls and sealed by clay and lime was excavated, and in it – to the great excitement of the scholars – were two perfectly preserved human skeletons: those of a woman and a man. Beside the skeletons – apart from weapons and countless small artefacts – was a tube made of hardened leather and measuring two and a half feet long. A coat of arms with faded colours depicting lions and lozenges was embossed on the leather. Professor Schliemann, a distinguished specialist in the sigillography of the Dark Ages, who was leading the team, identified the coat of arms as the emblem of Rivia, an ancient kingdom of unconfirmed location. The archaeologists’ excitement reached its peak, since manuscripts were kept in similar tubes in the Dark Ages, when the container’s weight permitted the supposition that there was plenty of paper or parchment preserved inside. The tube’s excellent condition offered hope that the documents would be legible and throw light on the shadowy past. The centuries were about to speak! It was an exceptional surprise, a victory of science which could not be squandered. Linguists and scholars of extinct languages were prudently summoned from Castell Graupian, along with specialists capable of opening the tube without the risk of even the slightest damage to the valuable contents.

Meanwhile, rumours of ‘treasure’ had spread through Professor Schliemann’s team. It so happens that those words reached the ears of three characters, known as Zdyb, Billy Goat and Kamil Ronstetter, who’d been hired to dig out the clay. Convinced that the tube was literally stuffed full of gold and valuables, the three aforementioned diggers, under cover of darkness, swiped the priceless artefact and fled with it to the forest. Once there, they lit a small fire and sat down around it.

‘What you waitin’ for?’ Billy Goat said to Zdyb. ‘Open up that pipe!’

‘Won’t give,’ Zdyb complained to Billy Goat. ‘It’s tight as a whoreson!’

‘Stamp on the sodding bitch!’ Kamil Ronstetter advised.

The hasp of the priceless find gave way under Zdyb’s heel and the contents fell out onto the ground.

‘Bugger the sodding bitch!’ Billy Goat yelled in astonishment. ‘What is it?’

The question was foolish, for at first sight it could be seen they were sheets of paper. For which reason Zdyb, rather than answer, took one of the sheets and brought it up to his nose. He examined the curious-looking signs for a long while.

‘It’s writing,’ he finally stated authoritatively. ‘They’re letters!’

‘Letters?’ Kamil Ronstetter roared, paling in horror. ‘Written letters? What a bitch!’

‘Writing, meaning spells!’ Billy Goat jabbered, his teeth chattering in terror. ‘Letters, meaning witchery! Don’t touch it, son-of-a-sodding-bitch! You might catch something from it!’

Zdyb didn’t need telling twice, throwing the page onto the fire and nervously wiping his trembling hands on his britches. Kamil Ronstetter kicked the rest of the papers into the campfire – after all, children might chance upon that foul stuff. Then the three hurried away from that dangerous place. The priceless writing from the Dark Ages burned with a tall, bright flame. For a few short moments the centuries spoke with the soft whisper of paper blackening in the fire. And then the flame went out and darkness covered the earth.

Houvenaghel, Dominik Bombastus, b. 1239, became rich in Ebbing conducting trade on a great scale and settled in Nilfgaard; respected by previous emperors, he was appointed burgrave and director of mines in Venendal by Emperor Jan Calveit, and as reward for services rendered was given the office of mayor of Neveugen. A faithful imperial advisor, H. had the emperor’s favour and also participated in many public affairs. d. 1301. While still in Ebbing, H. was engaged in numerous charitable works, supported the needy and impoverished, and founded orphanages, hospitals and nurseries, putting up plentiful sums for them. A great enthusiast of the fine arts and sport, he founded a comedic theatre and stadium in the capital, both of which bore his name. He was regarded as a model of probity, honesty and mercantile decency.

Effenberg and Talbot,

Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, Volume VII

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Witness’s surname and given name?’

‘Selborne, Kenna. Beg pardon, I meant Joanna.’

‘Profession?’

‘Provider of diverse services.’

‘Is the witness jesting? May the witness be reminded that she stands before the imperial tribunal in a trial of high treason! The lives of many people depend on the witness’s testimony, since the penalty for treason is death! May the witness be reminded that she stands before the tribunal by no means as a free agent, but having been brought from a place of isolation in the citadel, and whether the witness returns there or is discharged depends inter alia on her testimony. The tribunal has taken the liberty of this lengthy lecture in order to show the witness how highly improper buffoonery and facetiae are in this chamber! They are not merely unpalatable, but also threaten very grave consequences. The witness has a half-minute to ponder this matter after which the tribunal shall pose the question once again.’

‘Very well, Illustrious Judge.’

‘Address us as “Your Honour”. Witness’s profession?’

‘I’m a psionic, Your Honour. But mainly in the service of the imperial intelligence, I mean . . .’

‘Please keep your answers brief and to the point. Should the court be desirous of further explanations we shall ask for them. The court is aware of the collaboration between the witness and the empire’s secret service. For the record, what is the meaning of the term “psionic”, which the witness used when giving her profession?’

‘I’ve got pure aitch-es-pee, which means first category psi, without the gift of pee-kay. To be precise: I can hear other people’s thoughts and speak remotely with a sorcerer, elf or other psionic. And I can give orders using thought. I mean: make someone do what I want them to. I can also do pre-cog, but only when I’m under.’

‘Please enter in the proceedings that the witness, Joanna Selborne, is a psionic, with the gift of hypersensory perception. She is a telepath and tele-empath, able to carry out precognition under hypnosis, but without the ability of psychokinesis. The witness is admonished that the use of magic and extrasensory powers in this chamber is strictly prohibited. We shall continue the hearing. When, where and in what circumstances did the witness encounter the matter of the person passing herself off as Cirilla, Princess of Cintra?’

‘I only found out about some Cirilla or other when I was in the clink . . . I mean in a place of isolation, Illustrious Tribunal. While being investigated. I was made aware it was the same person as had been called Falka or the Cintran in my hearing. And the circumstances were such that I must state the order of events. For clarity, I mean. It was like this: I was accosted in a tavern in Etolia by Dacre Silifant, him, who’s sitting over there . . . ‘

‘Make note that the witness, Joanna Selborne, has indicated the accused Silifant without being prompted. Please continue.’

‘Dacre, Illustrious Tribunal, recruited a hanza . . . I mean, an armed troop. Valiant to a man, and woman . . . Dufficey Kriel, Neratin Ceka, Chloe Stitz, Andres Vierny, Til Echrade . . . They’re all dead, Your Honour . . . And of the ones what survived, most of them are sitting here, under guard . . .’

‘Please state precisely when the meeting of the witness and the accused, Silifant, took place.’

‘It was last year, in the month of August, somewhere near the end, I don’t recall exactly. Well not in September, in any case, for that September, ha, is well embedded in my memory! Dacre, who’d learned about me from somewhere, said the hanza needed a psionic, one that wasn’t afraid of magic, because we’d be dealing with sorcerers. The work, he said, was for the emperor and the empire, well-paid, furthermore, and the hanza would be commanded by none other than Tawny Owl himself.’

‘When they say Tawny Owl, does the witness have in mind Stefan Skellen, the imperial coroner?’

‘Yes, I do, indeed I do.’

‘Please enter that in the proceedings. When and where did the witness encounter Coroner Skellen?’

‘It was in September, on the fourteenth, in Fort Rocayne. Rocayne, Illustrious Tribunal, is a border watchtower, which guards the trade route from Maecht to Ebbing, Geso and Metinna. Our hanza – numbering some fifteen horse – was brought there by Dacre Silifant. So, taken together, there were twenty-two of us, as the others were already standing by in Rocayne, under the command of Ola Harsheim and Bert Brigden.’

*

The wooden floor boomed beneath heavy boots, spurs jingled and metal buckles clinked.

‘Greetings, Sir Stefan!’

Tawny Owl not only did not stand up, he didn’t even take his feet from the table. He just waved a hand in a very lordly gesture.

‘At last,’ he said curtly. ‘You’ve kept me waiting a long time, Silifant.’

‘A long time?’ Dacre Silifant laughed. ‘That’s rich, Sir Stefan! You gave me, four Sundays to gather and bring here a good dozen of the best blades the empire and its dominions have produced. A year would be too little for the assembling of such a hanza! But I tossed it off in twenty-two days. That deserves praise, eh?’

‘Let’s refrain from praise,’ Skellen said coolly, ‘until I’ve seen this hanza of yours.’

‘Why not now? Here are my – and now your, Sir Stefan – lieutenants: Neratin Ceka and Dufficey Kriel.’

‘Hail, hail.’ Tawny Owl finally decided to stand up, and his adjutants also rose. ‘Let me introduce you, gentlemen . . . Bert Brigden, Ola Harsheim . . .’

‘We know each other well.’ Dacre Silifant grasped Ola Harsheim’s right hand firmly. ‘We put down the rebellion in Nazair under old Braibant. That was comical, eh, Ola? Eh, comical! The horses were hock-deep in blood! And Mr Brigden, if I’m not mistaken, from Gemmera? From the Pacifiers? Ah, there’ll be comrades in the squad! I’ve got a few Pacifiers there.’

‘I’m getting impatient to see them,’ Tawny Owl interjected. ‘May we go?’

‘A moment,’ Dacre said. ‘Neratin, go and array the company, so they’ll look their best before the honourable coroner.’

‘Is it a he or she, that Neratin Ceka?’ Tawny Owl squinted, watching the officer leave. ‘A woman or a man?’

‘Mr Skellen.’ Dacre Silifant cleared his throat, but when he spoke his voice was steady and his eyes cold. ‘I do not know exactly. He would appear to be a man, but I’m not certain. As to what kind of officer Neratin Ceka is, I’m certain. What you have deigned to ask me about would be significant were I to ask him – or her – for his – or her – hand. But that I do not intend. Neither do you, I expect.’

‘You’re right,’ Skellen conceded after a moment’s thought. ‘So there’s nothing to say. Let’s go and scrutinise your gang, Silifant.’

Neratin Ceka, the individual of uncertain gender, had not wasted time. When Skellen and the officers went out into the fort’s courtyard, the squad was standing in tidy array, aligned so that not a horse’s muzzle extended further than a span. Tawny Owl gave a slight cough, content. A decent band, he thought. Ah well, were it not for official policy . . . Oh, to assemble a hanza like that and head for the marches, to plunder, rape, murder and burn . . . A man would feel young again . . . Pshaw, if it weren’t for politics!

‘Well, Sir Stefan?’ Dacre Silifant asked, flushing with barely concealed excitement. ‘How do you find them, these splendid sparrowhawks of mine?’

Tawny Owl’s eyes travelled from face to face, from figure to figure. He knew some of them personally, for better or worse. Others, whose acquaintance he was now making, he had heard of. By reputation.

Til Echrade, a fair-haired elf, a scout of the Gemmerian Pacifiers. Rispat La Pointe, a sergeant from the same unit. Next, a Gemmerian: Cyprian Fripp the younger. Skellen had been present at the execution of Fripp the older. Both brothers had been famous for their sadistic proclivities.

Further away, leaning back easily in the saddle of a piebald mare, was Chloe Stitz, thief; occasionally hired and utilised by the secret service. Tawny Owl’s eyes swiftly darted away from her insolent gaze and nasty smile.

Andres Vierny, a Nordling from Redania, a vicious killer. Stigward, a pirate, a renegade from Skellige. Dede Vargas an assassin by profession, the Devil only knew where he was from, Kabernik Turent, a murderer by vocation.

And others. Much the same. They’re all akin, Skellen thought. A guild, a fraternity, where after killing the first five people they all become the same. The same movements, the same gestures, the same manner of speech, of movement and dress.

The same eyes. Impassive and cool, flat and immobile like the eyes of a snake, whose expression nothing – not even the most monstrous atrocity – was capable of changing.

‘Well? Sir Stefan?’

‘Not bad. A decent hanza, Silifant.’

Dacre blushed even more and saluted in the Gemmerian fashion, fist pressed against his calpac.

‘I especially requested,’ Skellen reminded him, ‘several people who were no strangers to magic. Who fear neither spells nor sorcerers.’

‘I remembered. Why, there’s Til Echrade! And apart from him, see that tall maiden on that splendid chestnut, the one beside Chloe Stitz?’

‘Bring her to me later.’

Tawny Owl leaned on the balustrade and rapped on it with the metal-tipped handle of his knout.

‘Hail, company!’

‘Hail, lord coroner!’

‘Many of you,’ Skellen began, when the echo of the gang’s combined roar had died away, ‘have worked with me before, know me and my requirements. Let them explain to those who don’t know me what I expect from my subordinates, and what I do not tolerate from them. Then I shan’t waste my breath needlessly.

‘This very day some of you will receive your assignments and will ride out at dawn to execute them. In Ebbing. I remind you that Ebbing is an autonomous kingdom and we have no formal jurisdiction there, so I order you to act prudently and discreetly. You remain in the imperial service, but I forbid you from flaunting it, boasting about it or treating the local rulers arrogantly. You shall behave so as not to attract attention. Is that clear?’

‘Yes sir, lord coroner!’

‘Here, in Rocayne, you are guests and are to behave like guests. I forbid you from leaving your assigned quarters without an essential need. I forbid you from making contact with the fort’s garrison. The officers will think up something so that boredom doesn’t drive you to fury. Mr Harsheim, Mr Brigden, please show the troop their quarters!’

*

‘I’d barely managed to get off me mare, Your Honour, than Dacre grabs me by the sleeve. Lord Skellen, he says, wants a word with you, Kenna. What to do? Off I go. Tawny Owl’s sitting behind a table, feet up, whacking his knout against his bootleg. And without beating about the bush asks me if I’m the Joanna Selborne who was mixed up in the disappearance of the ship The Southern Star. I tells him nothing was ever proved. He bursts out laughing. “I like people, you can’t pin anything on,” he says. Then he asks if my aitch-es-pee, hypersensory perception, I mean, is innate. When I says aye, his mood darkened and he says: “I thought that talent of yours would come in useful with sorcerers, but first you’ll have to deal with another mysterious personage”.’

‘Is the witness certain Coroner Skellen used those exact words?’

‘I am. I’m a psionic, ain’t I?’

‘Please continue.’

‘Our conversation was interrupted by a messenger, dusty from the road. He clearly hadn’t spared his horse. He had urgent tidings for Tawny Owl, and Dacre Silifant says, as we was heading to our quarters, that he felt in his water that the messenger’s tidings would shove us in the saddle before evening came. And ‘e was right, Your Honour. Even before anyone had thought of dinner, half the hanza were saddled up. I got off that time; they took Til Echrade, the elf. I was content, for after those few days on the road my arse ached like buggery . . . And to make matters worse my monthly had just started—’

‘Will the witness please refrain from picturesque descriptions of her intimate complaints and keep to the subject. When did the witness learn the identity of the “mysterious personage” Coroner Skellen mentioned?’

‘I’ll tell you dreckly, but there has to be some order, don’t there, for everything’s getting so mixed up we won’t ever untangle it! The ones who’d saddled their mounts in such haste before dinner raced from Rocayne to Malhoun. And brought back some teenage lad . . .’

*

Nycklar was angry with himself. So angry he felt like weeping.

If only he’d heeded the warnings given him by prudent folk! If only he’d remembered his proverbs, or at least the fable about the rook that couldn’t keep its trap shut! If only he’d done what was to be done and returned home to Jealousy! But, oh no! Excited by the adventure, proud to be in possession of a fine steed, feeling the pleasant weight of coins in his purse, Nycklar couldn’t resist showing off. Rather than going straight home to Jealousy, he rode to Malhoun, where he had loads of pals, including several maids, to whom he made advances. In Malhoun he strutted around like a gander in spring, kicked up a rumpus, cavorted, showed his horse off around the courtyard, and stood rounds in the inn, tossing money on the counter with the look and bearing of, if not a prince by blood, then at least a count.

And talked.

Talked about what had happened four days ago in Jealousy. He talked, constantly offering new versions, adding new information, confabulating, and ultimately lying through his teeth, which didn’t bother his audience in the least. The inn’s regulars – both locals and travellers – listened eagerly. And Nycklar went on, pretending to be well-informed. And placing himself ever oftener at the centre of the confabulated events.

On the third evening his own tongue landed him in trouble.

A deathly hush fell at the sight of the people entering the inn. And in that hush, the clank of spurs, the rattle of metal buckles and the scraping of scabbards sounded like a foreboding bell tolling misfortune from the top of a belfry.

Nycklar was not even given the chance to try playing the hero. He was seized and escorted from the inn so fast he only managed to touch the floor with his heels about three times. His pals, who only the previous day – when he was paying for their drinks – had declared their undying friendship, were now practically sticking their heads under the tables, as though incredible marvels were occurring or naked women were dancing there. Even the deputy shire-reave – who was present in the inn – turned to face the wall and didn’t breathe a word.

Nycklar didn’t breathe a word either, not asking who, what or why. Terror turned his tongue into a stiff, dry board.

They put him on his horse and ordered him to ride. For several hours. Then there was a fort with a palisade and a tower. The courtyard was full of noisy, swaggering, well-armed mercenaries. And a chamber. And in the chamber were three men. A commander and two subordinates, it was immediately obvious. The commander, short, with blackish hair, and richly attired, was sober in his speech and admirably courteous. Nycklar listened with mouth agape as the commander apologised to him for the trouble and inconvenience and assured him he would suffer no harm. But he was not to be deceived. The men reminded him too much of Bonhart.

That observation turned out to be astonishingly accurate. For they were interested in Bonhart. Nycklar should have expected that. For, after all, it was his wagging tongue that had landed him in this quandary.

When prompted he began to talk. He was warned to speak the truth and not embellish it. He was warned courteously, but sternly and emphatically, and the one doing the warning, the richly attired one, played all the while with a metal-tipped knout, and his eyes were dark and evil.

Nycklar, the son of the coffin-maker from Jealousy, told the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. About how, on the morning of the ninth day of September in the village of Jealousy, Bonhart, a bounty hunter, had wiped out the gang of Rats, sparing the life of only one bandit, the youngest, the one they called Falka. He told them how the whole of Jealousy had gathered to watch Bonhart torment and thrash his captive, but the folk were sorely disappointed, for Bonhart, astonishingly, did not kill or even torture Falka! He did no more than what a normal fellow does to his wife on returning home from the tavern on Saturday evening – just gave her a kicking, slapped her a few times, and nothing more.

The richly attired gentleman with the knout said nothing, and Nycklar told them how Bonhart had sawn the heads off the slaughtered Rats before Falka’s eyes, and plucked the golden earrings set with gemstones from those heads like raisins from a bun. How Falka, tied to the hitching post, screamed and puked on seeing it. He told how afterwards Bonhart had buckled a collar around Falka’s neck, like you would a bitch dog, and dragged her by it to The Chimera’s Head inn. And then . . .

*

‘And then,’ said the lad, constantly licking his lips, ‘the gentleman Bonhart called for ale, for he was sweating something awful and his throat was dry. And after that he cried that he had a fancy to give someone a good horse and a whole five florins. That’s what he said, those were his very words. So I came forward at once, not waiting for anyone else to be quicker, for I wanted awful to have a horse and a little coin of my own. The old man gives me nothing, for he drinks whatever he makes on the coffins. So I comes forward and asks which horse – no doubt one of the Rats’ – can I take? And his lordship Bonhart looks at me, till shivers ran through me and says, don’t he, that the only thing I can take is a kick up the backside, for other things have to be earned. What to do? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, says the proverb; well, the Rats’ horses were standing at the hitching post, in particular that black mare of Falka’s, a horse of rare beauty. So I bows and asks what must I do to earn the gift? And Mr Bonhart says that I must ride to Claremont, stopping off in Fano on the way. On the horse of my choosing. He must have known I had me eye on the black mare, for he forbad me from taking her. So I takes a chestnut with a white patch . . . ‘

‘Less about horses’ coats,’ Stefan Skellen reprimanded dryly. ‘And more hard facts. Tell us what Bonhart charged you to do.’

‘His lordship Bonhart wrote some missives, and ordered me to hide them secure. He charged me to ride to Fano and Claremont, and there to hand over the letters to the indicated persons.’

‘Letters? What was in them?’

‘How should I know, gentle lord? Reading don’t come easy to me, and the letters were sealed with Mr Bonhart’s signet.’

‘But for whom were the letters, do you recall?’

‘Oh, indeed I do. Mr Bonhart ordered me to repeat it ten times, so I wouldn’t forget. I got where I was to go without erring, and handed over the missives as instructed. They praised me for an able lad, and that honourable merchant even gave me a denar—’

‘To whom did you deliver the letters? Speak plainly!’

‘The first missive was for Master Esterhazy, a swordsmith and armourer from Fano. And the second was for the honourable Houvenaghel, a merchant from Claremont.’

‘Did they open the letters in your presence? Perhaps one of them said something as he read? Rack your brains, lad.’

‘I cannot recall. I didn’t mark it then, and now I can’t seem to remember . . .’

‘Mun, Ola,’ Skellen nodded at the adjutants, without raising his voice at all. ‘Take the lout into the courtyard, drop his britches, and give him thirty solid lashes with a knout.’

‘I remember!’ the boy yelled. ‘It’s come back to me!’

‘Nothing works on the memory,’ Tawny Owl grinned, ‘like nuts and honey, or a knout hovering over the arse. Talk.’

‘When Houvenaghel read the missive in Claremont, there was another gentlemen there, a little chap, a veritable halfling. Mr Houvenaghel said to him . . . Erm . . . He said they’d written that soon there might be sport in the fleapit the like of which the world had never seen. That’s what he said!’

‘You aren’t making this up?’

‘I swear on my mother’s grave! Don’t have them flog me, gentle lord! Have mercy!’

‘Well, well, get up, don’t dribble on my boots! Here’s a denar.’

‘A thousand thanks . . . M’lord . . .’

‘I said don’t dribble on my boots. Ola, Mun, do you understand anything of this? What does a fleapit have in common with—’

‘Bear pit,’ Boreas Mun suddenly said. ‘Not fleapit. Bear pit.’

‘Aye!’ the boy yelled. ‘That’s what ‘e said! Just as though you’d been there, gentle lord!’

‘A bear pit and sport!’ Ola Harsheim hit one fist against the other. ‘It’s an agreed code, nothing too elaborate. It’s easy. Sport – bear-baiting – is a warning about a pursuit or a manhunt. Bonhart was warning them to flee! But from whom? From us?’

‘Who knows?’ said Tawny Owl pensively. ‘Who knows? We shall have to send men to Claremont . . . And to Fano also. You take care of that, Ola, give the squads their orders . . . Now listen, my lad . . .’

‘Yes sir, gentle lord!’

‘When you left Jealousy with Bonhart’s letters, he was still there, I understand? And making ready to leave? Was he in haste? Did he say, perhaps, whither he was headed?’

‘He did not. And neither could he make ready. He’d had his raiment – which was awful blood-spattered – cleaned and laundered, so he was only in a blouse and hose, but girt with a sword. Though I think he was hastening to leave. Why, he had thrashed the Rats and sawed them’s heads off for the bounty, so he needs must ride and claim it. And, why, he’d captured that Falka too, to deliver her alive to someone. Why, that’s his profession, ain’t it?’

‘This Falka . . . Did you have a good look at her? Why are you cackling, you ass?’

‘Oh, gentle lord! Have a good look at her? I’ll say I did! Every detail!’

*

‘Disrobe,’ Bonhart repeated, and there was something in his voice that made Ciri cringe involuntarily. But defiance immediately got the better of her.

‘No!’

She didn’t see the fist, she didn’t even catch sight of its movement. She saw stars, the ground swayed, then shot from under her feet and suddenly thumped painfully against her hip. Her cheek and ear burned like fire; she realised she had not been punched, but struck with an open palm.

He stood over her and brought his clenched fist towards her face. She saw the heavy, skull-shaped signet, which a moment earlier had stung her face like a hornet.

‘You owe me one front tooth,’ he said icily. ‘So the next time I hear the word “no” from you I’ll knock two out right away. Get undressed.’

She stood up unsteadily and began to unfasten buckles and buttons with shaking hands. The villagers present in The Chimera’s Head murmured, coughed and goggled. The widow Goulue, the alewife, bent down behind the counter, pretending to be looking for something.

‘Strip off everything. To the last rag.’

They aren’t here, she thought, undressing and staring blankly at the floor. There’s no one here. And I’m not here either.

‘Legs apart.’

I’m not here at all. What is about to happen won’t touch me at all. Not at all. Not a bit.

Bonhart laughed.

‘You flatter yourself, I think. I must dispel those illusions. I’m undressing you, little idiot, to check you haven’t concealed any magical talismans, charms or amulets about your person. Not to enjoy your wretched nakedness. Don’t start imagining the Devil knows what. You’re a skinny kid, as flat as a pancake, and as ugly as the seven sins. Even if the urge was strong, I’d sooner tup a turkey.’

He walked over, spread her clothing around with the tip of his boot and sized it up.

‘I said everything! Earrings, rings, necklace, bracelet!’

He gathered up her jewellery meticulously. He kicked her tunic with the blue fox-fur collar, gloves, coloured scarves and belt with silver chains into the corner.

‘You won’t parade around like a parrot or a half-elf from a whorehouse now! You can put on the rest of those rags. And what are you lot staring at? Goulue, bring some provender, I’m hungry! And you, fatso, see how my vestments are coming on!’

‘I am the ealdorman here!’

‘How convenient,’ Bonhart drawled, and the ealdorman of Jealousy seemed to grow slimmer under his gaze. ‘If anything has been damaged in the laundry I shall take measures against you, as a public servant. Off to the wash house! The rest of you, get out! And you, pipsqueak, why are you still standing here? You have the letters, the horse is saddled, so smartly to the highway and be gone! And remember: should you fail, lose the letters or mix up the addresses, I shall find you and cut you up so fine your own mother wouldn’t recognise you!’

‘I’m flying, m’lord! I’m flying!’

*

‘That day,’ Ciri pursed her lips, ‘he beat me twice more. Once with his fist and once with a knout. Then he lost the urge. He just sat and stared at me without a word. His eyes were somehow . . . like those of a fish. Without eyebrows, without eyelashes . . . Somehow like watery orbs, with a black core sunk into each one. He stared hard at me and said nothing. That terrified me more than being beaten. I didn’t know what he was plotting.’

Vysogota remained silent. Mice scampered around the chamber.

‘He kept asking me who I was, but I said nothing. Just like when the Trappers caught me in Korath desert, this time too I fled deep into myself, inside, if you know what I mean. The Trappers said I was a doll then, and I was: a wooden doll, insensitive and lifeless. I was somehow looking down from above at everything that was being done to that doll. So what if they were hitting me, so what if they were kicking me, putting a collar on me like a dog? For it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me at all . . . Do you understand?’

‘I do,’ Vysogota nodded. ‘I do understand, Ciri.’

*

‘Then, Your Honour, it was our turn. The turn of our group. Neratin Ceka took command over us, and they also assigned Boreas Mun, a tracker, to us. Boreas Mun, Illustrious Tribunal, could track a fish in water, they say. That’s how good he was! One time, they say, Boreas Mun—’

‘The witness will refrain from digressions.’

‘Beg pardon? Oh, yes . . . I get it. I mean they ordered us to ride to Fano at all speed. It was the morning of the sixteenth of September . . .’

*

Neratin Ceka and Boreas Mun rode at the head, and behind them, side by side, Kabernik Turent and Cyprian Fripp the younger, then Kenna Selborne and Chloe Stitz, and finally Andres Vierny and Dede Vargas. The latter two were singing a new and popular soldier’s song, sponsored and endorsed by the Ministry of War. Even among soldier’s songs it stood out by the horrifying paucity of its rhymes and alarming lack of respect for grammatical rules. It was entitled At War, since all the verses – and there were over forty of them – began with those words.

At war things can get quite rough,

Someone gets their head chopped off,

You come back from a drinking bout,

To see a cove with his guts hanging out.

Kenna softly whistled along. She was pleased to be among companions she had come to know well on the long journey from Etolia to Rocayne. After her conversation with Tawny Owl she had expected a random assignment, to be tagged onto a squad made up of Brigden and Harsheim’s men. Til Echrade had been assigned to a squad like that, but the elf knew most of his new comrades, and they knew him. They rode at a walk, though Dacre Silifant had ordered them to race at full speed. But they were professionals. They had galloped, kicking up dust, while they could still be seen from the fort, then they’d slowed down. Tiring horses out and reckless gallops were good for tyros and amateurs, and haste, of course, only comes in useful for catching fleas!

Chloe Stitz, the professional thief from Ymlac, told Kenna about her erstwhile work with Coroner Stefan Skellen. Kabernik Turent and Fripp the younger reined in their horses and listened, often looking back.

‘I know him well. I’ve served under him several times . . .’

Chloe stammered a little, aware of the suggestive nature of her words, but immediately laughed freely and carelessly.

‘I’ve also served under his command,’ she snorted. ‘No, Kenna, don’t worry. None of those demands from Tawny Owl. He didn’t force himself on me, I looked for the opportunity and found it. But to be clear I’ll say this: you won’t gain his protection by doing that.’

‘I’m not planning anything of the kind.’ Kenna pouted, looking provocatively at the lewd smiles of Turent and Fripp. ‘I won’t be looking for an opportunity, but I’m not worried either. I’m not alarmed by any old thing. And certainly not by a cock!’

‘That’s all you talk about,’ Boreas Mun said, reining back his dun stallion and waiting for Kenna and Chloe to catch up with him.

‘We aren’t riding off to fight with our cocks, ladies!’ he added, continuing to ride beside the young women. ‘Bonhart, let me tell you, has few equals with the sword. I’ll be glad if it turns out there’s no squabble or vendetta between him and Mr Skellen. And that everything blows over.’

‘But I don’t get it,’ Andres Vierny admitted from the rear. ‘Apparently we were to track down some sorcerer. That’s why they gave us a psionic, this here Kenna. Wasn’t it? Now, though, there’s talk about some Bonhart and a girl!’

‘Bonhart, the bounty hunter,’ Boreas Mun said, ‘had a compact with Mr Skellen. And let him down. Though he promised Mr Skellen he’d kill that girl, he let her live.’

‘No doubt someone’s paying more for her alive than Tawny Owl would for her dead.’ Chloe Stitz shrugged. ‘That’s what bounty hunters are like. Don’t go looking for honour among them!’

‘Bonhart is different,’ Fripp the younger, looking back, retorted. ‘Bonhart never breaks his word.’

‘Making it all the stranger that he’s suddenly started.’

‘And why,’ Kenna asked, ‘is that lass so prized? The one who was to be killed, but wasn’t?’

‘What business is it of ours?’ Boreas Mun grimaced. ‘We have our orders! And Mr Skellen has the right to demand his due. Bonhart was meant to have stuck Falka, and didn’t. Mr Skellen has the right to demand that he accounts for it . . .’

‘This Bonhart,’ Chloe Stitz repeated with conviction, ‘means to get more money for her alive than dead. There’s your whole mystery.’

‘The lord coroner,’ Boreas Mun said, ‘thought the same at first, that Bonhart had promised to supply Falka alive – for the sake of amusement and slow torture – to a baron from Geso, who was determined to punish the Rats’ gang. But it turned out not to be true. No one knows who Bonhart is keeping Falka alive for, but it certainly ain’t that baron.’

*

‘Mr Bonhart!’ The fat ealdorman of Jealousy lumbered into the tavern, puffing and panting. ‘Mr Bonhart, there are armed men in the village! Riding horses!’

‘What a sensation.’ Bonhart wiped his plate with some bread. ‘Now if they were riding monkeys, that would be remarkable. How many?’

‘Four!’

‘And where are my vestments?’

‘Barely laundered . . . They haven’t dried . . .’

‘A pox on you. I’ll have to greet our guests in my hose. But in truth, the quality of such a greeting suits that of the guests.’

He adjusted the belt and sword fastened over his hose, tucked the straps of his hose into his boot tops, and tugged the chain attached to Ciri’s collar.

‘On your feet, little Rat.’

When he led her out onto the porch, the four horsemen were already nearing the tavern. It was clear that they had ridden long over trackless terrain and through bad weather; their clothing, harnesses and horses were flecked with crusted-on dust and mud.

There were four of them, but they were leading a riderless horse. At the sight of it Ciri felt herself suddenly growing hot, though the day was very cool. It was her roan, still bearing her trappings and saddle. And a brow band, a gift from Mistle. The horsemen were among those who had killed Hotspurn.

They stopped outside the tavern. One, probably the leader, rode up, and raised his marten-fur calpac to Bonhart. He was swarthy and had a thin, black moustache on his upper lip like a line drawn in charcoal. His upper lip, Ciri noticed, curled every now and then; the tic meant he looked enraged the whole time. Perhaps he really was furious?

‘Greetings, Mr Bonhart!’

‘Greetings, Mr Imbra. Greetings, gentlemen.’ Bonhart unhurriedly fastened Ciri’s chain onto a hook on a post. ‘Excuse my unmentionables, but I wasn’t expecting you. A long road behind you, my, my . . . You’ve come all the way to Ebbing from Geso? And how is the honourable baron? In good health?’

‘Fit as a fiddle,’ the swarthy man replied indifferently, wrinkling his upper lip again. ‘But there’s no time to spend on idle chatter. We’re in a hurry.’

‘I–’ Bonhart hauled up his belt and hose ‘–am not holding you back.’

‘News has reached us that you slaughtered the Rats.’

‘That is true.’

‘And in accordance with your promise to the baron,’ the swarthy man continued to pretend he could not see Ciri on the porch, ‘you took Falka alive.’

‘I’d say that that is also true.’

‘You were lucky, where we were not.’ The swarthy man glanced at the roan. ‘Very well. We’ll take the wench and head homeward. Rupert, Stavro, take her.’

‘Not so fast, Imbra,’ Bonhart raised a hand. ‘You aren’t taking anyone. And for the simple reason that I won’t give her to you. I’ve changed my mind. I’m keeping the girl.’

The swarthy man called Imbra leaned over in the saddle, hawked and spat, impressively far, almost to the steps of the porch.

‘But you promised His Lordship the baron!’

‘I did. But I’ve changed my mind.’

‘What? Do my ears deceive me?’

‘The state of your ears, Imbra, is not my concern.’

‘You stayed three days at the castle. You guzzled and gorged for three days on the promises given to His Lordship. The best wine from his cellar, roast peacock, venison, forcemeat, carp in cream. You slept like a king in a feather bed for three nights. And now you’ve changed your mind?’

Bonhart said nothing, maintaining an expression of indifference and boredom. Imbra clenched his teeth in order to suppress the twitching of his lips.

‘You know, Bonhart, that we can take her from you by force?’

Bonhart’s face, until that moment bored and amused, hardened instantly.

‘Just try. There are four of you and one of me. And me in my hose at that. But I don’t have to don britches to deal with scoundrels like you.’

Imbra spat again, jerked his reins, and turned his horse around.

‘The Devil take it, Bonhart, what’s happened to you? You’ve always been renowned as a reliable, honest professional. Once given, you keep your word unfailingly. And now it turns out your word isn’t worth shit! And since a man is judged by his words, then it turns out that you’re a—’

‘If the talk is of words,’ Bonhart interrupted coldly, resting his hands on his belt buckle, ‘then take heed, Imbra, that you don’t let too coarse a word slip out by accident. For it might hurt when I shove it back down your throat.’

‘You are bold against four! But will your boldness suffice against fourteen? For the Baron of Casadei will not let this insult slide!’

‘I’d tell you what I’ll do with your baron, but a crowd forms, and in it are women and children. So I shall merely tell you that in some ten days I shall stop in Claremont. Whomsoever wishes to pursue a right, avenge an insult or take Falka from me, let them come to Claremont.’

‘I shall be there!’

‘I shall be waiting. Now be off with you.’

*

‘They feared him. They feared him terribly. I could feel the fear seeping from them.’

Kelpie whinnied loudly, jerking her head.

‘There were four of them, armed to the teeth. And one of him, in darned long johns and a ragged old blouse with too-short sleeves. He would have been ridiculous, were he . . . Were he not so terrible.’

Vysogota remained silent, narrowing his eyes, which were watering from the wind. They were standing on a knoll rising above the Pereplut Marshes, not far from the spot where, two weeks earlier, the old man had found Ciri. The wind flattened the reeds and ruffled the water on the marshes.

‘One of the four,’ Ciri continued, letting her mare enter the water and drink, ‘had a small crossbow by his saddle and his hand stretched out towards that crossbow. I could almost hear his thoughts and feel his terror. “Will I manage to cock it? And loose it? And what will happen if I miss?” Bonhart also saw that crossbow and that hand, he heard the same thoughts, I’m sure. And I’m sure the horseman wouldn’t have been quick enough.’

Kelpie raised her head, snorted and jingled the rings of her curb bit.

‘I was understanding better and better into whose hands I’d fallen. But I still couldn’t understand his motives. I’d heard their conversation and remembered what Hotspurn had said before. That the Baron of Casadei wanted me alive and Bonhart had promised him that. And then he changed his mind. Why? Did he want to hand me over to somebody else who would pay more? Had he worked out who I really was? And meant to turn me over to the Nilfgaardians?

‘We set off from the village before nightfall. He let me ride Kelpie. But he tied my hands and held me by the chain fixed to the collar the whole time. The whole time! And we rode, almost without stopping, a whole night and day. I thought I’d die of exhaustion. But he showed no tiredness at all. He isn’t a man. He’s the Devil incarnate.’

‘Where did he take you?’

‘To a little town called Fano.’

*

‘When we entered Fano, Illustrious Tribunal, it was already gloomy, murky as you please, only the sixteenth of September, in truth, but the day was overcast and cold as hell, you’d of said it was November. We didn’t have to search long for the armourer’s workshop, for it was the largest farmstead in the entire town, and what’s more, the ringing of hammers forging iron relentlessly sounded from it. Neratin Ceka . . . Master scribe, you write his name in vain, for I don’t recall if I said, but Neratin is dead now, killed in a village called Unicorn—’

‘Please do not instruct the clerk. Continue with your testimony.’

‘Neratin knocked at the gate. He politely said who we were and what was our business, and asked politely to be heard. We were admitted. The swordsmith’s workshop was a fine building, virtually a stronghold, with a palisade of pine timbers, towers of oaken planks, and inside planed larch on the walls—’

‘The court is not interested in architectural details. Let the witness get to the point. Prior to that, however, please repeat the swordsmith’s name for the records.’

‘Esterhazy, Illustrious Tribunal. Esterhazy of Fano.’

*

The swordsmith, Esterhazy, looked long at Boreas Mun, unhurriedly answering the question posed to him. ‘P’rhaps Bonhart was here,’ he finally said, fiddling with a bone whistle hanging around his neck. ‘And p’rhaps he wasn’t? Who knows? This, gentlefolk, is a workshop where we forge swords. We shall answer any questions concerning swords eagerly, swiftly, elegantly and at length. But I see no reason to answer questions concerning our guests or customers.’

Kenna pulled a kerchief from her sleeve and pretended to wipe her nose.

‘A reason can be found,’ said Neratin Ceka. ‘You may find one, Mr Esterhazy. Or I may. Would you choose?’

In spite of the semblance of effeminacy, Neratin’s face could become hard and his voice menacing. But the swordsmith only snorted, continuing to toy with the whistle.

‘Choose between a bribe and a threat? I would not. I consider the former and the latter worth only of being spat on.’

‘Just one tiny piece of information,’ Boreas Mun said, clearing his throat. ‘Is that so much? We’ve known each other long, Mr Esterhazy, and Coroner Skellen’s name is known to you—’

‘It is,’ the swordsmith cut in, ‘it is indeed. The misdemeanours and exploits with which that name is associated are also known to us. But we are in Ebbing, an autonomous and self-governing kingdom. Only seemingly, perhaps, but nonetheless. Thus we shall tell you nothing. Continue on your way. As a consolation, we’ll pledge to you that if in a week or a month someone asks about you, they will hear just as little.’

‘But, Mr Esterhazy—’

‘Must I make it clearer? Prithee, get out of here!’

Chloe Stitz hissed furiously, Fripp and Vargas’ hands crept towards their hilts, and Andres Vierny laid his fist on the war hammer hanging at his thigh. Neratin Ceka did not move and his face did not even quiver. Kenna saw that his eye never left the bone whistle. Before they entered, Boreas Mun had warned them that the sound of the whistle was the signal for bodyguards – consummate men-at-arms – called ‘quality controllers’, who were waiting, concealed, in the swordsmith’s workshop.

But, having foreseen everything, Neratin and Boreas had planned their next move. They had a trump up their sleeves.

Kenna Selborne. Psionic.

Kenna had already probed the swordsmith’s mind, had gently pricked him with impulses and cautiously pervaded the tangle of his thoughts. Now she was ready. Pressing a kerchief to her nose – there always existed the danger of a nosebleed – she forced her way into his brain with a throbbing and a command. Esterhazy began to choke, flushed, and grasped the table he was sitting behind with both hands, as though he feared it would float away to distant lands along with the sheaf of invoices, the inkwell and the paperweight depicting a nereid cavorting with two tritons at once.

Keep calm, Kenna commanded, it’s nothing, nothing’s the matter. You would simply like to tell us what we wish to know. For you know what interests us, and the words are positively bursting forth from you. So go on. Begin. You will see that you only need speak and the humming in your head, the roaring in your temples and the stabbing in your ears will cease. And the spasm in your jaw will also subside.

‘Bonhart,’ Esterhazy said hoarsely, opening his mouth more often than would be expected from the syllabic articulation, ‘was here four days ago, on the twelfth of September. He had a wench with him he called Falka. I was expecting his visit, for two days earlier a letter from him had been delivered . . .’

A trickle of blood seeped from his left nostril.

Speak, Kenna ordered. Speak. Tell us everything. You can see what a relief it will be.

*

The swordsmith Esterhazy scrutinised Ciri with curiosity, without getting up from the oaken table.

‘It’s for her,’ he guessed, tapping a pen holder against the paperweight depicting the weird group. ‘The sword you requested in the letter. Right, Bonhart? Well, let’s examine it then . . . Let’s see if it agrees with what you wrote. Five feet, nine inches in height . . . And such she is. One hundred and twelve pounds in weight . . . Well, we’d have given her less than a hundred and twelve, but that’s a minor detail. A hand, you wrote, which a number five glove would fit . . . Show me your hand, honourable maiden. Well, and that agrees, too.’

‘With me everything always agrees,’ Bonhart said dryly. ‘Do you have any decent iron for her?’

‘In my firm,’ Esterhazy answered proudly, ‘no other iron than decent is manufactured or offered. I understood it was to be a sword for combat, not for gala decoration. Ah, yes, you wrote that. Naturally, a weapon will be found for this maid without any difficulty. Swords of thirty-eight inches suit such a height and weight, standard manufacture. With that light build and small hand, she needs a mini-bastard with a hilt lengthened to nine inches, and a pommel. We could also suggest an elven taldaga or Zerrikanian sabre, or alternatively a light Viroledanian—’

‘Show me the wares, Esterhazy.’

‘Hot-tempered, are we, eh? Well, come this way. Come this way . . . Hey, Bonhart? What the Devil is this? Why are you pulling her on a leash?’

‘Keep your snotty nose out of this, Esterhazy. Don’t stick it where it doesn’t belong, for you’re liable to get it caught somewhere!’

Esterhazy, toying with the whistle hanging around his neck, looked at the hunter without fear or respect, though he had to crane his neck a good deal. Bonhart twisted his moustache and cleared his throat.

‘I,’ he said, a little more quietly, though still malevolently, ‘don’t meddle in your business or affairs. Does it surprise you that I demand reciprocity?’

‘Bonhart.’ The swordsmith did not even flicker an eyelid. ‘When you leave my home and courtyard, when you close my gate behind you, then shall I respect your privacy, the secrecy of your affairs, the specifics of your profession. And I shall not meddle in them, be certain. But in my home I shall not allow you to abuse human dignity. Do you understand me? Outside my gate you may drag the wench behind a horse, if you wish. In my home you will remove that collar. Forthwith.’

Bonhart reached for the collar and unfastened it, unable to resist a tug which almost brought Ciri to her knees. Esterhazy, pretending he hadn’t seen it, let the whistle slip from his fingers.

‘That’s better,’ he said dryly. ‘Let’s go.’

They crossed a small passage into another, slightly smaller, courtyard adjoining the rear of the smithy, with one side opening out onto an orchard. There was a long table there, beneath a canopy resting on carved posts, where servants were just finishing laying out some swords. Esterhazy gestured for Bonhart and Ciri to walk up to the array.

‘This is what I offer.’

They approached.

‘Here,’ Esterhazy pointed to a long row of swords on the table, ‘we have my wares. All the blades were forged here. You can see the horseshoe, my punch-mark. Prices fall in the range of five to nine florins, since they’re standard. These, though, lying here, are only assembled and finished by us. The blades are generally imported. Their origin can be told from the punches. The ones from Mahakam have crossed hammers stamped on them, those from Poviss a crown or a horse’s head, and those from Viroleda a sun and the famous workshop’s inscription. Prices start at ten florins.’

‘And where do they end?’

‘That varies. Oh, this one, for example, is an exquisite Viroledanian.’ Esterhazy took up a sword from the table, gave a salute with it, and then moved to a fencing position, dextrously twisting his hand and forearm in a complicated sequence called an ‘Angelica’. ‘This one is fifteen. Antique workmanship, a collector’s blade. Clearly made to order. The motif chiselled on the ricasso shows the weapon was intended for a woman.’

He turned the sword over, hand held in tierce, pointing the blade flat at them.

‘As on all Viroleda blades, the traditional inscription: “Draw me not without reason; sheath me not without honour”. Ha! They still chisel such inscriptions in Viroleda. Throughout the wide world, these blades have been drawn by blackguards and oafs. Throughout the wide world, honour has gone way down in price, for it’s an unprofitable commodity—’

‘Don’t talk so much, Esterhazy. Give her that sword, let her try it for size. Take the blade, girl.’

Ciri grasped the sword lightly, feeling the lizard-skin hilt cling firmly to her palm, and the weight of the blade urging her arm to wield and thrust.

‘It’s a mini-bastard,’ Esterhazy reminded her. Needlessly. She knew how to use the long hilt, with three fingers on the pommel.

Bonhart took two steps backward, into the courtyard. He drew his sword from the scabbard and whirled it around until it hissed.

‘Have at me!’ he said to Ciri. ‘Kill me. You have a sword and you have the opportunity. You have the chance. Make use of it. For I shan’t soon give you a second.’

‘Have you lost your mind?’

‘Quiet, Esterhazy.’

She beguiled him with a glance to one side and a deceptive twitch of her shoulder, and struck like lightning, with a flat sinistre. The blade clanged so powerfully against the parry that Ciri staggered and had to leap to one side, banging her hip against the table with the swords. She involuntarily loosened her grip on the weapon, trying to regain her balance – knowing that at that moment he could have killed her without the slightest difficulty, had he so wished.

‘You have lost your minds!’ Esterhazy said, his voice raised. The whistle was in his hand again. The servants and craftsmen looked on in stupefaction.

‘Put the iron aside.’ Bonhart did not take his eyes off Ciri, utterly ignoring the swordsmith. ‘Aside, I said. Or I’ll hack off your hand!’

She obeyed after a moment’s hesitation. Bonhart smiled ghoulishly.

‘I know who you are, you viper. But I’ll make you reveal it yourself. By word or deed! I’ll make you reveal who you are. And then I’ll kill you.’

Esterhazy hissed as though wounded.

‘That sword–’ Bonhart didn’t even glance at him ‘–was too hefty for you. And because of it you were too slow. You were as slow as a pregnant snail. Esterhazy! What you gave her was too heavy by at least four ounces.’

The swordsmith was pale. His eyes ran from her to him, from him to her, and his face was strangely altered. At last he beckoned a servant and issued an order in hushed tones.

‘I’ve something,’ he said slowly, ‘which ought to satisfy you, Bonhart.’

‘Why, then, didn’t you show it to me at once?’ snarled the hunter. ‘I wrote that I wanted something extraordinary. Perhaps you thought I can’t afford a better sword?’

‘I know what you can afford,’ Esterhazy said with emphasis. ‘I’ve known that for no little time. But why didn’t I show you this one right away? I had no way of knowing who you would bring here . . . on a leash, with a collar around her neck. I couldn’t guess who the sword was meant for and what it was to serve. Now I do.’

The servant had returned, bearing an oblong box.

‘Come closer, girl,’ Esterhazy said softly. ‘Look.’

Ciri approached. And looked. And sighed audibly.

*

She unsheathed the sword with a deft movement. The fire from the hearth flared blindingly on the blade’s wavily outlined edge, glowed red in the openwork of the ricasso.

‘This is it,’ said Ciri. ‘As you’ve probably guessed. Hold it, if you wish. But beware, it’s sharper than a razor. You feel how the hilt sticks to your hand? It’s made from the skin of a flatfish which has a venomous spine on its tail.’

‘A ray.’

‘I guess. That fish has tiny teeth in its skin, so the hilt doesn’t slide in the hand, even when it sweats. Look what’s etched on the blade.’

Vysogota leaned over and examined it, squinting.

‘An elven mandala,’ he said soon after, raising his head. ‘The so-called blathan caerme, or garland of destiny: stylised oak blossom, bridewort and broom flowers. A tower being struck by lightning – a symbol of chaos and destruction, for the Old Races . . . And above the tower–’

‘A swallow,’ Ciri completed. ‘Zireael. My name.’

*

‘Indeed, a fine thing,’ said Bonhart finally. ‘Gnomish handiwork, that’s clear at once. Only the gnomes forged such dark iron. Only the gnomes used undulating blades and only they openworked their blades to reduce the weight . . . Come clean, Esterhazy. Is it a replica?’

‘No,’ the swordsmith snapped. ‘It’s original. A genuine gnomish gwyhyr. The blade is more than two hundred years old. The finishing, naturally, is much more recent, but I wouldn’t call it a replica. The gnomes of Tir Tochair made it to my order. Following ancient techniques, methods and patterns.’

‘Dammit. It may be too dear for me after all. How much do you wish for this blade?’

Esterhazy was silent for some time. His face was inscrutable.

‘I shall give it to her for nothing, Bonhart,’ he finally said in hushed voice. ‘As a gift. So that what is to come about, will come about.’

‘Thank you,’ said Bonhart, visibly astonished. ‘Thank you, Esterhazy. A kingly gift, kingly indeed . . . I accept, I accept. I am indebted to you . . .’

‘You are not. The sword is for her, not for you. Come here, girl with a collar on her neck. Examine the marks etched into the blade. You don’t understand them, naturally. But I shall explain them to you. Look. The line delineated by destiny is winding, but leads to this tower. Towards annihilation, towards the destruction of established values, of the established order. But there, above the tower, do you see? A swallow. The symbol of hope. Take this sword. And may what is to come about, come about.’

Ciri cautiously extended a hand, and gently stroked the dark blade, its edge gleaming like a mirror.

‘Take it,’ Esterhazy said slowly, looking at Ciri with eyes wide open. ‘Take it. Hold it, girl. Take it . . .’

‘No!’ Bonhart suddenly barked, leaping up, seizing Ciri by the arm and shoving her suddenly and forcefully. ‘Away!’

Ciri fell onto her knees, the gravel of the courtyard painfully pricking her hands, which she had to spread to keep her balance.

Bonhart slammed the box shut.

‘Not yet!’ he snarled. ‘Not today! The time is not yet come!’

‘Most evidently,’ Esterhazy nodded calmly, looking him in the eyes. ‘Aye, it most evidently hasn’t come yet. Pity.’

*

‘It was of little avail, Illustrious Tribunal, reading that swordsmith’s thoughts. We were there on the sixteenth of September, three days before the full moon. And while we were returning from Fano to Rocayne, a patrol caught us up. Ola Harsheim and seven horse. Mr Harsheim ordered us to race as fast as we could to reach the rest of the unit. For the day before – the fifteenth of September – there had been a massacre in Claremont . . . I suppose I don’t need to tell you; the illustrious tribunal doubtlessly knows about the massacre in Claremont . . .’

‘Please testify, without worrying what the tribunal knows.’

‘Bonhart was a day ahead of us. He brought Falka to Claremont on the fifteenth of September . . .’

*

‘Claremont,’ Vysogota nodded. ‘I know that town. Where did he take you?’

‘To a large house in the town square. With arcades and columns at the entrance. It was obvious at once that a wealthy man lived there . . .’

*

The chambers’ walls were draped with sumptuous tapestries and splendid wall hangings depicting religious and hunting scenes, and idylls featuring disrobed women. The furniture gleamed with inlays and brass fittings, and one sunk ankle-deep into the carpets. Ciri had no time to note the details, though, for Bonhart walked swiftly, dragging her by the chain.

‘Greetings, Houvenaghel!’

Lit by the spectrum of colours cast by a stained-glass window, his back to a hunting tapestry, stood a man of impressive corpulence, attired in a kaftan dripping with gold and a fur-lined coat trimmed with karakul pelts. Although in the prime of his manhood, he had a bald pate and pendulous jowls like those of a great bulldog.

‘Greetings, Leo,’ he said. ‘And you, lady—’

‘That’s no lady.’ Bonhart showed him the chain and collar. ‘No need to welcome her.’

‘Politeness costs nothing.’

‘Nothing but time.’ Bonhart tugged the chain, walked up and unceremoniously patted the fat man’s belly.

‘You’ve put on a good deal,’ he remarked. ‘By my troth, Houvenaghel, were you to stand in the way it would be easier to jump over you than walk around.’

‘Prosperity,’ Houvenaghel explained jovially, shaking his cheeks. ‘Greetings to you, greetings, Leo. ‘Tis wonderful to host you, for I am most inordinate joyful today. My business affairs are going so admirably well that I feel like touching wood. The till’s aringing! Only today, may this serve as an example, a captain in the Nilfgaardian reserve horse, the quartermaster responsible for supplying gear to the front, flogged me six thousand military bows, which I shall retail with a ten-fold profit to hunters, poachers, brigands, elves and diverse other freedom fighters. I also bought a castle from a local marquess . . .’

‘Why the hell do you need a castle?’

‘I must live regally. Getting back to my business affairs: one deal is quite simply thanks to you, Leo. A seemingly hopeless debtor paid me back. Quite literally a moment ago. His hands were shaking as he paid me. The fellow saw you and thought—’

‘I know what he thought. Did you receive my letter?’

‘I did.’ Houvenaghel flopped down heavily, knocking the table with his belly and making the carafes and goblets on it ring. ‘And I’ve prepared everything. Haven’t you seen the handbills? The rabble must have torn them down . . . Folk are already heading for the theatre. The till’s aringing . . . Sit you down, Leo. There’s time. Let’s talk, enjoy some wine . . .’

‘I don’t want your wine. It’s army issue, no doubt, stolen from Nilfgaardian transports.’

‘You must be jesting. It’s Est Est from Toussaint, the grapes picked when our gracious emperor, Emhyr, was a mere nipper, shitting in his cradle. It was a good year. For wine. Cheers, Leo.’

Bonhart silently raised a toasting goblet. Houvenaghel smacked his lips, examining Ciri extremely critically.

‘So this is the doe-eyed nymph,’ he said at last, ‘who is to guarantee the sport promised in your epistle? I know that Windsor Imbra is already nearing the town. And has with him several decent cut-throats. And a few local swordsmen have seen the bills . . .’

‘Have you ever been disappointed by my wares, Houvenaghel?’

‘Never, ‘tis true. But neither have I had anything from you for a good while.’

‘I work more seldom than in the past. I’m thinking about retiring entirely.’

‘Capital is needed for that, from which to support oneself. I might have a way . . . Will you listen?’

‘Only for want of other amusement.’ Bonhart pulled a chair closer with his foot and made Ciri sit down.

‘Have you ever thought of heading north? To Cintra, to the Slopes or across the Yaruga? Do you know that anyone who moves there and chooses to settle on captured territory is guaranteed a plot of eight oxgangs by the empire? And freedom from tax for a decade?’

‘I,’ replied the hunter calmly, ‘am not cut out to be a farmer. I couldn’t till the soil or breed cattle. I’m too sensitive. The sight of dung or worms makes me want to puke.’

‘Me too.’ Houvenaghel shook his jowls. ‘The only thing I can tolerate in the whole of agriculture is distilling spirits. The rest is repugnant. They say agriculture is the basis of economics and guarantees prosperity. I consider it, however, contemptible and humiliating that something stinking of manure should determine my prosperity. I’ve taken some steps in that regard. One need not till the soil, Bonhart, one need not raise cattle on it. It’s sufficient to own it. If one has enough of it one can extract decent profits from it. One can, believe me, live a life of ease. Yes, I’ve taken certain steps in that regard, hence, indeed, my question about a trip northwards. For you see, Bonhart, I would have work for you there. Permanent, well-paid, undemanding. And just right for a sensitive fellow like you: no dung, no worms.’

‘I’m prepared to listen. Without committing to anything, naturally.’

‘From the plots which the emperor guarantees the settlers, one can, with a bit of enterprise and a little seed capital, put together quite a decent latifundium.’

‘I understand.’ The hunter chewed his moustache. ‘I understand what you’re getting at. I already see what steps you’re taking regarding your own prosperity. Do you see no difficulties?’

‘Oh, I do. Of two kinds. Firstly, one has to find hired hands, who, pretending to be settlers, will travel north to receive the land from the distributing officers and take over the plots. Formally for themselves, but in practice for me. But I shall set about finding them. The second of the difficulties concerns you.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘Some of the hired hands will take over the land and then be disinclined to give it up. They will forget about the agreement and the money they have taken. You wouldn’t believe, Bonhart, how deeply fraud, wickedness and low motives are ingrained in human nature.’

‘I would.’

‘I will need someone to convince the dishonest that dishonesty doesn’t pay. That it’s punishable. And you could take care of that.’

‘It sounds excellent.’

‘It is. I have experience, I’ve already conducted rackets of this kind. Following the formal inclusion of Ebbing into the empire, when plots were distributed. And later, when the Enclosure Act came into force. Owing to that, Claremont – this charming little town – is on my land and thus belongs to me. The entire area belongs to me. Far, far away, to the mist-shrouded horizon. It’s all mine. Three hundred oxgangs all told. That’s over six thousand acres. Imperial acres, not peasant ones. Twenty-four thousand roods.’

‘“O lawless empire, close to downfall”,’ Bonhart recited scornfully. ‘An empire where everybody who steals has to fall. Its weakness lies in self-interest and self-seeking.’

‘Its power and strength lie in it.’ Houvenaghel shook his cheeks. ‘You, Bonhart, confuse thievery with private enterprise.’

‘Only too often,’ admitted the bounty hunter detachedly.

‘What do you say to this partnership, then?’

‘Isn’t it too early to be dividing up that land in the North? Perhaps, to be certain, we should wait until Nilfgaard wins the war?’

‘To be certain? Don’t jest. The result of the war is a foregone conclusion. Wars are won with money. The empire has it and the Nordlings don’t.’

Bonhart cleared his throat meaningfully.

‘While we’re on the subject of money . . .’

‘Ah yes.’ Houvenaghel rummaged in the documents lying on the table. ‘Here’s a bank cheque for a hundred florins. Here is the deed of contract for the transfer of obligations, on the strength of which I shall receive the reward for the bandits’ heads from the Varnhagens of Geso. Sign here. Thank you. You are also owed a percentage of the takings from the extravaganza, but the accounts have not yet been closed, the till’s still aringing. There is great interest, Leo. Great, indeed. People in my town are awfully troubled by boredom and despondency.’

He broke off and looked at Ciri.

‘I sincerely hope you aren’t mistaken with regard to this person. That she will furnish us with wholesome amusement . . . And be willing to cooperate for the sake of our joint profit.’

‘There won’t be any profit for her–’ Bonhart eyed up Ciri indifferently, ‘–she knows that.’

Houvenaghel grimaced and snorted.

‘It’s no good, no bloody good that she knows! She ought not to know! What’s the matter with you, Leo? And if she’s not willing to be sporting, if she turns out to be spitefully uncompliant? What then?’

The expression on Bonhart’s face didn’t change.

‘Then,’ he said, ‘we’ll unleash your mastiffs into the arena. They’ve always been compliant where sport’s concerned, as I recall.’

*

Ciri was silent for a long time, rubbing her disfigured cheek.

‘I was beginning to understand,’ she finally said. ‘I was beginning to realise what they wanted to do with me. I gathered myself, I was determined to escape at the first opportunity . . . I was prepared for any risk. But they didn’t give me the chance. They were guarding me too well.’

Vysogota said nothing.

‘They dragged me downstairs. The guests of that fat Houvenaghel were waiting there. More eccentrics! Where do all these grotesque odd fish come from, Vysogota?’

‘They breed. Natural selection.’

*

The first of the men was short and chubby, more resembling a halfling than a human, and was even dressed like a halfling – modestly, pleasantly, neatly and in pastel colours. The second man – though no longer young – had the outfit and bearing of a soldier and a sword at his side. Silver embroidery depicting a dragon with batlike wings sparkled on the shoulder of his black jerkin. The woman was fair-haired and skinny, with a slightly hooked nose and thin lips. Her pistachio-coloured gown had a plunging neckline. Which wasn’t very well advised. There wasn’t much cleavage to show, apart from wrinkled and parchment-dry skin covered in a thick layer of rouge and white lead powder.

‘Her Noble Ladyship the Marchioness de Nementh-Uyvar,’ Houvenaghel said. ‘Lord Declan Ros aep Maelchlad, captain in the Nilfgaardian reserve horse of His Mighty Emperorship of Nilfgaard. Lord Pennycuick, Mayor of Claremont. And this is Mr Leo Bonhart, my relative and former comrade.’

Bonhart bowed stiffly.

‘So this is the little brigand who is to amuse us today,’ said the skinny marchioness, staring intently at Ciri with her pale blue eyes. Years of drinking could be heard in her husky, seductive voice.

‘Not too bad, I’d say. But nicely built . . . Quite a pleasant little bodikin.’

Ciri jerked, pushing off an obtrusive hand, paled with fury and hissed like a serpent.

‘Please don’t touch,’ Bonhart said coldly. ‘Don’t feed it. Don’t tease it. I take no responsibility.’

‘A little bodikin–’ the marchioness licked her lips, paying no attention to him ‘–can always be tied to a bed, to make it more amenable. Perhaps you’d sell her to me, Mr Bonhart, sir? My marquess and I like little bodikins like that, and Mr Houvenaghel is so reproachful when we seize local goose girls and peasant children. In any case, the marquess can’t hunt children any longer. He can’t run, because of those chancres and warts which have opened up in his crotch—’

‘Enough, enough, Matilda,’ Houvenaghel said softly but quickly, seeing the expression of growing disgust on Bonhart’s face. ‘We must leave for the theatre. Mr Mayor has just been informed that Windsor Imbra has reached the town with a squad of the Baron of Casadei’s infantry. Which means it’s time.’

Bonhart removed a flacon from a belt pouch, wiped the onyx table top with his sleeve and tipped out a small mound of white powder. He pulled on the chain, drawing Ciri closer.

‘Do you know how to use it?’

Ciri clenched her teeth.

‘Sniff it up. Or lick a finger and rub it into your gums.’

‘No!’

Bonhart didn’t even turn his head.

‘You’ll do it yourself,’ he said softly, ‘or I’ll do it, only in a way that will supply everybody here with a bit of entertainment. You don’t just have mucous membranes in your mouth and nose, little Rat, but in a few other amusing places. I’ll call for servants, have you stripped naked and restrained, and I’ll take advantage of those amusing places.’

The Marchioness de Nementh-Uyvar laughed gutturally, watching Ciri reaching for the narcotic with a trembling hand.

‘Amusing places,’ she repeated and licked her lips. ‘What a fascinating idea. Worth trying one day! Hey, hey, girl, have a care, don’t waste good fisstech! Leave some for me!’

*

The narcotic was much more powerful than the one she’d tried with the Rats. A little while after taking it, Ciri was overcome by a dazzling euphoria; contours were sharpened, light and colours pricked her eyes, smells irritated her nose, sounds became unbearably loud, and everything around her became unreal, as ephemeral as a dream. There were the steps, there were the tapestries stinking of thick dust, there was the husky laughter of the Marchioness de Nementh-Uyvar. There was the courtyard, rain drops falling quickly on her face, and the jerking of the collar she still had around her neck. There was an immense building with a wooden tower and a large, repulsively tawdry painting on the frontage. The painting depicted dogs baiting a monster – neither a dragon, a gryphon, nor a wyvern. There were people outside the entrance to the building. One was shouting and gesticulating.

‘It’s revolting! Revolting and sinful, Mr Houvenaghel, to be utilising a building which was once a place of worship for such an immoral, inhuman and disgusting practice! Animals also feel, Mr Houvenaghel! They also have their dignity! It’s a crime to set animal against animal for the amusement of the common folk in the name of profit!’

‘Calm yourself, you pious fellow! And don’t meddle in my private enterprise! In any case, no animal shall be baited today. Not a single one! Exclusively people!’

‘Oh. Then I do beg your pardon.’

Inside, the building was full of people sitting on rows of benches forming an amphitheatre. A pit had been dug in the centre, a circular depression measuring about ten yards across, shored up by hefty posts and topped with a balustrade. The stench and uproar were overwhelming. Again, Ciri felt a tug on the collar, somebody seized her under the arms, somebody shoved her. She suddenly found herself at the bottom of the pit, on firmly packed down sand.

In the arena.

The first rush had subsided, and now the narcotic was just stimulating her, sharpening her senses. Ciri pressed her hands over her ears – the crowd occupying the amphitheatre’s benches roared, booed and whistled; the noise was unbearable. She noticed that her right wrist and forearm were tightly bound by a leather bracer. She couldn’t recall it being fastened to her.

She heard the familiar hoarse voice, saw the skinny, pistachio-coloured marchioness, the Nilfgaardian cavalry captain, the pastel-toned mayor, Houvenaghel and Bonhart occupying a box perched above the arena. Her hands went to her ears again, as someone suddenly struck a copper gong.

‘Look, good people! In the pit today there’s no wolf, no goblin, no endrega! In the arena today is the murderous Falka from the Rats’ gang! The ticket desk by the entrance is taking bets! Don’t stint a penny, good people! You can’t eat this amusement, you can’t drink it, but if you skimp on it you’ll not profit, you’ll lose out!’

The crowd roared and applauded. The narcotic was working. Ciri trembled with euphoria. Her vision and hearing were registering everything, every detail. She could hear Houvenaghel’s cackle, the marchioness’ husky laugh, the mayor’s grave voice, Bonhart’s cold bass, the yelling of the animal-loving priest, the squealing of women and the crying of a child. She could see dark patches of blood on the posts encircling the arena and a stinking grill-covered hole gaping in it. And brutishly contorted faces, glistening with sweat, above the balustrade.

A sudden commotion, raised voices, curses. Armed men jostled the crowd, but ground to a halt, stopped by a wall of guards clutching partisans. She’d seen one of the men before – she remembered the swarthy face and the black moustache like a line drawn in charcoal on his upper lip, which quivered in a tic.

‘Mr Windsor Imbra?’ It was Houvenaghel’s voice. ‘Of Geso? Seneschal of His Noble Lordship, the Baron of Casadei? Greetings, greetings to our foreign guests. Take your places, the spectacle is about to begin. But don’t forget, please, to pay at the entrance!’

‘I’m not here for the sport, Mr Houvenaghel! I’m here on matters of service! Bonhart knows of what I speak!’

‘Indeed? Leo? Do you know of what the seneschal speaks?’

‘Do not jest! There are fifteen of us here! We’ve come for Falka! Hand her over, or things will turn ill!’

‘I don’t understand your excitation, Imbra.’ Houvenaghel frowned. ‘But I observe that this is not Geso, nor is it within the lands of that mandarin, your baron. Should you make a fuss and incommode us I shall have you driven away with knouts!’

‘I wish to cause no offence, Mr Houvenaghel,’ Windsor Imbra appealed. ‘But the law is on our side! Bonhart, here present, promised Falka to His Grace, Baron of Casadei. He gave his bond. And now he must keep it!’

‘Leo?’ Houvenaghel said, jowls shaking. ‘Do you know what he’s talking about?’

‘I do and I admit he’s right.’ Bonhart stood up, carelessly waving a hand. ‘I shan’t protest or cause any difficulties. The girl is here, as everybody sees. Whoever wishes to may take her.’

Windsor Imbra was dumbfounded. His lip trembled intensely.

‘How is that?’

‘The girl,’ Bonhart repeated, winking at Houvenaghel, ‘belongs to the man who wishes to take her from the arena. Alive or dead, as your taste dictates.’

‘How is that?’

‘Dammit, I’m gradually losing my patience!’ Bonhart skilfully feigned anger. ‘Nothing but “how is that”! Bloody parrot! How? However you wish! It’s up to you; poison some meat and throw it to her as you would a she-wolf. But I can’t guarantee she will devour it. She doesn’t look stupid, does she? No, Imbra. Whoever wants her must take the trouble of going down to her. Down there, into the pit. You want Falka? Then claim her!’

‘You wave Falka under my nose like a frog on a rod before a catfish,’ Windsor Imbra growled. ‘I don’t trust you, Bonhart. I can smell the iron hook hidden in that bait!’

‘I congratulate you on your sensitive nose.’ Bonhart stood up, took the sword acquired in Fano from under the bench, drew it from the scabbard and threw it into the arena, so dexterously that the blade stuck vertically in the sand, two paces in front of Ciri. ‘There’s your iron. Out in the open, not concealed at all. I don’t care for the wench, and whomsoever wants to may take her. If they’re able.’

The Marchioness de Nementh-Uyvar laughed nervously.

‘If they’re able!’ she repeated in her husky contralto. ‘For now the bodikin has a sword. Bravo, Mr Bonhart. It seemed despicable to leave the bodikin defenceless and at the mercy of these good-for-nothings.’

‘Mr Houvenaghel,’ Windsor Imbra said with arms akimbo, not gracing the skinny aristocrat with even a glance. ‘This spectacle is being held under your patronage, for it’s your theatre, after all. Just tell me one thing. By whose rules and principles are we to play – yours or Bonhart’s?’

‘By theatrical ones,’ Houvenaghel cackled, shaking his belly and bulldog-like jowls. ‘For though it’s true that it’s my theatre, the customer is always right, as he who pays the piper calls the tune! The customer sets the rules. While we merchants must act according to those rules: whatever the customer demands, we must give him.’

‘Customer? You mean these folk?’ Windsor Imbra gestured sweepingly across the packed auditorium. ‘All these folk who have paid to marvel at these marvels?’

‘Business is business,’ Houvenaghel replied. ‘If there a demand for something, why not sell it? Do folk pay for a wolf fight? For endrega and aardvark fights? For baiting a badger in a barrel, or a wyvern? Why are you so astonished, Imbra? Folk need circuses and spectacles as they do bread, why, more than bread. Many of those here had it taken from their mouths. Now look at them, how their eyes shine. They can’t wait for the games to begin.’

‘But at games,’ Bonhart added, smiling spitefully, ‘the appearances of sport must at least be observed. The brock, before the curs drag him from the barrel, may nip with its teeth; that’s only sporting. And the girl has a blade. Let it also be sporting here. Well, good people? Am I right?’

The good people confirmed in an incoherent – though thunderous and joyful – chorus that Bonhart was absolutely right.

‘The Baron of Casadei,’ Windsor Imbra said slowly, ‘will not be pleased, Mr Houvenaghel. I tell you he’ll not be pleased. I don’t know if it’s worth your while picking a fight with him.’

‘Business is business,’ Houvenaghel repeated and jiggled his cheeks. ‘The Baron of Casadei knows that very well. He has borrowed a deal of money from me at low interest, and when the time comes to borrow more, then we shall somehow smooth over our squabbles. But some foreign lord isn’t going to interfere in my private enterprise. Wagers have been laid, people have paid to enter. Blood must soak into that sand, in that arena.’

‘Must?’ Windsor Imbra yelled. ‘Bollocks! I’m itching to show you that it doesn’t need to at all! For I shall leave here and ride away, without looking back. Then you can spill your own blood! The very thought of supplying this rabble with amusement sickens me!’

‘Let him go.’ A character with a very low hairline in a horsehide jerkin emerged from the crowd. ‘If it sickens him, let him go. It doesn’t sicken me. They said whoever does for the she-rat takes the reward. I volunteer to enter the arena.’

‘Not likely!’ one of Imbra’s soldiers, a short but wiry and well-built man, suddenly yelled. He had thick, unkempt and matted hair. ‘We was first! Wasn’t we, boys?’

‘Yeah!’ chimed in a second, a scrawny one with a pointed beard. ‘We have priority! And don’t let your sense of honour get the better of you, Windsor! What of it if the rabble is watching? Falka’s in the pit, suffice to hold out a hand and take her. And let the peasantry goggle, we don’t give a damn!’

‘And we’re ready to get something out of it too!’ snickered a third, dressed in a doublet of vivid amaranth. ‘Let’s make sport of it, am I right, Mr Houvenaghel? Let’s make a contest of it! As long as a reward’s on offer!’

Houvenaghel grinned and nodded, proudly and majestically jiggling his pendulous cheeks.

‘Well then,’ asked the one with the goatee curiously, ‘are there any wagers?’

‘As of now,’ the merchant laughed, ‘no one has wagered on the result! As of now it’s three to one, since none of you dares enter the enclosure.’

‘Huuuh!’ Horsehide yelled. ‘I dare! I’m minded!’

‘Out of the way, I said!’ Matted Hair roared back. ‘We was first and we have first crack. Come on, what are we waiting for?’

‘How many can go in at one time?’ Amaranth tightened his belt. ‘Or is only one at a time allowed?’

‘You whoresons!’ Quite unexpectedly, the pastel mayor suddenly roared in a powerful voice utterly incongruent with his build. ‘Perhaps ten of you want to take on the one of her? On horseback, perhaps? Riding chariots, perhaps? Perhaps you want to borrow a catapult from the armoury in order to hurl boulders at the wench from afar? Eh?’

‘Very well, very well,’ Bonhart interrupted, after swiftly consulting with Houvenaghel. ‘Let it be sport, but let there be entertainment too. We’ll say two at a time. You may enter in pairs.’

‘But the reward,’ Houvenaghel warned, ‘will not be doubled! If it’s two, you’ll have to share.’

‘In pairs? Two at a time?’ Matted Hair flung his cape from his shoulders. ‘Are you ashamed, boys? She’s just a wench!’ He spat on the ground. ‘Stand back. I’ll go myself and take her down. Big deal!’

‘I want Falka alive!’ protested Windsor Imbra. ‘A pox on your fights and duels! I won’t go along with Bonhart’s circus, I want the wench! Alive! You two go in, you and Stavro. And haul her out of there.’

‘As for me,’ Stavro, the one with the goatee, said, ‘it’s an insult for two of us to take on that scrawny thing.’

‘The baron’s florins will make that insult more palatable. But only if she’s alive!’

‘The baron’s a miser,’ Houvenaghel cackled, wobbling his belly and bulldog’s jowls. ‘He doesn’t have an ounce of sporting spirit in him. Nor the desire to reward that spirit in others! I, though, champion sport. And hereby increase the reward. Whomsoever enters the arena alone and leaves it on his own two feet, will be paid, by this very hand, from this very coffer, not twenty but thirty florins!’

‘So what are we waiting for?’ yelled Stavro. ‘I’m going first!’

‘Not so fast!’ the short mayor roared once again. ‘The wench has but thin linen on her back! So cast off that brigandine, soldier. This is sport!’

‘A pox on you!’ Stavro stripped off the studded kaftan, then pulled his shirt off over his head, revealing a scrawny chest and arms as hairy as a baboon. ‘A pox on you, m’lords, and your sodding sport! I’ll go in the buff! Shall I take off me britches too?’

‘And your braies!’ the Marchioness de Nementh-Uyvar croaked seductively. ‘Then we’ll see if you’re only manly in word!’

Rewarded by thunderous applause and naked to the waist, Stavro drew his weapon and threw one leg over the barrier, watching Ciri intently. Ciri folded her arms over her chest. She didn’t even take a step towards the sword plunged into the sand. Stavro hesitated.

‘Don’t do it,’ said Ciri, very softly. ‘Don’t make me . . . I won’t let you touch me.’

‘Don’t begrudge me, wench.’ Stavro clambered over the barrier. ‘I’ve nothing against you. But business is—’

He didn’t complete the sentence, for Ciri was already on him, was already holding Swallow, as she had named the gnomish gwyhyr. She used a very simple, downright childish attack and feint called ‘three little steps’ – but Stavro was taken in by it. He took a step backwards and raised his sword involuntarily, and was then at her mercy – after stepping back he was leaning against a post and Swallow’s blade was an inch from the tip of his nose.

‘That move,’ Bonhart explained to the marchioness, shouting over the roaring and applause, is called “three little steps, a feint and a lunge in tierce”. A cheap trick, I’d expected something more refined from the wench. Though one must admit, if she’d wanted it, the fellow would already be dead.’

‘Kill ‘im! Kill ‘im!’ the spectators bellowed, and Houvenaghel and Mayor Pennycuick pointed their thumbs downwards. The blood had drained from Stavro’s face, and the pimples and pockmarks on his cheeks were repugnantly visible.

‘I told you not to make me,’ Ciri hissed. ‘I don’t want to kill you! But I won’t let anyone touch me. Go back where you came from.’

She moved back, turned around, put down her sword and looked up towards the box.

‘Are you toying with me?’ she cried, voice breaking. ‘Do you mean to force me to fight? To kill? You can’t do it! I won’t fight!’

‘Hear that, Imbra?’ Bonhart’s sneering voice resounded in the silence. ‘Clear profit! And no risk! She won’t fight. Thus you can take her from the arena and deliver her alive to the Baron of Casadei, so he can freely amuse himself with her. You can take her without any danger! With your bare hands!’

Windsor Imbra spat. Stavro, still standing with his back pressed against the post, panted, gripping his sword. Bonhart laughed.

‘But I, Imbra, bet a diamond to a walnut that you can’t.’

Stavro took a deep breath. The girl standing with her back to him appeared distracted, preoccupied. He was seething with rage, shame and hatred. He couldn’t control himself. He attacked. Swiftly and treacherously.

The audience didn’t notice the swerve or reverse thrust. All they saw was the rushing Stavro making a truly balletic leap, after which – less balletically – he fell belly and face down in the sand; sand which was immediately stained red with blood.

‘Instinct takes the upper hand!’ Bonhart shouted over the crowd. ‘Reflexes come into play! Eh, Houvenaghel? What did I say? You’ll see, the mastiffs won’t be needed!’

‘What a splendid and profitable spectacle,’ Houvenaghel said, closing his eyes in bliss.

Stavro raised himself on trembling arms, jerked his head, cried out, croaked, puked blood and slumped down on the sand.

‘What’s that blow called, Mr Bonhart, sir?’ the Marchioness de Nementh-Uyvar asked huskily and sensuously, rubbing her knees together.

‘That was improvised.’ The teeth of the bounty hunter – who didn’t even look at the marchioness – flashed from beneath his lips. ‘An exquisite, inspired and, I’d say, visceral improvisation. I’ve heard of a place where they teach that kind of improvised butchery. I’ll wager our maiden knows it well. Now I know who she is.’

‘Don’t make me!’ Ciri screamed, a truly ghastly note trembling in her voice. ‘I don’t want to! Understand? I don’t want to!’

‘You hellish slut!’ Amaranth nimbly vaulted the barrier, circling the arena to distract Ciri from Matted Hair, who was entering from the opposite side. Horsehide cleared the barrier behind Matted Hair.

‘That’s fighting dirty!’ roared the halfling-sized Mayor Pennycuick, who was sensitive to fair play, and the crowd yelled with him.

‘Three against one! That’s unfair!’

Bonhart laughed. The marchioness licked her lips and began to wriggle her legs more urgently.

The threesome’s plan was simple – pin the retreating girl against the posts. Then two would block and the third one kill. Nothing came of it, for a simple reason. The girl didn’t retreat but attacked.

She slipped between them with a balletic pirouette, so lightly she almost didn’t touch the sand. She struck Matted Hair in passing, precisely where he ought to be struck: in the carotid artery. The blow was so subtle it didn’t jar her rhythm. She ducked away in a reverse feint, so swiftly that not a single drop of the blood gushing from Matted Hair’s neck in a two-yard stream fell on her. Amaranth, behind her, aimed to slash across the back of her neck, but his treacherous blow clanged against a lightning-fast parry of her blade, held up behind her. Ciri unwound like a spring, slashing with both hands, amplifying the blow’s power with a jerk of her hips. The dark gnomish blade was like a razor, and cut his abdomen open with a hiss and a squelch. Amaranth howled and flopped forward onto the sand, curling up in a ball. Horsehide leaped at Ciri and thrust towards her throat, but she dodged, spun fluidly and struck from close quarters with the middle of the blade, mutilating his eye, nose, mouth and chin.

The spectators yelled, whistled, stamped their feet and bayed for more. The Marchioness de Nementh-Uyvar thrust both hands between her clenched thighs, licked her shining lips and laughed in her nervous drinker’s contralto. The captain of the Nilfgaardian reserve horse was as wan as vellum. A woman tried to cover the eyes of her child as he wriggled free. A grizzled old man in the front row vomited loudly and spasmodically, and hung his head between his knees.

Horsehide sobbed, holding his face, as blood mixed with snot and spit poured through his fingers. Amaranth rolled around, squealing like a stuck hog. Matted Hair stopped scrabbling against a post slippery with blood, spurting from him in the rhythm of his heartbeat.

‘Heeelp meeee,’ Amaranth howled, tightly clutching his innards spilling out of his belly. ‘Comraaaades! Heeeelp meeee!’

‘Bheeeh . . . bhooo . . . bheeeeh . . .’ Horsehide spat and snorted blood.

‘Fin-ish-’im-off! Fin-ish-’im-off!’ chanted the audience, stamping their feet to the rhythm. The puking old man was shoved from the bench and kicked towards the gallery.

‘A diamond to a walnut,’ Bonhart’s sneering bass resounded amongst the racket, ‘that none will now dare enter the arena. A diamond to a walnut, Imbra! What am I saying – even to an empty walnut shell!’

‘Kill ‘em!’ A roaring, thumping of feet and clapping. ‘Kill ‘em!’

‘Noble maiden!’ Windsor Imbra shouted, gesturing his subordinates to go forward. ‘Let them remove the wounded! Let them enter the arena and take them, before they bleed to death! Have a heart, noble maiden!’

‘A heart,’ Ciri repeated with effort, only then feeling the adrenaline strike her. She got herself quickly under control, with a series of well-drilled breaths.

‘Come in and take them,’ she said. ‘But come in unarmed. Have a heart as well. Just this once.’

‘Noooo!’ the crowd roared and chanted. ‘We-want-blood! We-want-blood!’

‘You rotten bastards!’ Ciri turned around gracefully, sweeping her gaze over the stands and benches. ‘You despicable swine! You scoundrels! You lousy whoresons! You want blood? Come here, come down, taste it and smell it! Lick it up before it clots! Bastards! Vampires!’

The marchioness groaned, trembled, fluttered her eyelashes and softly nestled up to Bonhart, without taking her hands from between her thighs. Bonhart grimaced and shoved her away from him, not bothering to be gentle. The crowd howled. Someone threw a half-chewed sausage into the arena, someone else a boot, and yet another chucked a gherkin, aimed at Ciri. She sliced the gherkin in two with a flourish of her sword, provoking an even louder roar.

Windsor Imbra and his men picked up Amaranth and Horsehide. When Amaranth was touched, he howled, while Horsehide fainted. Matted Hair and Stavro no longer showed any signs of life. Ciri moved back, to stand as far away as the arena permitted. Imbra’s men also did their best to stay away from her.

Windsor Imbra stood motionless. He waited until they had heaved out the dead and wounded. He looked at Ciri through narrowed eyes, his hand on the hilt of his sword, which – despite his promise – he had not removed on entering the arena.

‘No,’ she warned, barely moving her lips. ‘Don’t make me. Please.’

Imbra was pale. The crowd stamped their feet, roared and howled.

‘Don’t listen to her!’ Bonhart shouted over the racket again. ‘Draw your sword! Otherwise it’ll get out that you’re a coward and a turd! From the Alba to the Yaruga everyone will be talking about how Windsor Imbra ran from a slip of a girl with his tail between his legs!’

Imbra’s blade slid an inch from the scabbard.

‘Don’t,’ said Ciri.

The blade went back in.

‘Coward!’ roared someone from the crowd. ‘Shithead! Chicken heart!’

His face impassive, Imbra walked to the edge of the arena. Before seizing the hands of his comrades reaching down from above, he turned back one last time.

‘You probably know what you’re in for, wench,’ he said softly. ‘You probably already know what Leo Bonhart is. You probably already know what Leo Bonhart’s capable of. What excites him. You’ll be shoved out into the arena to kill for the amusement of the swine and scum in here. And even worse than them. And when the fact that you can kill stops amusing them, when Bonhart tires of doing violence to you, then they’ll kill you too. They’ll send so many to face you, you won’t be able to watch your back. Or they’ll set dogs on you. And the dogs will tear you apart, and the rabble in the stands will sniff blood and applaud. You’ll expire on this blood-stained sand. Like the men you slaughtered today. You’ll remember my words.’

Oddly, it was only then that she noticed the small escutcheon on his enamel gorget.

A silver unicorn rampant on a black field.

A unicorn.

Ciri lowered her head. She looked at her sword’s openwork recasso.

Everything suddenly went quiet.

‘By the Great Sun,’ Declan Ros aep Maelchlad, the captain of the Nilfgaardian reserve horse, abruptly began. ‘No. Don’t do that, girl. Ne tuv’en que’ss, luned!’

Ciri slowly turned Swallow around in her hand and rested the pommel on the sand. She went down on one knee. Holding the blade with her right hand, she aimed the point with her left towards her breastbone. The blade cut through her clothing and pricked her at once.

Just don’t cry, thought Ciri, pushing harder and harder down on the sword. Just don’t cry, there’s nothing to cry over. One quick thrust and it will all be over . . . It will all be over . . .

‘You won’t do it.’ Bonhart’s voice resounded in the complete silence. ‘You won’t do it, witcher girl. In Kaer Morhen you were taught how to kill, so you kill like a machine. Instinctively. To kill yourself you need character, strength, determination and courage. And they couldn’t teach you that.’

*

‘He was right,’ Ciri said with effort. ‘I couldn’t.’

Vysogota remained silent. He was holding a coypu pelt. Motionless. Had been for a long time. He had almost forgotten about the pelt as he listened.

‘I chickened out. I was a coward. And I paid for it. As every coward pays for it. In pain, dishonour and hideous humiliation. And an absolute revulsion towards myself.’

Vysogota said nothing.

*

Had someone crept up to the cottage with the sunken thatched roof that night, had they peered through the slits in the shutters, they would have seen in the dimly lit interior a grey-bearded old man and an ashen-haired girl sitting by the fireplace. They would have noticed that the two of them were staring silently into the glowing, ruby coals.

But no one could have seen it. For the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof was well hidden among the fog and the mist, in a boundless swamp in the Pereplut Marshes where no one dared to venture.

Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.

Genesis, 9:6

Verily, great self-righteousness and great blindness are needed to call the gore pouring from the scaffold justice.

Vysogota of Corvo

CHAPTER FIVE

‘What seeks the Witcher on my territory?’ Fulko Artevelde, the Prefect of Riedbrune, repeated the question, now clearly impatient with the lengthening silence. ‘Whence is the Witcher coming? And whither is he headed? With what purpose?’

That’s what comes of playing at good deeds, thought Geralt, looking at the prefect’s face, which was marked with thickened scars. That’s what comes of playing the noble witcher out of compassion for a bunch of shabby forest folk. That’s what comes of the desire for luxury and sleeping in taverns, where there’s always a nark. That’s what comes of travelling with a loudmouthed poetaster. Here I sit, in a room like a windowless cell, on a hard interrogation chair bolted to the floor, and on the chair’s back – it’s impossible not to notice – are cuffs and leather straps. For binding the arms and restraining the neck. They haven’t been used yet, but they’re there.

How the bloody hell do I get myself out of this pickle now?

*

After five days of trekking with the Riverdellian forest beekeepers they finally emerged from the wilderness onto a boggy reed bed. It stopped raining, the wind dispersed the mists and clammy fog, the sun broke through the clouds. And mountain peaks sparkled snow-white in the glare.

If a short while ago the River Yaruga had signified to them a clear dividing line, a border, the crossing of which represented an evident passage to the next, more serious, stage of the expedition, it was even more so now; the sense that they were approaching a limit, a barrier, a place which could only be turned back from. They all felt it, Geralt above all – it could only be thus, since from dawn to dusk they had been faced with a mighty, jagged range of mountains barring their way, rising up in front of them to the south, and gleaming with snow and glaciers. The Amell Mountains. And rising even above the saw-toothed Amell was the forbiddingly majestic obelisk of Mount Gorgon, Devil Mountain, as angular as the blade of a misericorde. They did not talk about it, didn’t discuss it, but Geralt felt what everybody was thinking. For when he looked at the Amell range and Gorgon, the thought of continuing the journey southwards seemed sheer insanity.

Fortunately, it suddenly turned out there would be no need to head south.

This news was brought to them by the shaggy forest beekeeper, owing to whom they had acted as the train’s armed escort for the previous five days. The husband and father of the comely hamadryads, next to whom he looked like a wild boar beside two mares. He who had tried to deceive them by saying the druids of Caed Dhu had gone to the Slopes.

It was the day after their arrival in Riedbrune, a town teeming like an anthill and the destination of the forest beekeepers and trappers from Riverdell. It was the day after parting with the forest beekeepers, for whom the Witcher was no longer needed. He hadn’t expected to see any of them again. His astonishment was thus all the greater.

For the forest beekeeper began with effusive expressions of gratitude and the handing to Geralt of a full pouch of mainly small change; his witcher’s fee. He accepted it, feeling on him the somewhat mocking gaze of Regis and Cahir, to whom he had occasionally moaned during the trek about human ingratitude and stressed the pointlessness and stupidity of selfless altruism.

And then the excited beekeeper literally shouted out the news. ‘The, you know, Mistletoers, I mean the druids, are camped, dear Master Witcher, in the oak groves by Loch Monduirn, a lake, get my drift, thirty-five miles from here in a westerly direction.’

The beekeeper had heard these tidings at a honey and beeswax trade market from a relative living in Riedbrune, while the relative had been given the information from a diamond prospector acquaintance of his. When the beekeeper learned about the druids he ran as quickly as he could to tell the Witcher. And now he was glowing with happiness, pride and a sense of importance, like every liar when his lies accidentally turn out to be true.

At first, Geralt had intended to make for Loch Monduirn without a moment’s delay, but the company protested vehemently. Being in possession of the money from the beekeepers – declared Regis and Cahir – and being in a town where anything could be bought, they ought to stock up on vittles and supplies. And buy extra arrows, added Milva, because they was always demanding game from her and she weren’t going to shoot whittled sticks. And spend at least one night in a bed in an inn, added Dandelion, and retired to that bed bathed and pleasantly tipsy on ale.

The druids, they chorused, won’t run away.

‘Utter coincidence though it may be,’ added the vampire Regis with a curious smile, ‘our company is on exactly the right road, and heading in exactly the right direction. For since we are clearly and absolutely destined to encounter the druids, a day or two’s delay makes no difference.’

‘And as regards haste,’ he added philosophically, ‘the impression that time is quickly running out is customarily a warning signal enjoining one to reduce the pace, and proceed slowly and with due prudence.’

Geralt didn’t protest or argue with the vampire’s philosophy, although the weird nightmares he was being haunted by still inclined him towards haste. Despite his being unable to recollect them after waking.

It was the seventeenth of September and a full moon. Six days remained until the autumn Equinox.

*

Milva, Regis and Cahir took upon themselves the task of making purchases and acquiring the necessary equipment. Geralt and Dandelion, however, were to reconnoitre and gather information in the town of Riedbrune.

Situated in a bend in the River Nevi, Riedbrune was a small town, if one only took into consideration the densely-grouped brick and wooden buildings inside the ring of earthen embankments bristling with a palisade. But the serried buildings inside the embankments were currently merely the centre of the town, and no more than a tenth of the population could live there. Nine tenths resided in the noisy ocean of ramshackle huts, shacks, cabins, sheds, tents and wagons serving as dwellings which surrounded the embankments.

The Witcher and the poet were served by a cicerone in the form of the beekeeper’s relative; young, artful and arrogant, a typical specimen of an urban layabout, who’d been born in the gutter and was no stranger to bathing nor slaking his thirst there. This stripling was like a trout in a crystal-clear mountain stream in the urban hubbub, throng, grime and stench, and the chance to show someone around his repugnant town clearly delighted him. Unconcerned that nobody was asking him any questions, the guttersnipe gave enthusiastic explanations. He explained that Riedbrune was an important stage for Nilfgaardian settlers travelling northwards after the endowment pledged by the emperor: six oxgangs or roughly one hundred and twenty acres. And on top of that a ten-year tax moratorium. For Riedbrune lay at the mouth of the Dol Nevi valley which cuts through the Amell Mountains, via the Theodula pass linking the Slopes and Riverdell with Mag Turga, Geso, Metinna and Maecht; all countries for many years subordinate to the Nilfgaardian Empire. The town of Riedbrune, explained the guttersnipe, was the last place where the settlers could depend on something else and not just themselves, their womenfolk and what they had on their wagons. Which was why most of the settlers remained camped outside the town for quite some time, gathering their strength before the last push to the banks of the Yaruga and beyond. And many of them, he added, with the pride of a slum patriot, settled in the town permanently, because the town was, why, culture, not some yokelish dump stinking of dung.

In truth, the town of Riedbrune’s stench drew on many smells; dung included.

Geralt had been there, years before, but couldn’t recognise it. Too much had changed. Previously, there hadn’t been so many cavalrymen in black armour and cloaks with silver emblems on their spaulders. Previously, the Nilfgaardian tongue had not been heard on all sides. Previously, there hadn’t been a quarry outside the town, where now ragged, dirty, haggard and bloodied people split boulders into ashlars and rubble, whipped by black-uniformed overseers.

A large force of Nilfgaardian soldiers are stationed here, explained the guttersnipe, but not permanently, only during breaks in marches and searches for partisans of the Free Slopes organisation. They’ll be setting up a powerful Nilfgaardian garrison here when a great, stone stronghold is constructed on the site of the old castle. A stronghold built of stone hard-won from the quarry. The people splitting the stone are prisoners of war. From Lyria, from Aedirn, and lately from Sodden, Brugge and Angren. And Temeria. Four hundred prisoners are employed here in Riedbrune. A good five hundred work in the ore quarries, underground and open-cast mines in the vicinity of Belhaven and over a thousand are building bridges and levelling roads in the Theodula pass.

There had also been a scaffold in the town square when Geralt had visited, but a much more modest one. There hadn’t been so many devices arousing hideous associations on it, and there hadn’t been so many revolting and putrid decorations hanging from the gallows, stakes, forks and poles.

That’s thanks to Mr Fulko Artevelde, the prefect recently installed by the military authorities, explained the guttersnipe, looking at the scaffold and the fragments of human anatomy gracing it. Mr Fulko has given the hangman business again. There’s no fooling around with Mr Fulko, he added. He’s a stern master.

The diamond prospector – the guttersnipe’s mate, who they found in the tavern – didn’t make a good impression on Geralt. For he happened to be in that tremblingly pale, half-sober, half-drunk, half-real, almost nightmarish state which drinking for several nights and days without stopping puts a fellow into. The Witcher’s heart sank. It looked as though the sensational news about the druids might have originated in simple delirium tremens.

The drink-sodden prospector answered their questions astutely, however, and with good sense. He wittily retorted to Dandelion’s accusation that he didn’t look like a diamond prospector by saying that he would if he ever found a diamond. He described the dwelling place of the druids by Loch Monduirn explicitly and precisely, without exaggerated embellishment or an overinflated fantasising manner. He took the liberty of asking what his interlocutors wanted from the druids and, when treated to a contemptuous silence, warned them that entering the druidic oak groves meant certain death, since the druids were wont to grab intruders, shove them in a basket called the Wicker Woman and burn them alive to the accompaniment of prayers, chants and incantations. The groundless rumour and foolish superstition, it turned out, had dogged the druids, resolutely keeping up, never lagging more than two furlongs behind.

Further conversation was interrupted by nine soldiers in black uniforms with the sign of the sun on their spaulders, armed with guisarmes.

‘Would you be,’ asked the sergeant commanding the soldiers, tapping his calf with an oaken truncheon, ‘the witcher Geralt?’

‘Yes,’ Geralt answered after a moment’s reflection. ‘I would.’

‘You’ll be coming along with me, then.’

‘How can you be sure I will? Am I under arrest?’

The soldier looked at him in a seemingly endless silence, but somehow strangely without respect. No doubt his eight-man escort gave him the nerve to look in that manner.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘You aren’t under arrest. I received no order to arrest you. If I’d received an order my question would have been different, sir. Very different.’

Geralt adjusted his sword belt rather ostentatiously.

‘And my answer,’ he said icily, ‘would have been different, too.’

‘Now, now, gentlemen,’ Dandelion decided to step in, putting on an expression, which, in his opinion, was the smile of a seasoned diplomat. ‘Why that tone? We’re honest men, we needn’t fear the powers that be, why, we’re willing to help them. Whenever the opportunity arises. But by virtue of that we deserve something from authority, don’t we, officer? If only something as tiny as an explanation of why our civic freedoms are being curtailed.’

‘There’s a war on, sir,’ the soldier replied, not in the least bit disconcerted by the torrent of words. ‘Freedom, as the name suggests, is a matter for peacetime. Any reasons will be elucidated by His Lordship the Prefect. I carry out orders, so don’t get into discussions with me.’

‘Fair enough,’ the Witcher conceded and gave the troubadour a slight wink. ‘Then lead us to the prefecture, good soldier. Dandelion, go back to the others and tell them what’s happened. Do the necessary. Regis will know what to do.’

*

‘What’s a witcher doing in the Slopes? What do you seek?’

The person asking the questions was a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man with a face rutted with scars and a leather patch over his left eye. In a dark alleyway, the sight of that cyclopean face was capable of wresting a moan of terror from many a breast. But how unjust, when it was the face of Mr Fulko Artevelde, Prefect of Riedbrune, the highest ranking custodian of law and order in the entire region.

‘What does a witcher seek in the Slopes?’ repeated the highest ranking custodian of law and order in the entire region.

Geralt sighed and shrugged, feigning indifference.

‘You know, of course, the answer to your question, prefect. You could only have gleaned the fact that I’m a witcher from the Riverdell forest beekeepers who hired me to protect them on their march. And being a witcher, in the Slopes, or anywhere else, I’m generally in search of the chance to work. So I’m journeying in the direction suggested by the patrons who hired me.’

‘Logical,’ Fulko Artevelde nodded. ‘On the face of it at least. You parted company with the beekeepers two days ago. But you intend to continue your travels southwards, in somewhat peculiar company. With what aim?’

Geralt didn’t lower his eyes, but steadily returned the burning gaze of the prefect’s only eye.

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘No. Not for the time being.’

‘Then the purpose and direction of my travel is my private business.’

‘I suggest frankness and openness, nonetheless. If only in order to prove you don’t feel in any way guilty and don’t fear either the law, or any authority guarding it. I’ll repeat the question: what is behind your expedition, witcher?’

Geralt pondered this briefly.

‘I’m trying to reach the druids who were abiding in Angren, but have probably moved into these parts. It would have been easy to learn that from the beekeepers I was escorting.’

‘Who hired you to deal with the druids? The guardians of nature haven’t burned one too many people in the Wicker Woman, have they?’

‘Fairy tales, rumours, superstitions. Strange for an enlightened person like yourself. I want information from the druids, not their blood. But really, prefect, it seems to me I’ve been too frank, in order to prove I don’t feel guilty.’

‘It’s not about your guilt. At least not just about it. I’d like, nevertheless, a tone of mutual congeniality to prevail in our talk. For in spite of appearances, the aim of this talk is, among others, to save you and your companions’ lives.’

‘You have provoked my sincere curiosity, m’lord prefect,’ answered Geralt after some time, ‘Among other things. I shall hear out your explanations with truly rapt attention.’

‘I don’t doubt it. We’ll get to those explanations, but gradually. In stages. Have you ever heard, master witcher, of the tradition of turning imperial evidence? Do you know what that is?’

‘I do. Weaselling out of one’s responsibilities by fingering one’s comrades.’

‘A gross simplification,’ Fulko Artevelde said without smiling, ‘typical, actually, for a Nordling. You often disguise gaps in your education with sarcastic or exaggerated simplifications which you consider witty. Imperial law operates here in the Slopes, master witcher. More precisely, imperial law is going to operate here when rank lawlessness has been utterly extirpated. The best way to fight lawlessness and criminality is the scaffold, which you surely saw in the town square. But occasionally the offer to turn imperial evidence also works.’

He made a dramatic pause. Geralt didn’t interrupt.

‘Quite recently,’ the prefect continued, ‘we managed to lure a gang of juvenile criminals into an ambush. The brigands offered resistance and were killed . . . ’

‘But not all of them, right?’ Geralt conjectured, bluntly, becoming a little bored by all this oratory. ‘One was taken alive. They were promised a reprieve if they turned imperial evidence. I mean if they started grassing. And they grassed me up.’

‘Why such a deduction? Have you had any contact with the local criminal underworld? Now or in the past?’

‘No. I haven’t. Not now, or in the past. So forgive me, lord prefect, but the whole matter is either a complete misunderstanding or humbug. Or a trap directed against me. In the latter case I would suggest we don’t waste any more time and proceed to the nub of the matter.’

‘It appears that the thought of a trap troubles you,’ the prefect observed, furrowing his scarred brow. ‘Could you, perhaps, in spite of your assurances, have some reason to fear the law?’

‘No. I’m beginning, though, to fear that the fight against crime is being conducted hurriedly, wholesale and not meticulously enough, without painstaking inquiries to determine guilt or innocence. But well, perhaps that’s just an exaggerated simplification, typical of a dull Nordling. And this Nordling continues not to understand in what way the Prefect of Riedbrune is saving his life.’

Fulko Artevelde observed him in silence for a moment, then clapped his hands.

‘Bring her in,’ he ordered the soldiers who’d appeared at his signal.

Geralt calmed himself with several breaths, for suddenly a certain thought made his heart race and his adrenaline flow. A moment later he had to take several more breaths, and even – astonishingly – had to make a Sign with his hand out of sight beneath the table. And the effect – astonishingly – was none. He felt hot. And cold.

For the guards had shoved Ciri into the room.

‘Well I never,’ said Ciri, right after she’d been sat down in a chair and had her hands handcuffed behind the backrest. ‘Look what the cat’s dragged in!’

Artevelde made a brief gesture. One of the guards, a huge fellow with the face of a slow-witted child, drew his arm back in an unhurried swing and struck Ciri in the face so hard it made the chair rock.

‘Forgive her, Your Lordship,’ said the guard apologetically and astonishingly mildly. ‘She’s young and foolish. Skittish.’

‘Angoulême,’ Artevelde said slowly and emphatically. ‘I promised you I’d hear you out. But I meant I’d listen to your answers to my questions. Not to your badinage. You will be rebuked for your lack of respect. Understand?’

‘Sure, nuncle.’

The gesture. The slap. The chair rocked.

‘Young,’ mumbled the guard, rubbing his hand on his hip. ‘Skittish . . . ’

From the young woman’s snub nose – Geralt could see now that it wasn’t Ciri and was astonished at his mistake – trickled a thin stream of blood. The young woman sniffed hard and smiled predatorily.

‘Angoulême,’ the prefect repeated. ‘Do you understand me?’

‘Yes sir, Mr Fulko.’

‘Who’s this, Angoulême?’

The girl sniffed again, inclined her head and fixed Geralt with her huge eyes. Hazel, not green. Then she shook her untidy mane of flaxen hair, causing it to fall onto her forehead in unruly locks.

‘Never seen him before.’ She licked the blood which dripped onto her lip. ‘But I know who he is. Anyway, I already told you that, Mr Fulko; now you know I wasn’t lying. His name’s Geralt. He’s a witcher. He crossed the Yaruga about ten days ago and he’s heading for Toussaint. Right, my white-haired nuncle?’

‘She’s young . . . Skittish . . .’ said the guard quickly, looking somewhat anxiously at the prefect. But Fulko Artevelde just grimaced and shook his head.

‘You’ll still be fooling about on the scaffold, Angoulême. Very well, let’s go on. With whom, according to you, was Geralt the Witcher travelling?’

‘I’ve already told you that too! With a comely fellow called Dandelion, who’s a troubadour and carries a lute. And a young woman, who has dark blonde, chin-length hair. I don’t know her name. And another man, without a description, his name wasn’t mentioned either. Four of them in all.’

Geralt rested his chin on his knuckles, observing the girl with interest. Angoulême didn’t lower her gaze.

‘What eyes you have,’ she said. ‘Creepy peepers!’

‘Continue, Angoulême, continue,’ Mr Fulko urged, scowling. ‘Who else belonged to this witcher’s cohort?’

‘No one. I said there were four of them. Not been listening, nuncle?’

The gesture, the slap, the trickle. The guard kneaded his hip, but refrained from any more comments about the skittishness of youth.

‘You lie, Angoulême,’ said the prefect. ‘How many of them are there, I ask for the second time?’

‘Whatever you say, Mr Fulko. Whatever you say. As you wish. There’s two hundred of ’em. Three hundred! Six hundred!’

‘Lord prefect.’ Geralt forestalled the order to strike. ‘Let’s leave it, if we may. What she said is precise enough to show she’s not lying; at most lacking in information. But where did she get her facts? She declared she’s never seen me before. It’s the first time I’ve seen her too. I give my word.’

‘Thank you,’ Artevelde frowned at him, ‘for your help with the investigation. How valuable. When I start interrogating you I count on your being equally eloquent. Angoulême, did you hear what the gentleman said? Speak. And don’t make me encourage you.’

‘It was said,’ replied the girl as she licked the blood dripping from her nose, ‘that if the authorities were informed about a planned crime, if it was revealed who was planning villainy, there’d be clemency. So I’m telling you, ain’t I? I know about a crime being prepared and I want to forestall the evil deed. Listen to what I say: Nightingale and his hanza are waiting in Belhaven for this here witcher and are planning to club him to death there. A half-elf gave them the contract. A stranger, no one knows where the hell he’s from, no one knows him. The half-elf said it all: who he is, what he looks like, where he’s from, when he’ll arrive, in what company. He warned that the Witcher’s no mug but an old hand, so not to play the hero, but stab him in the back, down him with a crossbow or better yet poison him, if he eats or drinks somewhere in Belhaven. The half-elf gave Nightingale some money. A lot of money. And promised there’d be more after the job’s done.’

‘After it’s done,’ Fulko Artevelde remarked. ‘So the half-elf is still in Belhaven? With Nightingale’s gang?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know. It’s over a fortnight since I escaped from Nightingale’s hanza.’

‘So would that be the reason you’re grassing them up?’ the Witcher smiled. ‘Settling scores?’

The young woman’s eyes narrowed and her swollen mouth twisted. ‘Leave my sodding scores out of this, nuncle! And me grassing is saving your life, right? Some thanks would be in order!’

‘Thank you.’ Geralt again prevented the beating. ‘I only meant to remark that if you’re settling scores, it diminishes your credibility to turn imperial evidence. People grass to save their skin and their life, but they lie when they want revenge.’

‘Our Angoulême has no chance of saving her life,’ Fulko Artevelde interjected. ‘But she wants, naturally, to save her skin. To me that’s an absolutely credible motive. Well, Angoulême? You do want to save your skin, don’t you?’

The girl pursed her lips and visibly blanched.

‘The boldness of a criminal,’ said the prefect contemptuously, ‘and of a snot-nosed kid at the same time. Swoop down in numbers, rob the weak, kill the defenceless, oh, yes. Look death in the eye, not so easy. That’s beyond you.’

‘We shall see,’ she snarled.

‘We shall,’ nodded Fulko gravely. ‘And we shall hear. You’ll bellow your lungs out on the scaffold, Angoulême.’

‘You promised me clemency.’

‘And I shall keep my promise. If what you have testified proves to be the truth.’

Angoulême jerked on the chair, pointing at Geralt with a movement seemingly of her whole, slim body.

‘And that?’ she yelled. ‘What’s that? Isn’t that the truth? Let him deny he’s a witcher and he’s Geralt! Let him say I’m not credible! Let him ride to Belhaven, and you’ll have better proof that I’m not lying! You’ll find his corpse in some gutter in the morning. But then you’ll say I didn’t prevent a crime, so the clemency’ll still come to nothing! That right? You’re fucking swindlers! Nothing but swindlers!’

‘Don’t hit her,’ said Geralt. ‘Please.’

There was something in his voice that checked the raised hands of the prefect and the guard. Angoulême sniffed, looking at him piercingly.

‘Thanks, nuncle,’ she said. ‘But beating’s nothing much. If they want, let ’em carry on. I’ve been beaten since a child, I’m used to it. If you want to be kind, confirm I’m telling the truth. Let them keep their word. Let them sodding hang me.’

‘Take her away,’ Fulko ordered, quietening Geralt, who was about to protest, with a gesture.

‘She is of no use to us,’ he explained, once they were alone. ‘I know everything and you shall have your explanations. And then I shall ask for reciprocity.’

‘First of all,’ the Witcher’s voice was cold, ‘explain what that noisy exit was all about. Ending with that curious request to be hanged. If she’s turned imperial evidence the girl’s done her work, hasn’t she?’

‘Not yet.’

‘How is that?’

‘Homer Straggen, nicknamed Nightingale, is an exceptionally dangerous scoundrel. Cruel and brazen, cunning and clever, and a lucky rogue. His impunity emboldens others. I must put an end to it. Which is why I made a deal with Angoulême. I promised her that if, as a result of her testimony, Nightingale is captured and his gang broken up, she will hang.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ The Witcher’s astonishment was genuine. ‘Is that what you call turning imperial evidence here? The noose in exchange for collaboration with the authorities? And what for refusing to collaborate?’

‘Impalement. Preceded by gouging out the eyes and tearing the bosom with red-hot pincers.’

The Witcher didn’t say a word.

‘It is called exemplary terror,’ Fulko Artevelde continued. ‘Absolutely imperative in the fight against crime. Why do you clench your fists, so hard I can almost hear your knuckles grinding? Perhaps you favour humane killing? You can afford that luxury. You mainly fight creatures, which, however ridiculous it sounds, also kill humanely. I cannot afford it. I’ve seen merchants’ convoys and homes pillaged by Nightingale and his like. I’ve seen what’s done to people to make them reveal hiding places or magical passwords to jewel cases and strong boxes. I’ve seen the women Nightingale has taken a knife to just to check they weren’t concealing valuables. I’ve seen worse things done to people simply for the sake of wanton amusement. Angoulême, whose fate moves you so, took part in such merriment – that is certain. She was in the gang long enough. And were it not for sheer accident and the fact she fled the gang no one would have found out about the ambush in Belhaven, and you would have learned of it some other way. Perhaps she’d have shot you in the back with a crossbow.’

‘I don’t like speculation. Do you know why she fled the gang?’

‘Her evidence in that regard was vague, and she didn’t want to divulge it to my men. But it’s no secret that Nightingale is one of those men who restrict women to a, let us say, primitively natural role. If he can’t do it any other way, he forces that role on women. Certainly generational conflicts contributed to it. Nightingale is a mature man, while Angoulême’s last gang were urchins like her. But those are speculations; in actual fact, it interests me not. And why, may I ask, do you care? Why has Angoulême evoked such interest from the moment you saw her?’

‘Strange question. The girl informs me about an attempt on my life being planned by her former comrades on the orders of some half-elf. A sensational matter in itself, since I have no long-standing feuds with any half-elves. The girl knows only too well what company I ride with. Including such details as the troubadour being called Dandelion, and that the woman has cut off her plait. That plait, particularly, makes me suspect lies or a trap in this. It wouldn’t have been hard to seize and question one of the forest beekeepers I’ve been journeying with for the last week. And swiftly stage a—’

‘That will do!’ Artevelde slammed his fist on the table. ‘You race too far ahead, sir. You’re accusing me of engineering something here? To what end? To deceive or ensnare you? And who are you that you so fear provocation and ensnarement? Only the thief fears the truth, m’lord witcher. Only the thief!’

‘Give me another explanation.’

‘No, you give me one, sir!’

‘Regrettably, I have none.’

‘I might say something,’ the prefect smiled maliciously. ‘But for what? Let’s be clear. I’m not interested in who wants to see you dead or why. I don’t care where that person came by such interesting information about you, including your comrade’s hair colour and length. I shall go further: I might have not informed you at all about the plot on your life, witcher. I could simply have treated your company as utterly ignorant bait for Nightingale. Lurked, waited until the Nightingale swallowed the hook, line and sinker. And then seized him as my own. For it’s him I’m interested in, him I want. And if you met your maker? Ha, a necessary evil, incidental!’

He fell silent. Geralt made no comment.

‘Know you, master witcher,’ the prefect continued after a pause, ‘that I swore to myself that the law would rule on my turf. At any cost, and using any methods, per fas et nefas. For the law is not jurisprudence, not a weighty tome full of articles, not philosophical treatises, not peevish nonsense about justice, not hackneyed platitudes about morality and ethics. The law means safe paths and highways. It means backstreets one can walk along even after sundown. It means inns and taverns one can leave to visit the privy, leaving one’s purse on the table and one’s wife beside it. The law is the sleep of people certain they’ll be woken by the crowing of the rooster and not the crashing of burning roof timbers! And for those who break the law; the noose, the axe, the stake and the red-hot iron! Punishments which deter others. Those that break the law should be caught and punished. Using all available means and methods . . . Eh, witcher? Is the disapproval written on your countenance a reaction to the intention or the methods? The methods, I think! For it’s easy to criticise methods, but we would all prefer to live in a safe world, wouldn’t we? Go on, answer!’

‘There’s nothing to say.’

‘Oh, I believe there is.’

‘Mr Fulko,’ Geralt said calmly, ‘the world you envision quite pleases me.’

‘Indeed? Your expression suggests otherwise.’

‘The world you envision is made for a witcher. A witcher would never be short of work in it. Instead of codes, articles and peevish platitudes about justice, your idea creates lawlessness, anarchy, the licence and self-serving of princelings and mandarins, the officiousness of careerists wanting to endear themselves to their superiors, the blind vindictiveness of fanatics, the cruelty of assassins, retribution and sadistic vengeance. Your vision is a world where people are afraid to venture out after dark; not for fear of cut-throats, but of the guardians of public order. For, after all, the result of all great crackdowns on miscreants is always that the miscreants enter the ranks of the guardians of public order en masse. Your vision is a world of bribery, blackmail and entrapment, a world of turning imperial evidence and false witnesses. A world of snoopers and coerced confessions. Informing and the fear of being informed upon. And inevitably the day will come in your world when the flesh of the wrong person will be torn with pincers, when an innocent person is hanged or impaled. And then it will be a world of crime.

‘In short,’ he finished, ‘a world where a witcher would be in his element.’

‘Well, well,’ Fulko Artevelde said after moment’s silence, rubbing his eye socket through the leather patch. ‘An idealist! A witcher. A professional. A hired killer. But an idealist, nonetheless. And a moralist. That’s dangerous in your profession, witcher. A sign you begin to outgrow your profession. One day you’ll hesitate to despatch a striga. For what if it’s innocent? What if it’s blind vengeance and blind fanaticism? I don’t wish it on you. But what if, one day . . . I don’t wish this on you either, though it is possible . . . what if someone close to you is harmed in a cruel and sadistic way? Then I’d willingly return to this conversation, to the issue of the punishment fitting the crime. Who knows if we would then differ so greatly in our views? But today – here, now – that is not the subject of our consideration or discussion. Today we shall talk about hard facts. And you’re a hard fact.’

Geralt raised an eyebrow slightly.

‘Though you were scornful about my methods and my vision of a world of law, you shall aid me, my dear witcher, in the fulfilling of that vision. I repeat: I swore to myself that those who break the law will get their just desserts. All of them. From the minor felon who cheats with dishonest scales at the market, to he who swipes a cargo of bows and arrows meant for the army on the highway. Highwaymen, cutpurses, thieves, robbers. Terrorists from the Free Slopes organisation, who grandly call themselves “freedom fighters”. And Nightingale. Above all Nightingale. A fitting punishment must befall Nightingale; the method is inconsequential. As long as it’s quick. Before an amnesty is declared and he weasels out . . . Witcher, I’ve been waiting months for something that’ll let me get one step ahead of him. That’ll let me nudge him, make him trip up and make the decisive error which will be his undoing. Shall I continue, or do you follow?’

‘I do, but go on.’

‘The mysterious half-elf, seemingly the initiator and instigator of the attempt, warned Nightingale about a witcher, advocated caution, advised against a cavalier attitude or swaggering arrogance and bravado. I know he had his reasons. The warning will come to nothing, though. Nightingale will make a mistake. He will attack a witcher who’s been forewarned and is prepared to defend himself. A witcher who’s waiting to be attacked. And it’ll be the end of the robber Nightingale. I wish to strike a bargain with you, Geralt. You shall be my informer. Don’t interrupt; it’s a simple agreement. Each side will meet their obligations. You put paid to Nightingale. While in exchange, I . . . ’

He was silent for a while, smiling slyly.

‘I shan’t ask you who you are, where you’re from, or where and why you journey. I shan’t ask why one of you speaks with a barely detectable Nilfgaardian accent, and why sometimes dogs and horses bristle at your party’s approach. I shan’t order the roll of papers to be taken from the troubadour Dandelion, nor shall I check what they say. And I shall only inform imperial counter-intelligence about you when Nightingale is dead or in my dungeon. Or even later. Why hurry? I’ll give you time. And a chance.’

‘A chance to do what?’

‘To reach Toussaint. That ridiculous fairy-tale duchy, whose borders even the Nilfgaardian counter-intelligence don’t dare violate. And then much may change. There’ll be an amnesty. There may be a truce on the far side of the Yaruga. Maybe even lasting peace.’

The Witcher was silent for a long time. The prefect’s disfigured face was unmoving. His eye shone.

‘Agreed,’ Geralt finally said.

‘Without haggling? Without conditions?’

‘I have two.’

‘How could it be otherwise? Go on.’

‘I must first ride west for a few days. To Loch Monduirn. To the druids, since—’

‘Are you making an ass of me?’ Fulko Artevelde interrupted abruptly. ‘Do you mean to gull me? West? Everyone knows where your route takes you! Including Nightingale, who is right now laying an ambush on your road. To the south, in Belhaven, at a spot where the Nevi valley cuts the Sansretour valley leading to Toussaint.’

‘Does that mean . . . ’

‘. . . that the druids aren’t by Loch Monduirn? No, nor have they been for almost a month. They headed down the Sansretour valley to Toussaint, under the protective wings of Duchess Anarietta of Beauclair, who has a weakness for freaks, loonies and oddballs. Who gladly gives asylum to such in her little fairy-tale land. You know that as well as I do, witcher. Don’t try to dupe me!’

‘I won’t try,’ Geralt said slowly. ‘I give you my word that I won’t. I set out for Belhaven tomorrow.’

‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

‘No, I haven’t forgotten. My second condition: I want Angoulême. You’ll rush through her amnesty and release her from the dungeon. This witcher informer needs your informer. Quickly. Do you agree or not?’

‘I do,’ Fulko Artevelde replied almost at once. ‘I have no choice. Angoulême is yours. For I know you’re only cooperating for her sake.’

*

The vampire, riding at Geralt’s side, listened attentively and didn’t interrupt. The Witcher wasn’t disappointed by his perspicacity.

‘There are five or us, not four,’ he concluded as soon as Geralt had finished his account. ‘We’ve been travelling in a group of five since the end of August; the five of us crossed the Yaruga. And Milva only cut off her plait in Riverdell, about a week ago. Your fair-haired protégée knows about Milva’s plait. But said four not five. Bizarre.’

‘Is that the strangest part of this bizarre story?’

‘Far from it. The strangest thing is Belhaven. The town where the ambush has reputedly been laid for us. A town set deep in the mountains, on the path through the Nevi valley and the Theodula pass—’

‘—and we never planned to go there,’ the Witcher finished, spurring on Roach, who was beginning to fall behind. ‘Three weeks ago, when that highwayman Nightingale took the job to kill me from some half-elf, we were in Angren, heading to Caed Dhu, fearful of the Ysgith bogs. We didn’t even know we’d have to cross the Yaruga. Dammit, we didn’t know that this morning—’

‘We did,’ the vampire interrupted. ‘We knew we were looking for the druids. We knew that just as clearly this morning as three weeks ago. That mysterious half-elf is preparing an ambush on the road leading to the druids, certain we’ll take that road. He simply—’

‘Has a better idea than us which way that road leads,’ it was the Witcher’s turn to interrupt. ‘How does he?’

‘We shall have to ask. Which is precisely why you took the prefect’s offer, isn’t it?’

‘Naturally. I’m counting on being able to have a chat with Mr Half-Elf.’ Geralt smiled hideously. ‘Before that happens, doesn’t any explanation suggest itself to you? Or simply come to mind?’

The vampire observed him in silence for some time.

‘I don’t like what you’re saying, Geralt,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t like what you’re thinking. I consider it an inopportune thought. Taken hurriedly, without reflection. Resulting from prejudice and resentment.’

‘How else can one explain—’

‘Any way,’ Regis interrupted him with a tone Geralt had never heard from him. ‘Any way but like that. Don’t you think, for example, there’s a possibility your fair-haired protégée is lying?’

‘Hey, there, nuncle!’ called Angoulême, riding behind them on the mule called Draakul. ‘Don’t accuse me of lying if you can’t prove it!’

‘I’m not your uncle, dear child.’

‘And I’m not your dear child, nuncle!’

‘Angoulême,’ Witcher turned around in the saddle. ‘Be quiet.’

‘If you say so.’ Angoulême calmed down immediately. ‘You’re allowed to give me orders. You got me out of that hole, wrested me from Mr Fulko’s talons. I obey you, you’re now the leader, the head of the hanza . . . ’

‘Be quiet please.’

Angoulême muttered under her breath, stopped urging Draakul on and remained at the rear, particularly since Regis and Geralt had put on speed to catch up with Dandelion, Cahir and Milva, who were riding in the vanguard. They were heading towards the mountains, along the bank of the River Nevi, whose waters, turbid and yellowish-brown following the last rains, rolled swiftly over rocks and shelves. They weren’t alone. They frequently passed or overtook troops of Nilfgaardian cavalry, lone horsemen, settlers’ wagons or merchants’ caravans.

The Amell Mountains rose up to the south, closer and closer and more and more menacing. And the pointed needle of Gorgon, Devil Mountain, was enveloped in the clouds which quickly covered the whole sky.

‘When are you going to tell them?’ the vampire asked, indicating with a glance the threesome riding ahead of them.

‘When we make camp.’

*

Dandelion was the first to speak when Geralt had finished his account.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ he said. ‘But that girl, Angoulême, whom you have so cheerfully and carelessly added to our company, is a criminal. To save her from her well-deserved penalty you’ve agreed to collaborate with the Nilfgaardians. You’ve hired yourself out. Why, not just yourself – you’ve hired us all out. We are all to assist the Nilfgaardians capture or kill somebody. Some local brigand. In short: you, Geralt, have become a Nilfgaardian mercenary, a bounty hunter, a hired assassin. And we’ve been promoted to the rank of your acolytes . . . Or perhaps your fam—’

‘You have an incredible talent for over simplification, Dandelion,’ Cahir muttered. ‘Have you really not understood what this is about? Or are you just talking for talking’s sake?’

‘Silence, Nilfgaardian. Geralt?’

‘Let me begin by saying,’ the Witcher threw a stick he’d been playing with for some time onto the fire, ‘that no one’s forced to help me with my plans. I can handle it by myself. Without acolytes or famuli.’

‘You’re audacious, nuncle,’ Angoulême began. ‘But Nightingale’s hanza numbers twenty-four stout blades. They won’t take fright at a witcher, and where it concerns swordsmanship, even if it were true what they say about witchers, no witcher could deal with two dozen by himself. You saved my life, so I’ll repay you likewise. With a warning. And with help.’

‘What the bloody hell is a hanza?’

‘Aen hanse,’ Cahir explained. ‘In our tongue it’s an armed gang, but one linked by bonds of friendship—’

‘A company?’

‘Precisely. I see the word has entered the local slang here—’

‘A hanza’s a hanza,’ Angoulême interrupted. ‘In our lingo: a gang or hassa. What are we on about here? That was a serious warning. One man has no chance against the entire hanza. To make matters worse, one who knows neither Nightingale, nor anyone in Belhaven or the surroundings, neither foes, friends, nor allies. Who knows not the roads leading to the town – and there are various. I say: the Witcher won’t cope. I don’t know what customs prevail among you, but I won’t leave the Witcher alone. As Nuncle Dandelion said, he cheerfully and carelessly took me into your company, even though I’m a criminal. My hair still stinks of the cell; there was no way of washing it. The Witcher, and no other, got me out of that cell and into the daylight. I’m grateful to him for that. Which is why I won’t leave him alone. I’ll lead him to Belhaven, to Nightingale and that half-elf. I’m going with him.’

‘Me too,’ Cahir said at once.

‘And me and all!’ Milva barked.

Dandelion pressed to his chest the tube with the manuscripts which, lately, he wouldn’t be parted from for a single moment. He lowered his head. He was evidently struggling with his thoughts. And the thoughts were winning.

‘Stop meditating, poet,’ Regis said kindly. ‘For there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re even less cut out to participate in a bloody swordfight than I am. We weren’t taught to carve up our neighbours with a blade. Furthermore . . . Furthermore, I’m . . . ’

He raised shining eyes towards the Witcher and Milva.

‘I’m a coward,’ he confessed curtly. ‘If it’s not necessary, I don’t want to go through what we had on the ferry and the bridge again. Never. For which reason I request to be left out of the fighting team heading to Belhaven.’

‘You lugged me from that ferry and that bridge on your back,’ Milva began softly, ‘when infirmity robbed me of my legs. If there’d been a coward there, instead of you, he’d have left me and fled. There was no coward, though. Only you, Regis.’

‘Well said, aunty,’ said Angoulême with conviction. ‘I have no clue what you’re on about, but well said.’

‘I’m no aunt of yours!’ Milva’s eyes flashed ominously. ‘Have a care, miss! If you call me that again, you’ll see!’

‘What will I see?’

‘Quiet!’ the Witcher barked harshly. ‘That’s enough, Angoulême! I need to take all of you to task, I see. The time of lurching blindly towards the horizon is over, for now there might be something just over the horizon. The time for decisive action has arrived. Time for throats to be cut. For at last there’s someone to attack. Those who haven’t understood till now, let them understand – we finally have a clear-cut enemy within reach. The half-elf who wants us dead is an agent of forces hostile to us. Thanks to Angoulême we’ve been forewarned, and forewarned is forearmed, as the proverb has it. I have to get my hands on that half-elf and wring from him whose orders he’s acting on. Do you finally understand, Dandelion?’

‘I’d say,’ the poet began calmly, ‘that I understand more and better than you. Without any attacking or wringing needed, I surmise that the mysterious half-elf is acting on Dijkstra’s orders. The same Dijkstra you lamed on Thanedd by smashing his ankle. Following Marshal Vissegerd’s report, Dijkstra doubtless considers us Nilfgaardian spies. And following our flight from the corps of Lyrian partisans, Queen Meve has assuredly added a few points to the list of our crimes . . . ’

‘You’re mistaken, Dandelion,’ Regis softly interjected. ‘It’s not Dijkstra. Or Vissegerd. Or Meve.’

‘Then who?’

‘Any judgement or conclusion now would be premature.’

‘Agreed,’ the Witcher drawled icily. ‘Which is why the matter needs to be examined in situ. And conclusions drawn first-hand.’

‘And I,’ Dandelion said, not giving up, ‘still judge it a stupid and risky idea. It’s good we’ve been warned about the ambush, that we know about it. Now that we know, let’s give it a wide berth. Let that elf or half-elf wait for us as long as he wishes, and we’ll hurry along our own road—’

‘No,’ the Witcher interrupted. ‘That’s the end of the discussion, my little chicks. The end of anarchy. The time has come for our . . . hanza . . . to have a ringleader.’

Everyone, not excluding Angoulême, looked at him in expectant silence.

‘Angoulême, Milva and I,’ he said, ‘will make for Belhaven. Cahir, Regis and Dandelion will ride into the Sansretour valley and go to Toussaint.’

‘No,’ Dandelion said quickly, gripping his tube more tightly. ‘Not a chance. I can’t—’

‘Shut up. This isn’t a debate. It was an order from the hanza’s leader! You’re going to Toussaint with Regis and Cahir. You’ll wait for us there.’

‘Toussaint means death for me,’ the troubadour declared emphatically. ‘If I’m recognised in Beauclair, at the castle, I’m dead. I have to tell you—’

‘No you don’t,’ the Witcher interrupted bluntly. ‘It’s too late. You could have turned back, but you didn’t want to. You remained in the company. In order to rescue Ciri. Am I right?’

‘You are.’

‘So you’ll ride with Regis and Cahir down the Sansretour valley. You’ll wait for us in the mountains, without crossing the Toussaint border for now. But if . . . if the necessity arises, you’ll have to cross it. For the druids, the ones from Caed Dhu, Regis’s acquaintances, are allegedly in Toussaint. So if the necessity arises, you’ll get information about Ciri from the druids and set off to get her . . . alone.’

‘What do you mean alone? Do you anticipate—’

‘I’m not anticipating, I’m bearing in mind the possibility. Just in case, so to speak. As a last resort, if you prefer. Perhaps it’ll all go well and we won’t have to show up in Toussaint. But in the event . . . well, then it’s important that a Nilfgaardian force doesn’t follow you to Toussaint.’

‘Well, it won’t,’ Angoulême cut in. ‘It’s strange, but Nilfgaard respects Toussaint’s marches. I’ve hidden from pursuers there before. But the knights there are no better than the Black Cloaks! Refined and courteous in their speech, but quick to seize the sword or lance. And they patrol the marches ceaselessly. They’re called knights errant. They ride alone, or in twos or threes. And they persecute the rabble. Which means us. Witcher, one detail needs changing in your plans.’

‘What?’

‘If we are to make for Belhaven and cross swords with Nightingale, you and Sir Cahir should go with me. And let aunty go with them.’

‘Why so?’ Geralt calmed Milva with a gesture.

‘You need men for that job. Why are you raging, aunty? I know what I’m talking about! When the time comes, it may be necessary to act with menace, rather than force itself. And none of Nightingale’s hanza will be scared of a band of three, where there are two women to one man.’

‘Milva rides with us.’ Geralt clenched his fingers around the archer’s forearm, who was genuinely infuriated. ‘Milva, not Cahir. I don’t want to ride with Cahir.’

‘Why’s that?’ Angoulême and Cahir asked almost at the same time.

‘Precisely,’ Regis said slowly. ‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t trust him,’ the Witcher said bluntly.

The silence which fell was unpleasant, weighty; almost tangible. From the forest, near which a merchants’ caravan and a group of other travellers had made camp, came raised voices, shouts and singing.

‘Explain,’ Cahir said at last.

‘Somebody has betrayed us,’ Witcher said dryly. ‘After our conversation with the prefect and Angoulême’s revelations, there’s no doubt about it. And if one thinks it over carefully, one comes to the conclusion that there’s a traitor among us. And it takes little pondering to guess who.’

‘It seems to me,’ Cahir frowned, ‘that you have taken the liberty to suggest that the traitor is me?’

‘I don’t deny that such a thought has occurred to me,’ the Witcher’s voice was cold. ‘There’s much to suggest it. It would explain much. Very much.’

‘Geralt,’ said Dandelion. ‘Aren’t you going a mite too far?’

‘Let him speak.’ Cahir curled his lip. ‘Let him speak. Let him feel free.’

‘It puzzled us,’ Geralt swept his gaze over his companions’ faces, ‘how there could have been an error in the reckoning. You know what I’m talking about. That there are five of us and not four. We thought someone had simply made a mistake: the mysterious half-elf, the brigand Nightingale or Angoulême. But if we reject that then the following possibility suggests itself: the company numbers five, but Nightingale is only meant to kill four. Because the fifth is the assassins’ accomplice. Someone who keeps them constantly informed about the company’s movements. From the start, from the moment the celebrated fish soup was eaten and the company was formed. And we invited a Nilfgaardian to join us. A Nilfgaardian who must catch Ciri, must hand her over to Emperor Emhyr, for his life and further career depends on it . . . ’

‘So I wasn’t wrong, then,’ Cahir said slowly. ‘I’m a traitor after all. A lousy, two-faced turncoat?’

‘Geralt,’ Regis began again. ‘Excuse my frankness, but your theory is riddled with holes. And your thought, as I’ve already told you, is inopportune.’

‘I’m a traitor,’ Cahir repeated, as though he hadn’t heard the vampire’s words. ‘As I understand it, however, there is no proof of it, only vague circumstantial evidence and the Witcher’s speculations. As I understand it, the burden of proving my own innocence falls on me. So I’ll have to prove I’m not what I appear to be. Is that right?’

‘Don’t be pompous, Nilfgaardian,’ snapped Geralt, standing before Cahir and glaring at him. ‘If I had proof of your guilt, I wouldn’t be wasting time talking. I’d have filleted you like a herring already! Do you know the principle of cui bono? So answer me: who, aside from you, had even the slightest reason to betray me? Who, aside from you, would have gained anything from it?’

A loud and long-drawn-out crack resounded from the merchants’ camp. A firework exploded in a burst of red and gold, rockets shot out a swarm of golden bees and coloured rain fell against the black sky.

‘I’m not what I appear,’ said the young Nilfgaardian in a powerful, resonant voice. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t prove it. But I can do something else. Do what befits me, what I have to do, when I’m being slandered and insulted, when my honour is besmirched and my dignity sullied.’

His attack was as swift as lightning, but it still wouldn’t have surprised the Witcher had it not been for Geralt’s aching knee, which hampered his movements. Geralt was unable to dodge, and the gloved fist smashed him in the jaw with such force he fell backwards and tumbled straight into the campfire, throwing up clouds of sparks. He leaped up, too slow again owing to the pain in his knee. Cahir was already upon him. Again the Witcher didn’t even manage to duck; the fist rammed into the side of his head, and colourful fireworks flared up in his eyes, even more glorious than the ones the merchants had set off. Geralt swore and pounced on Cahir, wrapped his arms around him and knocked him to the ground. They rolled around in the gravel, thumping and pummelling each other.

And all in the eerie and unnatural light of the fireworks bursting in the sky.

‘Stop it!’ Dandelion yelled. ‘Stop it, you bloody fools!’

Cahir artfully knocked the ground out from under Geralt, and smote him in the teeth as he was trying to get up. And punched him again. Geralt crouched, tensed and kicked him, not in his crotch where he had aimed, but in the thigh. They grappled again, fell and rolled over, thumping one another wherever they could, blinded by the punches and the dust and sand getting into their eyes.

Then suddenly they came apart, rolling in opposite directions, cowering and shielding their heads from the blows raining down on them.

Having unfastened her sturdy, leather belt, Milva had seized it by the buckle, wound it around her fist, fallen on the fighters and begun to flog them with lusty blows, with all her might, sparing neither the strap nor her arm. The belt whistled and fell with a dry crack first on Cahir’s then on Geralt’s arms, back and shoulders. When they parted, Milva hopped from one to the other like a grasshopper, thrashing them evenly, so that neither of them received any less or any more than the other.

‘You thick thickheads!’ she yelled, cracking Geralt across the back. ‘You doltish dolts! I’ll teach you both a lesson!’

‘Enough?’ she yelled even louder, lashing Cahir’s arms, with which he was shielding his head. ‘Had enough? Calmed down now?’

‘Stop!’ the Witcher howled. ‘Enough!’

‘Enough!’ echoed Cahir, who was huddled up in a ball. ‘That’ll do!’

‘That will suffice,’ said the vampire. ‘That really will suffice, Milva.’

The archer was panting heavily, wiping her forehead with her fist, belt still wound around it.

‘Bravo,’ said Angoulême. ‘Bravo, aunty.’

Milva turned on her heel and thrashed her across the shoulders with all her might. Angoulême screamed, sat down and burst into tears.

‘I told you,’ Milva puffed, ‘not to call me that. I told you!’

‘It’s all right!’ In a somewhat shaking voice Dandelion reassured the merchants and travellers, who had run over from the neighbouring campfires. ‘Just a misunderstanding between friends. A lovers’ tiff. It’s already been patched up!’

The Witcher probed a wobbly tooth with his tongue and spat out the blood dripping from his cut lip. He felt the welts beginning to rise on his back and shoulders, and his ear – which had been lashed by the strap – seeming to swell to the dimensions of a cauliflower. Beside him, Cahir clumsily hauled himself up from the ground, holding his cheek. Broad, red marks quickly spread over his exposed forearm.

Rain smelling of sulphur – ash from the last firework – was falling on the ground.

Angoulême sobbed woefully, holding her shoulders. Milva threw aside her belt, then after a moment’s hesitation knelt, embraced and hugged her without a word.

‘I suggest,’ said the vampire frigidly, ‘that you shake hands. I suggest never, ever, revisiting this matter.’

Unexpectedly, a gale came down from the mountains in whispered gusts in which it seemed some kind of ghastly howling, crying and wailing could be heard. The clouds being blown across the sky took on fantastic shapes as the crescent moon turned as red as blood.

*

They were woken before dawn by a furious chorus of goatsucker nightjars and the whirring of their wings.

They set off just after the rising of the sun, which later lit up the snows on the mountain peaks with blinding flame. They had left much earlier than that, before the sun had appeared from behind the peaks. Actually, before it appeared, the sky had become overcast.

They rode amongst forests, and the road led higher and higher, which was discernible in the tree species. The oak and hornbeam finished abruptly, and they rode into a gloom of beech lined with fallen leaves, smelling of mould, cobwebs and mushrooms. The mushrooms were in abundance. The damp year end had yielded a plentiful harvest. In places, the forest floor literally vanished beneath the caps of ceps, morels and agarics.

The beechwood was quiet and looked as though most of the songbirds had flown away to their mysterious winter haven. Only crows at the edge of the undergrowth cawed, feathers dripping.

Then the beech ended and spruce replaced it. The scent of resin filled the air.

More and more often they encountered bald hillocks and stone runs, where they were caught by strong winds. The River Nevi foamed over steps and cascades. Its water – in spite of the rain – had turned crystal clear.

Gorgon loomed up on the horizon. Ever closer.

All year long, glaciers and snows flowed from the angular sides of the huge mountain, which meant Gorgon always looked as though it were clad in white sashes. The peak of Devil Mountain was constantly swathed in veils of clouds, like the head and neck of an enigmatic bride. Sometimes, though, Gorgon shook her white raiment like a dancer. The sight was breathtaking, but brought death – avalanches ran from the peak’s sheer walls, wiping out everything in their path, down to the scree at the foot and further down the hillside, to the highest spruce stands above the Theodula pass, above the Nevi and Sansretour valleys, above the black circles of mountain tarns. The sun, which in spite of everything had managed to penetrate the clouds, set much too quickly – it simply hid behind the mountains to the west, setting light to them with a purple and golden glow.

They stopped for the night.

The sun rose.

And the time came for them to part.

*

Milva carefully wrapped a silk scarf around her head. Regis put on his hat. Yet again he checked the position of the sihill on his back and the daggers in his boots.

Beside them, Cahir was whetting his long Nilfgaardian sword. Angoulême tied a woollen band around her forehead and slipped a hunting knife – a present from Milva – into her boot. The archer and Regis saddled up their horses. The vampire handed Angoulême the reins to his black, while he mounted the mule Draakul.

They were ready. Only one thing remained to be taken care of.

‘Come here, everybody.’

They approached.

‘Cahir, son of Ceallach,’ Geralt began, trying not to sound pompous. ‘I wronged you with unfounded suspicion and behaved shabbily towards you. I hereby apologise, before everyone, with bowed head. I apologise and ask you to forgive me. I also ask you all for forgiveness, as I shouldn’t have made you watch or listen to it.

‘I vented my fury and resentment on Cahir and all of you. It was caused by knowing who betrayed us. I know who betrayed and abducted Ciri, whom we aim to rescue. I’m angry because I’m talking about a person who was once very close to me.

‘Where we are, what we’re planning, what route we’re taking and whither we’re heading . . . all was uncovered with the help of scanning, detecting magic. It’s none too difficult for a mistress of magic to remotely detect and observe a person who was once well-known and close, with whom they had a long-term psychic contact which permits the creation of a matrix. But the sorcerer and sorceress of whom I speak made a mistake. They’ve revealed themselves. They made an error when counting the members of the company, and that error betrayed them. Tell them, Regis.’

‘Geralt may be right,’ Regis said slowly. ‘Like every vampire, I’m invisible to magical visual probing and scanning; that is, to a detecting spell. A vampire may be tracked using an analytical spell, from close up, but it is not possible to detect a vampire with a remote, scanning spell. The detection will report that there’s no one there. Thus only a sorcerer could be mistaken regarding us: to register four people, where there were actually five; that is, four people and one vampire.’

‘We shall exploit the sorcerers’ error,’ the Witcher continued. ‘Cahir, Angoulême and I shall ride to Belhaven to talk to the half-elf who hired assassins to kill us. We won’t ask the half-elf on whose orders he’s acting, for we know that already. We’ll ask him where the sorcerers on whose orders he is acting are. When we learn their location we’ll go there. And exact our revenge.’

Everybody was silent.

‘We stopped counting the date, so we haven’t even noticed it’s the twenty-fifth of September. Two days ago it was the night of the Equinox. The Equinox. Yes, that’s exactly the night you’re thinking about. I see your dejection, I see what your eyes are saying. We received a signal, that dreadful night, when the merchants camping beside us were keeping their courage up with aqua vitae, singing and fireworks. You probably had a less distinct sense of foreboding than Cahir and I, but you’re speculating too. You suspect. And I’m afraid your suspicions are well founded.’

The crows flying over the moorland cawed.

‘Everything indicates that Ciri is dead. She perished, two nights ago, at the Equinox. Somewhere far from here, alone amongst hostile people; strangers.

‘And all that’s left to us is vengeance. A cruel and bloody revenge, about which stories will still be told a hundred years hence. Stories which folk will be afraid to listen to after nightfall. And the hand of any who would repeat such a crime will tremble at the thought of our vengeance. We shall give a horrible example of terror! Using the ways of Mr Fulko Artevelde, wise Mr Fulko, who knows how blackguards and scoundrels should be treated. The illustration of terror we shall give will astonish even him!

‘So let us begin and may Hell assist us! Cahir, Angoulême, to horse. We ride up the Nevi, towards Belhaven. Dandelion, Milva, Regis, make for Sansretour, towards Toussaint’s borders. You won’t get lost, Gorgon will point the way. Goodbye.’

*

Ciri stroked the black cat, which had returned to the cottage in the swamp, as is customary with all cats in the world, when its love of freedom and dissolution had been undermined by cold, hunger and discomfort. Now it was lying in the girl’s lap and arching its back against her hand with a purr signifying profound bliss. The cat couldn’t have cared less about what the girl was saying.

‘It was the only time I dreamed of Geralt,’ Ciri began. ‘From the time we parted on the Isle of Thanedd, from the Tower of the Seagull, I’d never seen him in a dream. So I thought he was dead. And then suddenly came that dream, like the ones I used to have, dreams which Yennefer said were prophetic, precognitive; that they either show the past or the future. That was the day before the Equinox. In a small town whose name I don’t recall. In a cellar where Bonhart had locked me. After he’d flogged me and made me admit who I am.’

‘Did you divulge to him who you are?’ Vysogota raised his head. ‘Did you tell him everything?’

‘I paid for my cowardice,’ she swallowed, ‘with humiliation and self-contempt.’

‘Tell me about your dream.’

‘In it I saw a mountain; lofty, sheer, and sharp, like a stone knife. I saw Geralt. I heard what he was saying. Exactly. Every word, as though he were with me. I remember I wanted to call out and say it wasn’t like that at all, that none of it was true, that he’d made an awful mistake . . . That he’d got everything wrong! That it wasn’t the Equinox yet, so even if I happened to have died on the Equinox, he shouldn’t have declared me dead earlier, when I was still alive. And he shouldn’t have accused Yennefer or said such things about her . . . ’

She was silent for a time, stroking the cat and sniffing hard.

‘But I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t even breathe . . . As though I was drowning. And I awoke. The last thing I saw, that I recall from that dream, was three riders. Geralt and two others, galloping along a ravine, with water gushing from its walls . . .’

Vysogota said nothing.

*

Had someone crept up to the shack with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof after nightfall, had they peered through the gaps in the shutters, they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening raptly to a story told by an ashen-haired girl in the dimly lit interior, her cheek disfigured by a nasty scar.

They would have seen a black cat lying on the girl’s lap, purring lazily, demanding to be stroked – to the delight of the mice scampering around the room.

But no one could have seen it. For the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof was well hidden among the fog, in the boundless Pereplut Marshes, where no one dared to venture.

It is well known that when a witcher inflicts pain, suffering and death he experiences absolute ecstasy and bliss such as a devout and normal man only experiences during sexual congress with his wedded spouse, ibidem cum ejaculatio. This leads one to conclude that, also in this matter also, a witcher is a creature contrary to nature, an immoral and filthy degenerate, born of the blackest and most foul-smelling Hell, since surely only a devil could derive bliss from suffering and pain.

Anonymous, Monstrum, or a description of a witcher

CHAPTER SIX

They left the main track leading along the Nevi valley and took a short cut through the mountains. They rode as quickly as the track would allow. It was narrow and winding, hugging fantastically-shaped rocks covered in patches of colourful moss and lichen. They rode between vertical rocky cliffs, from which ragged ribbons of cascades and waterfalls tumbled. They rode through ravines and gorges, across small rickety bridges over precipices at the bottom of which streams seethed with white foam.

The angular blade of Gorgon seemed to rear up directly above their heads. The peak of Devil Mountain was not visible, but shrouded in the clouds and fog cloaking the sky. The weather – as happens in the mountains – worsened in the course of a few hours. It began to drizzle bitingly and disagreeably.

When dusk fell, the three of them nervously and impatiently looked around for a shepherd’s bothy, a tumbledown barn or even a cave. Anything that would protect them from the weather during the night.

*

‘I think it’s stopped raining,’ Angoulême said hopefully. ‘It’s only dripping from the holes in the roof now. Tomorrow, fortunately, we’ll be near Belhaven, and we can always sleep in a shed or a barn on the outskirts.’

‘Aren’t we entering the town?’

‘Out of the question. Mounted strangers on horses are conspicuous and Nightingale has plenty of informers in the town.’

‘We were thinking about using ourselves as bait—’

‘No,’ she interrupted. ‘That’s a rotten plan. The fact that we’re together will arouse suspicion. Nightingale’s a cunning bastard and news of my capture has certainly spread. And if anything alarms him, it’ll also reach the half-elf.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘We skirt around the town from the east, from the mouth of the Sansretour valley. There are ore mines there. I’ve a mate who works in one of them. We’ll visit him. Who knows, with a bit of luck the visit might prove profitable.’

‘Could you speak more plainly?’

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. In the mine. So as not to jinx it.’

Cahir threw some birch branches on the fire. It had been raining all day and no other fuel would have burned. But the birch, though wet, crackled a little and then flared up in a tall, blue flame.

‘Where are you from, Angoulême?’

‘From Cintra, Witcher. It’s a country by the sea, by the mouth of the Yaruga—’

‘I know where Cintra is.’

‘So why do you ask, if you know all that? Do I fascinate you so?’

‘A little, let’s say.’

They fell silent. The fire crackled on.

‘My mother,’ Angoulême finally said, staring into the flame, ‘was a Cintran noblewoman, from a high-ranking family, I believe. The family had a sea-cat in its coat of arms. I’d show it to you, I used to have a little medallion with that bloody sea-cat on it, from my mother, but I lost it at dice . . . That family, though – sod them and their sea-cat – disowned me, because my mother was said to have slept with some churl, a stableman, I believe, and so I was a bastard, a disgrace, an ignominious stain on their honour. They gave me away to be raised by distant relatives. Admittedly they didn’t have a cat, dog or any other fucker on their arms, but they weren’t bad to me. They sent me to school and generally didn’t beat me . . . Though they reminded me pretty often who I was. A bastard, conceived in the straw. My mother visited me maybe three or four times when I was small. Then she stopped. And to be honest, I didn’t give a shit . . . ’

‘How did you fall among criminals?’

‘You sound like an examining magistrate!’ she snorted, contorting her face grotesquely. ‘Among criminals, pshaw! Fallen from virtue, huh?’

She grunted, rummaged around in her bosom and took something out which the Witcher couldn’t see clearly.

‘One-eyed Fulko,’ she said indistinctly, rubbing something vigorously into her gum and inhaling, ‘isn’t a bad old fellow. He took what he took, but left the powder. Want a pinch, Witcher?’

‘No. I’d rather you didn’t take it either.’

‘Why?’

‘I just would.’

‘Cahir?’

‘I don’t use fisstech.’

‘Well, it’s clear I’ve landed up with a couple of goody-goodies.’ She shook her head. ‘You’ll probably start preaching that I’ll go blind, deaf and bald from this stuff, I suppose? And give birth to a crippled child?’

‘Leave it, Angoulême. And finish the story.’

The young woman sneezed loudly.

‘Very well, as you wish. Where was I . . . ? Aha. The war broke out, you know, with Nilfgaard. My relatives lost everything, had to abandon their house. They had three children of their own, and I’d become a burden to them, so they gave me away to an orphanage. It was run by the priests of some temple or other. It was a jolly place, as it happens. A bordello, a whorehouse, simple as that, for people who like their fruit tart and with white pips, get it? Young girls. And young boys too. So when I joined them I was too grown up, adult, there were no takers for me . . . ’

Quite unexpectedly she blushed with shame, visible even in the firelight.

‘Well, almost none,’ she added through clenched teeth.

‘How old were you then?’

‘Fifteen. I met one girl and five boys there, my age and a bit older. And we teamed up in no time. We knew, didn’t we, the legends and tales. About Mad Dea, about Blackbeard, about the Cassini brothers . . . We wanted to get out on the road, to taste freedom, to maraud! So what, we told ourselves, if they feed us twice a day? Does that give some lechers the right to screw us—’

‘Language, Angoulême! Keep it in moderation.’

The girl hawked noisily and spat into the campfire.

‘Prig! Very well, I’ll get to the point, because I don’t feel like talking. We found knives in the orphanage kitchen. We just had to whet them well on a stone and strop them on a belt. We made some excellent clubs from the turned legs of an oaken chair. All we needed was horses and coin, so we waited for two perverts, regular customers, old buggers of, ugh, at least forty. They came, sat down, sipped wine and waited for the priests to tie the chosen kid to a special contraption, as was customary . . . But they didn’t get their oats that day!’

‘Angoulême.’

‘All right, all right. In short: we knifed and clubbed to death those two lecherous creeps, three priests and a page; the only one not to bolt, he was guarding the horses. We roasted the temple warden’s soles until he changed his mind about giving us the key to the coffer, but we spared his life, because he was a nice old gaffer, always kind to us. And we took to the road to plunder. We had our ups and downs, won some, lost some, we gave and took some beatings. Full bellies, empty bellies. Ha, more often empty. I’ve eaten everything that crawls, anything you can fucking catch. And things that fly? I even ate a child’s kite once, because it was made of flour and water paste.’

She fell silent, then distractedly messed up her flaxen hair.

‘What’s past is past. I’ll just say this: no one who escaped with me from the orphanage is still alive. The last two, Owen and Abel, were dispatched a few days ago by Mr Fulko’s pikemen. Abel surrendered, like me, but they stuck him anyway, even though he’d thrown down his sword. They spared me. Don’t think it was out of the goodness of their hearts. They’d already spread-eagled me on a cloak, but an officer ran up and stopped their sport. And then you saved me from the scaffold . . . ’

She was silent for a time.

‘Witcher?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know how to express gratitude. So if you’d ever like to . . . ’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’ll go and look over the horses,’ Cahir said hurriedly and rose, wrapping himself in his cloak. ‘I’ll take a walk . . . around the place . . . ’

The girl sneezed, sniffed, and cleared her throat.

‘Not a word, Angoulême,’ Geralt warned her, genuinely angry, genuinely confused, genuinely embarrassed. ‘Not another word!’

She gave a slight cough again.

‘Do you really not want me? Not even a bit?’

‘You’ve already tasted Milva’s strap, little punk. If you’re not quiet this instant, you’ll get a second helping.’

‘I won’t say another thing.’

‘Good girl.’

*

Pits and holes – shored up and lined with planks, connected by footbridges, ladders and scaffolding – gaped in a hillside covered in misshapen and twisted pine trees. Catwalks supported by crisscrossed posts protruded from the holes. People were busily pushing carts and wheelbarrows along some of the catwalks. The contents of the carts and wheelbarrows – which at first sight seemed to be dirty, stony soil – were being tipped from the catwalks into a great quadrangular trough, or rather a complex of increasingly small troughs divided up by shutters. Water, supplied from a forested hillock along gutters supported on low trestles, gushed through them, and yet more channelled it away down towards a cliff.

Angoulême dismounted and indicated to Geralt and Cahir to do likewise. Leaving their mounts by a fence, they headed towards the buildings, wading through mud beside the leaking gutters and pipes.

‘It’s an iron ore washing plant,’ Angoulême said, pointing at the equipment. ‘The ore is carted out of those mineshafts, tipped into the troughs and rinsed with water from the stream. The ore settles on the sifter, and it’s taken from there. There are tons of mines and washing plants around Belhaven. And the ore is carted down the valley to Mag Turga, where there are bloomeries and forges, because there are more forests there and you need wood for smelting—’

‘Thanks for the lesson,’ Geralt cut her off sourly. ‘I’ve seen a few mines in my lifetime; I know what’s needed for smelting. Why have we come here?’

‘To have a chat with one of my mates. The foreman here. Follow me. Ah, I can see him! Over there, outside the joiner’s shop. Let’s go.’

‘You mean that dwarf?’

‘Yeah. He’s called Golan Drozdeck. As I said, he’s—’

‘The foreman here. You said. You didn’t say, though, what you want to chat with him about.’

‘Look at your boots.’

Geralt and Cahir obediently examined their footwear, which was covered in sludge of a strange, reddish hue.

‘The half-elf we’re seeking,’ Angoulême anticipated the question, ‘had the same crimson mud on his shoes when he was talking to Nightingale. Get it?’

‘I do now. And the dwarf?’

‘Don’t say a word to him. I’ll do the talking. He should take you for types that don’t talk, just cleave. Look tough.’

They didn’t have to make a special effort. Some of the miners who were watching quickly looked away, others froze with mouths open. The ones in their way hurriedly stood aside. Geralt guessed why. He and Cahir still had visible bruises, cuts and swellings – vivid tokens of their fight and the hiding Milva had given them. They looked like types who took pleasure from punching each other in the face, and wouldn’t need much persuasion to punch someone else.

The dwarf, Angoulême’s mate, was standing outside a building bearing the sign ‘joinery shop’ and painting something on a board made of two planed staves. He saw them coming, put down his brush and tin of paint and scowled. Then an expression of utter amazement suddenly appeared behind his paint-spattered beard.

‘Angoulême?’

‘What cheer, Drozdeck?’

‘Is it you?’ The dwarf’s hairy jaw fell open. ‘Is it really you?’

‘No. It isn’t. It’s the freshly resurrected prophet Lebioda. Ask me another, Golan. A more intelligent one, perhaps.’

‘Don’t mock, Flaxenhair. I never expected to see you again. Mulica were ’ere five days since, he says they nabbed you and stuck you on a stake in Riedbrune. He vowed it were true!’

‘Everything has its benefits,’ the girl shrugged. ‘Next time Mulica borrows some money and vows he’ll pay it back you’ll know what his vow’s worth.’

‘I knew that before,’ the dwarf replied, blinking quickly and twitching his nose like a rabbit. ‘I wouldn’t lend ‘im a broken farthing, even if he bent down and licked my boots. But you’re alive and kicking, I’m glad, I’m glad. Hey! Perhaps you’ll pay back your debt too, eh?’

‘P’raps. Who knows?’

‘And who’ve you got with you? Eh, Flaxenhair?’

‘Sound fellows.’

‘Righto, mates . . . And where are the gods leading you?’

‘Astray, as usual.’ Angoulême, unconcerned by the Witcher looking daggers at her, sniffed up a pinch of fisstech, rubbing the rest into her gum. ‘Fancy a snort, Golan?’

‘I should say.’ The dwarf took and inhaled a pinch of the narcotic.

‘Truth be told,’ the girl continued, ‘I’m thinking about going to Belhaven. You don’t know if Nightingale and his hanza are hanging around somewhere there?’

Golan Drozdeck cocked his head.

‘You, Flaxenhair, should stay out of Nightingale’s way. He’s as pissed off with you, they say, as a wolverine roused from his winter sleep.’

‘Blow that! And when the news reached him that I’d been spitted on a palisade by a two-horse team, didn’t his heart change? Didn’t he regret it? Didn’t he shed a tear, foul his beard with snot?’

‘Not at all. I heard he said: “Angoulême’s finally got what she had coming to her: a stake up the arse”.’

‘Oh, the boor. Vulgar, loutish chump. Prefect Fulko would call him the arse end of society. To me he’s what comes out of the arse!’

‘You’d be better off, Flaxenhair, saying things like that out of his earshot. And not hanging around Belhaven, give it a wide birth. And if you have to enter the town, better go in disguise—’

‘Hey, Golan, don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘Then listen, dwarf.’ Angoulême rested a boot on a step leading to the joinery shop. ‘I’ll ask you a question. Don’t hurry with the answer. Think it over well.’

‘Ask away.’

‘A half-elf hasn’t caught your eye recently, by any chance? A stranger, not from round here?’

Golan Drozdeck breathed in, sneezed loudly and wiped his nose on his wrist.

‘A half-elf you say? What half-elf?’

‘Don’t play the fool, Drozdeck. The one who hired Nightingale for a contract. A contract killing. Of a witcher . . . ’

‘A witcher?’ Golan Drozdeck laughed, picking his board up from the ground. ‘Well I never! Believe it or not, we’re looking for a witcher. Look, we’re painting signs and putting them up all around here. See: “Witcher wanted, decent pay, board and lodgings included. Particulars at the office of the Petite Babette ore mine”. How’s it spelt, anyway? “Particulars” or “putticulars”?’

‘Just paint it out and write “details”. What do you need a witcher at the mine for?’

‘Now she’s asking. Monsters, of course.’

‘Like what?’

‘Vespertyls and barbegazis. They’re running rampant in the lower galleries.’

Angoulême glanced at Geralt, who nodded to confirm he knew what that was about. And coughed meaningfully to signal that she ought to get back to the subject.

‘Getting back to the subject –’ the girl understood at once ‘– what do you know about that half-elf?’

‘I don’t know nothing about no ‘alf-elf.’

‘I told you to think it over well.’

‘So I did.’ Golan Drozdeck suddenly assumed a sly expression. ‘And I decided it doesn’t pay to know anything about this case.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning, it’s shaky here. The ground’s shaky and the times are shaky. Gangs, Nilfgaardians, partisans from the Free Slopes . . . And diverse foreign elements, half-elves. Each one raring to commit assault . . . ’

‘Meaning?’ Angoulême wrinkled her nose.

‘Meaning you owe me money, Flaxenhair. And rather than pay it back, you’re getting deeper into debt. Serious debt, because you might get a whack on the head for what you’re asking, and not with a bare hand, but an axe. What kind of business is that for me? Will it pay if I do know something about the half-elf, eh? Will I get anything out of it? For if it’s only risk and no profit—’

Geralt had had enough. The conversation was boring him, the jargon and the dwarf’s mannerisms annoying him. As quick as lightning he caught the dwarf by the beard, yanked down and pushed him over. Golan Drozdeck tripped over the can of paint and fell. The Witcher leaped on him, pressed his knee against his chest and flashed a knife in front of his eyes.

‘You may profit,’ he growled, ‘by escaping with your life. Talk.’

Golan’s eyes looked as though they would pop out of their sockets and go for a stroll.

‘Talk,’ Geralt repeated. ‘Tell us what you know. Otherwise, when I slash your throat open you’ll drown before you bleed to death.’

‘The Rialto . . . ’ the dwarf stammered. ‘The Rialto pit . . . ’

*

The Rialto mine didn’t differ very much from the Petite Babette mine, or from the other mines and quarries that Angoulême, Geralt and Cahir had passed on the way, which were called Autumn Manifest, Old Mine, New Mine, Juliet Mine, Celestine, Common Cause and Lucky Pit. Work was in full swing in all of them, soil and ore being carted out of every shaft and pit to be tipped onto a sluice and washed in the sifters. There was an abundance of the characteristic red mud in all of them.

Rialto was a large mine, located near the top of the hill. The crown had been sliced away and formed a quarry. The actual washing station was located on a terrace carved out of the hillside. Here, at the foot of a vertical wall – in which shafts and drifts gaped – was a sluice, sifters, gutters and other mining paraphernalia. There was also a veritable village of wooden huts, sheds, shacks and hovels covered in bark.

‘I don’t know anyone here,’ said the girl, tying her reins to the fence. ‘But let’s try and talk to the overseer. Geralt, if you could, maybe don’t seize him by the throat immediately or threaten him with a shiv. First we’ll talk—’

‘Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Angoulême.’

They didn’t get as far as talking. They didn’t even reach the building where they suspected the overseer had his office. They ran straight into five horsemen in the square where the ore was being loaded onto wagons.

‘Oh, shit,’ said Angoulême. ‘Oh, shit. Look what the cat dragged in.’

‘What’s up?’

‘They’re Nightingale’s men. Here to extort protection money . . . and they’ve recognised me . . . Dammit! Now we’re in the shit . . . ’

‘Can’t you lie our way out of it?’ Cahir muttered.

‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

‘Why?’

‘I skinned Nightingale when I escaped from the hanza. They won’t forgive me for that. But I’ll try . . . Be quiet. Keep your eyes open and stay alert. For anything.’

The horsemen rode up, with two of them at the head; a fellow with long, grizzly hair, wearing a wolfskin, and a young beanpole with a beard, clearly grown to cover acne scars. They feigned indifference, but Geralt noticed veiled flashes of hatred in the glances they were casting at Angoulême.

‘Flaxenhair.’

‘Novosad. Yirrel. Greetings. Nice out today. Pity about the rain.’

The grizzly-haired man dismounted, or rather leaped down from the saddle, briskly swinging his right leg over his horse’s head. The others also dismounted. Grizzled Hair handed his reins to Yirrel, the beanpole with the beard, and came closer.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Our big-mouthed little magpie. Looks like you’re alive and well?’

‘Alive and kicking.’

‘You brazen little upstart! There was a rumour you were kicking, but on a stake. Rumour has it One-Eyed Fulko caught you. Rumour has it you sang like a bird when you were tortured, told them everything they asked!’

‘Rumour has it,’ Angoulême snapped, ‘that your mother only charged her customers four shillings, but no one would give her more than two.’

The brigand spat at her feet contemptuously. Angoulême hissed again, just like a cat.

‘Listen, Novosad,’ she said insolently, arms akimbo. ‘I need to talk something over with Nightingale.’

‘Interesting. Likewise he with you.’

‘Shut your trap and listen, while I still feel like talking. Two days ago, a mile outside Riedbrune, me and these companions of mine slaughtered that witcher the contract’s out for. Get it?’

Novosad glanced knowingly at his comrades and then pulled up his sleeves, scrutinising Geralt and Cahir.

‘Your new companions,’ he drawled. ‘Ha, I see from their faces they’re no choirboys. They killed the witcher, you say? How? A stab in the back? Or in their dreams?’

‘That’s a minor putticular.’ Angoulême grimaced like a little monkey. ‘The major putticular is that the witcher is six feet under. Listen, Novosad. I don’t want to quarrel with Nightingale or get in his way. But a deal’s a deal. The half-elf gave you an advance on the contract, so I shan’t demand it, that’s your money, for costs and for your trouble. But the second instalment – which the half-elf promised after the job was done – that’s mine by right.’

‘By right?’

‘Yes!’ Angoulême ignored his sarcastic tone. ‘We carried out the contract and killed the witcher, proof of which we can show the half-elf. Then I’ll take what’s mine and head off into the sunset. I don’t mean to compete with Nightingale, because the Slopes aren’t big enough for the both of us. Tell him that, Novosad.’

‘Is that all?’ Stinging sarcasm again.

‘And a kiss,’ Angoulême snorted. ‘You can hold your arse out on my behalf, per procura.’

‘I’ve a better idea,’ Novosad declared, glancing at his companions. ‘I’ll drag your arse to him, Angoulême. I’ll deliver you to him in fetters, and then he’ll discuss and straighten everything out with you. And settle up. Everything. The question is who owns the money from the half-elf Schirrú’s contract. And your repayment for what you stole. And that the Slopes aren’t big enough for all of us. Everything will be sorted out the same way. In fine detail.’

‘There’s one snag.’ Angoulême lowered her hands. ‘How do you plan to take me to Nightingale, Novosad?’

‘Like this!’ The brigand held out a hand. ‘By the neck!’

Geralt’s sihill was out in a flash and under Novosad’s nose.

‘I advise against it,’ he snarled.

Novosad sprang back, drawing his sword. Yirrel drew a curved sabre with a hiss from the scabbard on his back. The others followed their example.

‘I still advise against it,’ the Witcher said.

Novosad swore. His eyes swept over his comrades. Arithmetic wasn’t his strong point, but he calculated that five was considerably more than three.

‘Get ’em!’ he yelled, lunging at Geralt. ‘Kill ’em!’

The Witcher evaded the blow with a half-turn and slashed him viciously across the temple. Even before Novosad had fallen, Angoulême ducked forward with a short jab, her knife whistled in the air and Yirrel reeled away, the bone handle jutting from beneath his chin. The brigand dropped his sabre and jerked the knife from his throat with both hands, spurting blood, but Angoulême sprang up to kick him in the chest and knocked him to the ground. Meanwhile, Geralt had struck another bandit. Cahir hacked the next one to death; something shaped like a slice of watermelon dropped from the robber’s skull after a powerful blow of his Nilfgaardian blade. The last thug fled and jumped onto his horse. Cahir tossed up his sword, seized it by the blade and hurled it like a javelin, striking the brigand right between the shoulder blades. The horse neighed and jerked its head, sat hard on its haunches and stamped its hooves, dragging the corpse over the red mud, its hand tangled up in the reins.

The whole thing took less than five heartbeats.

‘Heeey!’ yelled somebody from among the buildings. ‘Heeeelp! Heeeelp! Murder, vicious killers!’

‘Troops! Call out the troops!’ shouted another miner, shooing away children who – as is the immemorial custom of all the world’s children – had appeared from nowhere to watch and get in the way.

‘Someone run and call the army!’

Angoulême picked up her knife, wiped and sheathed it.

‘Let them run, by all means!’ she shouted back, looking around. ‘What is it, quarrymen, are you blind or what? That was self-defence! They fell on us, the bloody thugs! Don’t you know them? Haven’t they done you enough harm? Haven’t they extorted enough from you?’

She sneezed loudly. Then she tore the purse from the belt of the still twitching Novosad and leaned over Yirrel.

‘Angoulême.’

‘What?’

‘Leave it.’

‘Why should I? It’s spoils! Short of money?’

‘Angoulême . . . ’

‘You,’ a voice suddenly shouted. ‘This way, please.’

Three men stood in the open doorway to a barrack serving as the tool store. Two of them were heavies with low foreheads and closely-cropped hair, of undoubtedly limited intelligence. The third – the one who’d shouted to them – was a very tall, dark-haired, handsome man.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation preceding the incident,’ the man said. ‘I found it hard to believe you’d killed a witcher, thinking it empty bragging. I don’t think that now. Step inside.’

Angoulême drew an audible intake of breath. She glanced at the Witcher and nodded barely perceptibly.

The man was a half-elf.

*

The half-elf Schirrú was tall – well over six feet. He wore his dark hair tied on his neck in a ponytail falling down his back. His mixed blood was betrayed by his eyes, which were large, almond-shaped and yellowish-green, like a cat’s.

‘So you killed the Witcher,’ he said again, smiling repulsively. ‘Forestalling Homer Straggen, also called Nightingale? Fascinating, fascinating. Put simply, I ought to pay you fifty florins. The second instalment. Which means Straggen received his two score and ten florins for nothing. For you surely can’t suppose he’ll give it up.’

‘How I settle accounts with Nightingale is my business,’ said Angoulême, sitting on a crate and swinging her legs. ‘The contract on the Witcher was a one-off commission. And we carried out that commission. We did, not Nightingale. The Witcher’s in the ground. His company, all three of them, are in the ground. In other words: job done.’

‘At least that’s what you claim. How did it happen?’

Angoulême kept swinging her legs.

‘I’ll write my life story when I’m old,’ she declared in her usual impudent tone. ‘I’ll describe how this, that and the other took place. You’ll have to hold on until then, Mr Schirrú.’

‘It shames you that much, then,’ the half-breed remarked coldly. ‘So, you did the deed foully and treacherously.’

‘Does that bother you?’ Geralt asked.

Schirrú looked at him intently.

‘No,’ he answered after a moment. ‘Geralt the Witcher of Rivia didn’t deserve a better fate. He was a simpleton and a fool. If he’d had a finer, more honest and honourable death, legends would have sprung up around him. But he didn’t merit a legend.’

‘Death is always the same.’

‘Not always.’ The half-elf turned his head, trying to catch a glimpse of Geralt’s eyes, shaded by his hood. ‘Not always, I assure you. I presume you dealt the mortal blow.’

Geralt didn’t reply. He felt the overwhelming urge to grab the cross-breed by the ponytail, knock him to the floor and wring every detail out of him, knocking his teeth out one by one with his sword pommel. He held himself back. Good sense suggested Angoulême’s hoax might bear better results.

‘As you wish,’ said Schirrú, not getting an answer. ‘I won’t insist on a report about the course of events. It’s clearly difficult for you to talk about it, and there’s clearly not very much to boast about. Supposing, of course, that your silence doesn’t stem from something quite different . . . For example, that nothing at all occurred. Do you perhaps have any proof of the veracity of your words?’

‘We cut off the Witcher’s right hand,’ Angoulême replied impassively. ‘But later a raccoon took it and devoured it.’

‘So we have only this.’ Geralt slowly unbuttoned his shirt and drew out his medallion with the wolf’s head. ‘The Witcher wore it around his neck.’

‘May I?’

Geralt didn’t hesitate for long. The half-elf hefted the medallion in his palm.

‘Now I believe,’ he said slowly. ‘The gewgaw emanates powerful magic. Only a witcher could have had something like this.’

‘And a witcher,’ Angoulême continued, ‘wouldn’t have let it be taken from him while he was still breathing. It’s rock-solid evidence. So slap the cash on the table, mester.’

Schirrú carefully put the medallion away, took a wad of papers from his bosom, put them down on the table and spread them out with a hand.

‘Over here, please.’

Angoulême hopped off the crate and walked over, mocking him and swinging her hips. She leaned over the table. As quick as a flash, Schirrú grabbed her hair, slammed her down on the table and shoved a knife to her throat. The girl didn’t even have time to cry out.

Geralt and Cahir already had their swords in their hands. But it was too late.

The half-elf’s assistants – the musclemen with low foreheads – were holding iron hooks. But they were in no hurry to come closer.

‘Drop your swords,’ Schirrú snarled. ‘Both of you; swords on the floor. Or I’ll widen the slut’s smile.’

‘Don’t listen—’ Angoulême began – and ended with a shriek as the half-elf ground his fist into her hair. And scored her skin with a dagger; a glistening red wavy line trickled down the girl’s neck.

‘Swords on the ground! I’m serious!’

‘Perhaps we could talk this out?’ Geralt, heedless of the rage seething inside him, decided to stall for time. ‘Like civilised folk?’

The half-elf laughed venomously.

‘Talk it out? With you, Witcher? I was sent here to finish you off, not talk. Yes, yes, freak. You were lying, putting on a song and dance, but I recognised you the moment I saw you. You’d been described precisely to me. Can you guess who described you so precisely? Who gave me precise instructions about where and in what company I’d find you? Oh, I’m certain you’ve guessed.’

‘Release the girl.’

‘But I don’t just know you from the description,’ Schirrú continued, with no intention of releasing Angoulême. ‘I’ve seen you before. I even tracked you once. In Temeria. In July. I followed you on horseback to the town of Dorian and to the chambers of the jurists Codringher and Fenn. Ring any bells?’

Geralt twisted his sword so that the blade flashed in the half-elf’s eyes.

‘I wonder,’ he said icily, ‘how you mean to get out of this stalemate, Schirrú? I see two solutions. The first: you let go of the girl right away. The second: you kill the girl . . . And a second later your blood paints the walls and ceiling a pretty red.’

‘Your weapons,’ Schirrú brutally yanked Angoulême’s hair, ‘will be lying on the ground before I count to three. Then I start butchering the slut.’

‘We’ll see how much you manage to cut off. Not much, I reckon.’

‘One!’

‘Two!’ Geralt had begun his own reckoning, whirling the sihill in a hissing moulinet.

The thudding of hooves, the neighing and snorting of horses and yelling reached them from outside.

‘And what now?’ Schirrú laughed. ‘That’s what I was waiting for. It’s not stalemate but checkmate! My friends have arrived.’

‘Really?’ said Cahir, looking through the window. ‘I see the uniforms of the imperial light horse.’

‘Checkmate indeed, but against you,’ said Geralt. ‘You lose, Schirrú. Release the girl.’

‘Like hell.’

The barrack doors yielded to kicks and about a dozen men entered, most of them in identical black uniforms. They were led by a fair-haired, bearded man with a silver bear on his spaulder.

‘Que aen suecc’s?’ he asked menacingly. ‘What’s going on here? Who answers for this brawl? For the bodies in the yard? Speak up this minute!’

‘Commander—’

‘Glaeddyvan vort! Drop your swords!’

They obeyed, for crossbows and arbalests were being aimed at them. Released by Schirrú, Angoulême meant to spring up from the table, but suddenly found herself in the grasp of a stocky, colourfully dressed bruiser with bulging frog eyes. She tried to cry out, but the bruiser clamped a gloved fist over her mouth.

‘Let’s abstain from violence,’ Geralt suggested coolly to the commander with the bear. ‘We aren’t criminals.’

‘Well I never.’

‘We’re acting with the knowledge and permission of Mr Fulko Artevelde, the Prefect of Riedbrune.’

‘Well I never,’ repeated the Bear, signalling for Geralt and Cahir’s swords to be picked up and confiscated. ‘With the knowledge and permission. Of Mr Fulko Artevelde. The esteemed Mr Artevelde. Hear that, lads?’

His men – those dressed in the black and colourful clothes – cackled in unison.

Angoulême struggled in the grip of Frog-Eyes, vainly trying to scream. Needlessly. Geralt already knew. Even before the smiling Schirrú began to shake the hand proffered to him. Even before the four black-uniformed Nilfgaardians seized Cahir and three others aimed their crossbows straight at his face.

Frog-Eyes pushed Angoulême into the arms of his comrades. The girl sagged in their grasp like a ragdoll. She didn’t even try to offer any resistance.

The Bear walked slowly over to Geralt and suddenly slammed him in the crotch with his armoured-gloved fist. Geralt bent over but didn’t fall. Cold fury kept him on his feet.

‘Then the news that you aren’t the first asses to be used by One-Eyed Fulko for his own purposes may console you.’ said the Bear, ‘Profitable business deals – like the one I’m carrying out here with Mr Homer Straggen, known by some as “Nightingale” – are a thorn in his side. It pisses Fulko off that I’ve recruited Homer Straggen into the imperial service and appointed him commander of the volunteer mines defence company to expedite those deals. Unable, thus, to avenge himself officially, he hires a variety of rogues.’

‘And witchers,’ a smiling Schirrú interjected scathingly.

‘Outside,’ said the Bear loudly, ‘five bodies are getting soaked in the rain. You murdered men in the Imperial service! You disrupted the work of this mine! I have no doubt about it: you’re spies, saboteurs and terrorists. Martial Law applies here. I hereby summarily sentence you to death.’

Frog-Eyes cackled. He walked over to Angoulême, who was being held up by the bandits, grasped one of her breasts, and squeezed it hard.

‘Well then, Flaxenhair?’ he croaked, and it transpired that his voice was more froglike than his eyes. His bandit soubriquet – assuming he’d christened himself with it – showed a sense of humour. But if it was an alias intended to disguise it was extremely effective.

‘We meet again, then!’ the froglike Nightingale croaked, pinching Angoulême in the breast. ‘Happy?’

The girl groaned in pain.

‘Where are the pearls and stones you stole from me, you whore?’

‘One-Eyed Fulko took them for safe keeping!’ Angoulême yelled, ineffectually pretending that she wasn’t afraid. ‘Go and claim them back!’

Nightingale croaked and goggled his eyes – now he looked like a genuine frog, which any moment would start catching flies with its tongue. He pinched Angoulême even harder. She struggled and groaned even more pathetically. Through the red fog of fury covering Geralt’s eyes the girl had once again begun to resemble Ciri.

‘Take them,’ the Bear ordered impatiently. ‘To the yard with them.’

‘He’s a witcher,’ said one of the bandits from Nightingale’s mines defence company, hesitantly. ‘He’s a hard case! How can we take him with our bare hands? He’s liable to cast a charm on us, or summat else . . . ’

‘No fear.’ A smiling Schirrú patted his pocket. ‘Without his witcher’s amulet he’s unable to work magic, and I have it. Take him.’

*

There were more armed Nilfgaardians in black cloaks in the yard, and more of Nightingale’s colourful hassa. A clutch of miners had also gathered. The ubiquitous children and dogs were also milling around.

Nightingale suddenly lost control of himself, quite as though a devil had possessed him. Croaking furiously, he punched Angoulême, and when she fell, kicked her repeatedly. Geralt strained in the grip of the bandits and was hit on the back of the neck with something hard for his pains.

‘They said,’ croaked Nightingale, hopping over Angoulême like a frantic toad, ‘that you’d had a stake shoved up your backside in Riedbrune, you little strumpet! You were destined for the stake then and you’ll expire on the stake today! Boys, find a post and sharpen it to a spike. Look lively!’

‘Mr Straggen.’ The Bear grimaced. ‘I see no reason to indulge in such a time-consuming and bestial execution. The prisoners ought simply to be hanged . . . ’

He fell silent under the evil gaze of the froglike eyes.

‘Be quiet, captain,’ croaked the bandit. ‘I pay you too much for you to make improper remarks. I promised Angoulême a foul death and now I’m going to deliver it. Hang those two if you must. I’m not bothered about them—’

‘But I am,’ Schirrú interrupted. ‘I need them both. Especially the Witcher. Especially him. And since skewering the girl will take some time, I shall make use of it.’

He walked over and fixed his feline eyes on Geralt.

‘You ought to know, freak,’ he said, ‘that it was I that dispatched your comrade, Codringher, in Dorian. I did it on the orders of my lord, Master Vilgefortz, whom I’ve served for many years. But I did it with immense pleasure.

‘The old rogue Codringher,’ the half-elf continued, without getting a reaction, ‘had the audacity to stick his nose into Master Vilgefortz’s affairs. I gutted him with a knife. And I torched that loathsome monstrosity Fenn among his papers and roasted him alive. I could have simply stabbed him, but I devoted a little time and effort to listen to his howling and squealing. And howl and squeal he did, I swear, like a stuck piglet. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, human in that howling.

‘Do you know why I’m telling you all this? Because I could also simply knife you or order you stabbed to death. But I shall put in a little time and effort. And listen as you howl. You said death is always the same? You’ll soon see it isn’t. Hey boys, heat up some pitch in a tar kettle. And fetch a chain.’

Something smashed against the corner of the barracks and exploded with a red flash and a frightful crash. A second vessel containing petroleum – Geralt recognised it by the smell – landed plumb in the tar kettle, and a third shattered just beside the men restraining the horses. It boomed and belched fire and the horses fell into a frenzy. There was a turmoil and from it rushed a howling dog in flames. One of Nightingale’s bandits suddenly spread his arms and keeled over in the mud with an arrow in his back.

‘Long live the Free Slopes!’

Figures in grey mantles and fur hats loomed at the top of the hill, on the scaffoldings and the catwalks. More missiles, trailing wakes of flames and smoke behind them like fireworks fell onto the people, horses and mine buildings. Two flew into the workshop; onto the floor strewn with shavings and sawdust.

‘Long live the Free Slopes! Death to the Nilfgaardian invaders!’

Arrow fletchings and crossbow bolts sang.

One of the black-uniformed Nilfgaardians tumbled down under his horse, one of Nightingale’s bandits fell with his throat pierced, and one of the close-cropped musclemen dropped with a bolt in his nape. The Bear sprawled with a ghastly groan. An arrow had hit him in the chest, under the sternum, beneath the gorget. The arrow had been stolen – though no one could have known that – from a military convoy and was standard issue of the imperial army, slightly adapted. The wide, two-bladed arrowhead had been filed in several places with the aim of fragmentation.

The arrowhead fragmented beautifully in the Bear’s guts.

‘Down with the tyrant Emhyr! The Free Slopes!’

Nightingale croaked, grabbing his arm, grazed by a bolt.

One of the children rolled over in the mud, pierced through by an arrow from one of the less accurate freedom fighters. One of the men holding Geralt dropped. One of the men holding Angoulême fell over. The girl wrested herself free of the second, drew a knife from her boot in an instant, swung hard and slashed. In her frenzy she missed Nightingale’s throat, but mutilated his cheek splendidly, almost down to the teeth. Nightingale croaked more gratingly than usual, and his eyes bulged more bulgingly. He slumped to his knees, blood spurting between hands clutching his face. Angoulême gave an unearthly scream and leaped forward to finish the job, but couldn’t, for another bomb exploded between her and Nightingale, belching fire and clouds of foul-smelling smoke.

Fire roared all around and a fiery pandemonium raged. Horses thrashed, whinnied and kicked. The bandits and Nilfgaardians yelled. The miners ran in a panic – some fled and others tried to put out the blazing buildings.

Geralt had managed to pick up his sihill, which the Bear had released. He jabbed it into the forehead of a tall woman in a chain mail vest, who was aiming a blow at Angoulême with a morning star as she rose to her feet. He sliced open the thigh of a black-uniformed Nilfgaardian running at him with a half-pike. He then slashed the throat of the next one who simply happened to be in the way.

Right alongside him, a frantic, scorched horse rushing blindly knocked over and trampled another child.

‘Seize the horse! Seize the horse!’ Cahir was now right beside him, and created room for them both with great swings of his sword. Geralt wasn’t listening or looking. He slew another Nilfgaardian. He looked around for Schirrú. Angoulême, on bended knee, shot a crossbow she’d picked up, sending the bolt – at a distance of three paces – into the belly of a bandit from the mines defence company who was coming for her. Then she sprang to her feet and hung onto the bridle of a horse running by.

‘Grab one of them, Geralt!’ Cahir yelled. ‘And ride!’

The Witcher slit open another Nilfgaardian from breastbone to hip with a downward stroke. He shook blood from his eyebrows and eyelashes with a sharp jerk of his head. ‘Schirrú! Where are you, you bastard?’

A stroke. A cry. Warm drops on his face.

‘Mercy!’ howled a lad in a black uniform, kneeling in the mud. The Witcher hesitated.

‘Wake up!’ yelled Cahir, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him hard. ‘Control yourself! Are you in a frenzy?’

Angoulême was returning at a gallop, dragging another horse by the reins. She was being followed by two riders. One of them fell – hit by the arrow of a fighter for the freedom of the Slopes. The other was hurled from the saddle by Cahir’s sword.

Geralt leaped into the saddle. And then he saw Schirrú in the light of the blaze, summoning the panicked Nilfgaardians to himself. Beside the half-elf, Nightingale, croaking and bawling out curses with his bloody maw, looked like a veritable cannibal troll.

Geralt roared furiously, reined his horse around and whirled his sword.

Beside him, Cahir shouted and swore, wobbling in the saddle, blood from his forehead pouring over his eyes and face.

‘Geralt! Help me!’

Schirrú had gathered a group around him, and was yelling and ordering them to shoot their crossbows. Geralt slapped his horse on the rump with the flat of his sword, ready for a suicidal charge. Schirrú had to die. Nothing else meant anything. Or mattered. Cahir meant nothing. Angoulême meant nothing . . .

‘Geralt!’ Angoulême yelled. ‘Help Cahir!’

He came to his senses. And was ashamed.

Geralt held Cahir up, supported him. Cahir wiped his eyes with a sleeve, and the blood instantly poured over them again.

‘It’s nothing – a scratch . . . ’ His voice shook. ‘Ride, Witcher . . . follow Angoulême . . . Ride!’

From the foot of the mountain came a great cry and a crowd armed with picks, crowbars and axes came rushing out. For miners from the neighbouring mines of Common Cause and Lucky Pit were hurrying to help their mates and comrades from the Rialto colliery. Or from some other. Who could possibly know?

Geralt kicked his horse with his heels. They rode at a gallop, recklessly, ventre à terre.

*

They pounded on, not looking back, hugging their horses’ necks. Angoulême had landed the best horse, a small but fleet and sturdy bandit steed. Geralt’s horse, a bay with Nilfgaardian trappings, was beginning to snort and wheeze and was having difficulty holding its head up. Cahir’s horse, also an army beast, was stronger and tougher, but what of that when its rider was causing problems, swaying in the saddle, mechanically clenching with his thighs and bleeding profusely onto his mount’s mane and neck.

But they galloped on.

Angoulême, who had pulled ahead, was waiting for them on a bend, in a place where the road went downhill, winding amongst rocks.

‘Our pursuers . . . ’ she panted, smearing dirt on her face, ‘will come after us, they won’t give up . . . The miners saw which way we fled. We oughtn’t to stay on the highway . . . We have to head into the forests, get off the road . . . Lose them . . .’

‘No,’ the Witcher protested, anxiously listening to the sounds coming from the horse’s lungs. ‘We must stay on the highway . . . Take the straightest and shortest route to Sansretour.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s no time to talk. Let’s ride! Squeeze what you can from the horses . . . ’

They galloped on. The Witcher’s bay wheezed.

*

The bay wasn’t fit to ride any further. It was barely walking, legs as stiff as boards, panting hard, the air escaping from it in a hoarse wheezing. It finally fell over on its side, kicked stiffly, looked at its rider; and there was reproach in its cloudy eye.

Cahir’s horse was in somewhat better shape, but Cahir’s condition was worse. He simply fell from the saddle, raised himself, but only onto his hands and knees, and retched spasmodically, though his stomach was empty.

When Geralt and Angoulême tried to touch his bloodied head he screamed.

‘Dammit,’ said the girl. ‘It’s quite a haircut they’ve given him.’

The skin of the young Nilfgaardian’s forehead and temple, along with the hair, was detached from the skull along a considerable length. Were it not for the fact that the blood had formed a sticky clot, the loose patch would probably have fallen off all the way to his ear. It was a gruesome sight.

‘How did that happen?’

‘They threw a hatchet right at him. To make it even funnier, it wasn’t a Nilfgaardian, nor any of Nightingale’s men, but one of the quarrymen.’

‘Doesn’t matter who threw it.’ The Witcher bound Cahir’s head tightly with a torn-off shirtsleeve. ‘It matters, luckily, that he was a poor shot, and he just scalped him, rather than smashing his skull in. But Cahir took a hefty whack in the pate. And the brain felt it too. He won’t stay upright in the saddle, even if the horse could bear his weight.’

‘What shall we do then? Your horse has died, his is almost dead, and the sweat’s dropping off mine . . . And they’re on our trail. We can’t stay here . . . ’

‘We have to stay here. Me and Cahir. And Cahir’s horse. You ride on. Hard. Your horse is strong, it can withstand a gallop. And even were you to exhaust it . . . Angoulême, somewhere in Sansretour valley Regis, Milva and Dandelion are waiting for us. They don’t know anything of this and may fall into Schirrú’s clutches. You have to find them and warn them, and then all four of you must ride as fast as you can to Toussaint. You won’t be followed there. I hope.’

‘What about you and Cahir?’ Angoulême bit her lip. ‘What will happen to you? Nightingale isn’t stupid. When he sees a half-dead riderless horse he’ll rake over every hollow in the region! And you won’t get far with Cahir!’

‘Schirrú – for he’s the one pursuing us – will follow your trail.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I’m certain. Go.’

‘What will aunty say when I show up without you?’

‘You’ll explain. But not to Milva; to Regis. Regis will know what’s to be done. And we . . . When Cahir’s mop dries a bit harder onto his pate, we’ll make for Toussaint. We’ll meet up there somehow. Very well, don’t dally. Get on your horse and ride. Don’t let our pursuers get any closer. Don’t let them hunt you by sight.’

‘Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Look after yourselves! Farewell!’

‘Farewell, Angoulême.’

*

He didn’t move too far from the road. He couldn’t deny himself a glance at their pursuers. And in fact he didn’t fear any trouble from them, knowing they wouldn’t waste time and would pursue Angoulême.

He wasn’t mistaken.

The riders who thundered into the pass less than a quarter of an hour later stopped, admittedly, at the sight of the dead horse, shouted, argued, trotted around the roadside bushes, but returned almost at once to the road to resume their pursuit. They clearly believed that two of the three fugitives were now riding one horse and it would be possible to catch them quickly if they didn’t dawdle. Geralt saw that some of the pursuing horses weren’t in the best of shape either.

There weren’t too many black cloaks of the Nilfgaardian light horse among them. Nightingale’s colourful brigands predominated. Geralt couldn’t see if Nightingale himself was taking part in the hunt, or if he’d stayed behind to treat his mutilated face.

When the hoof beats of the vanishing pursuers had faded away, Geralt stood up from his hiding place in the bracken, lifted and held up the moaning and groaning Cahir.

‘The horse is too feeble to bear you. Will you be able to walk?’

The Nilfgaardian made a noise which might as easily have been agreement or disagreement. Or something else. But he shuffled forward, and that was the main idea.

They went down to the stream bed in the ravine. Cahir negotiated the final few yards of the slippery slope in a rather chaotic descent. He crawled to the stream, drank, and poured the icy water copiously over the bandage on his head. The Witcher didn’t hurry him. He was breathing heavily himself, gathering his strength.

He walked upstream, supporting Cahir and pulling the horse at the same time, wading in the water and stumbling on pebbles and fallen tree trunks. After some time Cahir stopped cooperating, stopped shuffling his legs obediently – in fact he stopped moving them at all, so the Witcher simply dragged him. It was impossible to continue like that, particularly since the stream bed was obstructed by rocks and waterfalls. Geralt grunted and lifted the wounded man onto his back. Neither did pulling the horse make life any easier. When they finally emerged from the ravine, the Witcher simply collapsed on the wet forest floor and lay, panting, completely drained, beside the groaning Cahir. He lay there for a long time. His knee had begun to throb again with intense pain.

Cahir finally started to show signs of life once more, and soon after – astonishingly – got up, swearing and holding his head. They set off. Cahir marched bravely at first. Then slowed. Then slumped down.

Geralt heaved him onto his back again and lugged him, grunting, slipping over the stones. Pain shot through his knee, and fiery, black bees seemed to flash in front of his eyes.

‘Just a month ago . . .’ Cahir moaned from his back. ‘Who’d have thought you’d be lugging me like this . . .’

‘Quiet, Nilfgaardian . . . You’re heavier when you talk . . .’

When they finally made it to the rocks and the rock walls, it was almost dark. The Witcher didn’t look for or find a cave – he fell exhausted by the first opening he came across.

*

Human skulls, ribs, pelvises and other bones were strewn around on the cave floor. But – more importantly – there were also dry branches there.

Cahir was feverish, trembling and shivering. He endured the sewing of the patch of skin to his skull using twine and a crooked needle manfully and fully conscious, with his faculties intact. The crisis came later, during the night. Geralt lit a fire in the cave, disregarding safety considerations. Actually, outside it was drizzling and a strong wind was blowing, so it was unlikely that anybody was wandering around watching out for the glare of a fire. And he had to keep Cahir warm.

The fever lasted the entire night. He trembled, moaned and raved. Geralt enjoyed no sleep – he kept the fire burning. And his knee hurt like hell.

*

A young and sturdy fellow, Cahir came around the following morning. He was pale and sweaty, and the heat of his fever could still be felt. His chattering teeth somewhat complicated articulation. But what he said was comprehensible. And he spoke lucidly. He was complaining of a headache – a fairly normal symptom for someone whose scalp has been torn from their head by an axe.

Geralt divided his time between anxiously catnapping and catching rainwater dripping from the rocks in beakers he had fashioned from birch bark. Thirst was tormenting both him and Cahir.

*

‘Geralt?

‘Yes?’

Cahir tidied up the wood in the fire using a femur he’d found.

‘When we were fighting in the mine . . . I was scared.’

‘I know.’

‘For a moment it looked as though you’d gone berserk. That nothing mattered to you any longer . . . Aside from killing . . .’

‘I know.’

‘I was afraid,’ he calmly finished, ‘that you’d butcher Schirrú to death in your frenzy. And we wouldn’t get any information out of a dead man, would we?’

Geralt cleared his throat. He was growing to like the young Nilfgaardian more and more. He was not only brave, but smart too.

‘You did right, sending Angoulême away,’ Cahir continued, his teeth chattering only slightly. ‘It isn’t for girls . . . Not even for girls like her. We’ll sort it out, the two of us. We’ll ride down our pursuers. But not in order to slaughter them in a berserker frenzy. What you said about revenge that time . . . Geralt, even in vengeance there must be some method. We’ll catch up with that half-elf . . . And force him to tell us where Ciri is . . .’

‘Ciri’s dead.’

‘Not true. I don’t believe she’s dead . . . And you don’t either. Admit it.’

‘I don’t want to believe it.’

A gale was whistling outside and the rain was whispering. It was cosy in the cave.

‘Geralt?

‘Yes.’

‘Ciri’s alive. I’ve had dreams again . . . Yes, something happened at the Equinox, something dreadful . . . Yes, without doubt, I felt and saw it . . . But she’s alive . . . She’s definitely alive. Let’s hurry . . . But not to avenge and murder. To find her.’

‘Yes. Yes, Cahir. You’re right.’

‘And you? Don’t you have dreams now?’

‘I do,’ he said bitterly. ‘But seldom since we crossed the Yaruga. And I remember nothing after waking. Something has ended in me, Cahir. Something has burned out. Something has ruptured in me . . .’

‘Never mind, Geralt. I shall dream for both of us.’

*

They set off at dawn. It had stopped raining. It even seemed that the sun was trying to find a hole in the greyness enveloping the sky.

They rode slowly, on the single horse with the Nilfgaardian military trappings.

The horse trudged over the pebbles, moving at a walk along the bank of the Sansretour, the small river leading to Toussaint. Geralt knew the way. He had been there once. A long, long time ago; much had changed since then. But the valley had not changed, and neither had the Sansretour stream, which, the further they went, become more and more the River Sansretour. Neither the Amell Mountains, nor the obelisk of the Gorgon, Devil Mountain, had changed.

There were certain things that simply didn’t change.

*

‘A soldier doesn’t question his orders,’ said Cahir, feeling the dressing on his head. ‘Doesn’t analyse them, doesn’t ponder over them, doesn’t wait for them to be explained to him. That’s the first thing they teach a soldier where I come from. So you can understand that not for a second did I ever question an order which was issued to me. The thought of why I had to capture a Cintran princess didn’t even cross my mind. An order’s an order. I was cross, naturally, because I wanted to taste fame, fighting against the knighthood, against the regular army . . . But working for the intelligence service is also treated as an honour where I come from. If it had only concerned a more taxing task, a more important prisoner . . . But a girl?’

Geralt threw a trout’s spine onto the fire. Before nightfall they had caught enough fish in a stream flowing into the Sansretour to eat their fill. The trout were spawning and easy to catch.

He listened to Cahir’s account, and the curiosity in him struggled with a feeling of profound hurt.

‘It was essentially chance,’ Cahir went on, gazing into the flames. ‘Pure chance. There was – as I found out later – a spy at the Cintran court, a valet. When we’d captured the city and were preparing to encircle the castle the spy stole out and gave a sign that he would try to get the princess out of the city. Several squads like mine were formed. By accident, it was my group the men spiriting Ciri away ran into.

‘A chase through the streets began, in quarter that was already on fire. It was sheer hell. Nothing but the roar of flames, walls of fire. The horses didn’t want to go there, and the men, what can I say, were in no hurry to urge them. My subordinates – there were four of them – began to claim I’d gone mad, that I was leading them to their doom . . . I barely managed to wrest back control . . .

‘We pursued them through that fiery bedlam and caught up with them. We suddenly had them before us: five mounted Cintrans. And a bloody fight began, before I could tell them to watch out for the girl. Who ended up on the ground at once anyway, as the man who was carrying her perished first. One of my men lifted her up and onto his horse, but he didn’t get far, for one of the Cintrans stabbed him through the back. I saw the blade pass an inch from Ciri’s head and she fell in the mud again. She was dazed with fear; I saw her cuddling up to the dead man, saw her trying to crawl under him . . . Like a kitten by its dead mother . . .’

He fell silent and swallowed audibly.

‘She didn’t even know she was cuddling up to the enemy. To a hated Nilfgaardian.’

‘We ended up alone, she and I,’ he continued a moment later, ‘and all around us corpses and fire. Ciri was grovelling in a puddle, and the water and blood were beginning to steam. A house collapsed, and I could see very little through the sparks and smoke. The horse wouldn’t go any closer. I called to her, appealed to her to come to me. My voice had almost gone, trying to outshout the conflagration. She saw and heard me but didn’t react. The horse wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t control it. I had to dismount. There was no way I could lift her with one arm, and I had to hold the reins with the other; the horse was struggling so much it almost threw me. When I lifted her she began to scream. Then she tensed up and fainted. I wrapped her in my cloak which I had wetted in a puddle; in mud, muck and blood. And we rode on. Straight through the fire.

‘I don’t know by what miracle we managed to get out of there. But a breach in the wall suddenly appeared and we were by the river. Unluckily, it turned out, for it was the spot the fleeing Nordlings had chosen. I discarded my officer’s helmet, for they would have recognised me right away by it, even though the wings had burned off. The rest of my clothing was so blackened it couldn’t have betrayed me. But had the girl been conscious, had she screamed, they would have put me to the sword. I was lucky.

‘I rode a few furlongs with them, and then fell back and hid in the bushes by a river bearing dead bodies.’

He fell silent, coughed slightly, and felt his bandaged head with both hands. And blushed. Or was it merely the glare of the flames?

‘Ciri was so dirty. I had to undress her . . . She didn’t resist, didn’t scream. She just trembled, eyes closed. Each time I touched her to clean her or dry her, she tensed and stiffened . . . I know, I ought to have spoken to her, calmed her . . . But suddenly I couldn’t find the words in your language . . . In my mother’s language, which I’ve known from a child. Unable to find the words, I tried to calm her by touch, by gentleness . . . But she stiffened and whimpered . . . Like a baby . . .’

‘That haunted her in her nightmares,’ Geralt whispered.

‘I know. Mine too.’

‘What then?’

‘She fell asleep. So did I. From fatigue. When I woke she wasn’t beside me. She was nowhere to be seen. I don’t recall the rest. Those who found me claimed I was running around in circles howling like a wolf. They had to tie me up. When I’d calmed down, I was taken in hand by intelligence agents, Vattier de Rideaux’s subordinates. They wanted to know about Cirilla. Where she was, where she fled to, how she gave me the slip, why I let her escape. And again, from the beginning: where was she, where had she fled to . . . ? Infuriated, I yelled something about the emperor hunting a little girl like a sparrowhawk. For that I spent a year locked up in the citadel. But then I was back in grace, for I was needed. On Thanedd, they needed someone who spoke the Common Speech and knew what Ciri looked like. The emperor wanted me to go to Thanedd . . . And not to fail this time. But bring him Ciri.’

He was silent for a time.

‘Emhyr gave me a chance. I could have refused. It would have meant absolute, total, perpetual disfavour and oblivion, but I could have declined if I’d wanted. But I didn’t decline. For you see, Geralt . . . I couldn’t forget her.

‘I won’t lie to you. I saw her constantly in my dreams. And not as the skinny child she was by the river, when I undressed and washed her. I saw her . . . and I still see her . . . as a woman; comely, aware, provocative . . . With such details as a crimson rose tattooed on her groin . . . ’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know myself . . . But that’s how it has been and is yet. I see her in my dreams, just as I saw her in my dreams back then . . . That is why I volunteered for the mission to Thanedd. That’s why I wanted to join you afterwards. I . . . I want to see her . . . again. I want to touch her hair again, look into her eyes . . . I want to gaze on her. Kill me if you will. But I won’t pretend any longer. I think . . . I think I love her. Please don’t laugh.’

‘I don’t feel like laughing.’

‘So that’s why I’m riding with you. Do you understand?’

‘Do you want her for yourself or for your emperor?’

‘I’m a realist,’ he whispered. ‘I mean, she won’t want me. But as the emperor’s spouse I could at least see her.’

‘As a realist,’ the Witcher snapped, ‘you should remember we have to find and rescue her first. Assuming your dreams aren’t lying and Ciri is really still alive.’

‘I’m aware of that. And should we find her? What then?’

‘We shall see. We shall see, Cahir.’

‘Don’t deceive me. Be frank. You won’t let me take her, will you?’

He didn’t reply. Cahir didn’t repeat the question.

‘Until then,’ he asked coolly, ‘may we be comrades?’

‘We may, Cahir. I apologise again for back there. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never seriously suspected you of treachery or duplicity.’

‘I’m not a traitor. I’ll never betray you, Witcher.’

*

They rode along a deep gorge, which the swift-flowing and wide Sansretour – now a river – had carved out of the hills. They rode east towards the border of the Duchy of Toussaint. Gorgon, Devil Mountain, rose above them. To look at the summit they would have had to crane their necks.

But they didn’t.

*

First they smelled smoke, then a moment later beheld a campfire, with spits over it and filleted trout roasting on them. They then beheld a solitary individual sitting beside the fire.

Not long before, Geralt would have mocked, mercilessly ridiculed and thought a complete idiot anyone who would have dared claim that he – a witcher – would feel great joy at the sight of a vampire.

‘Oho,’ Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy said placidly, adjusting the spits. ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’

The Knocker, likewise called a knacker, coblynau, bucca, polterduk, karkorios, rübezahl, or pustecki, is a form of kobold, which, nonetheless, the K. considerably surpasses in magnitude and strength. The K. as a rule also wears a great beard, which kobolds habitually do not. The K. dwells in adits, vertical shafts, spoil heaps, precipices, tenebrous hollows, inside rocks, in diverse grottos, caves and stone wildernesses. Wherever it dwells, natural riches such as metal, ore, carbon, salt or petroleum are surely buried in the earth. Thus, one may often encounter a K. in mines, particularly abandoned ones, although it is also likely to appear in active ones. It is a vicious scourge and pest, a curse and veritable divine retribution for miners and quarrymen, whom the vexatious K. leads astray. By knocking on the rock it beguiles and frightens, obstructs galleries, steals and spoils mining equipment and all kinds of belongings, and is also inclined to strike one on the head a place of concealment. But it may be bribed, to curb its mischief-making, by placing in a dark gallery or shaft some bread and butter, a smoked cheese, or a flitch of smoked gammon; but best of all is a demijohn of alcohol, since the K. is extremely greedy for such.

Physiologus

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘They’re safe,’ assured the vampire, spurring on his mule, Draakul. ‘All three of them. Milva, Dandelion and, of course, Angoulême, who drove us into the Sansretour valley just in time and told us everything, not stinting with her colourful expressions. I‘ve never understood why the majority of human curses and insults refer to the erotic sphere. Sex is wonderful and associated with beauty, joy and pleasure. How can the names of the sexual organs be used as a vulgar synonym for—’

‘Drop the subject, Regis,’ Geralt interrupted.

‘Of course, I apologise. Warned by Angoulême about the approaching brigands, we crossed the marches of Toussaint without delay. Milva, admittedly, wasn’t overjoyed, and was spoiling to turn tail and bring you both aid. I managed to dissuade her. And Dandelion, astonishingly, rather than enjoy the asylum afforded by the borders of the duchy, clearly had his heart in his mouth . . . You don’t by any chance know what he fears so in Toussaint?’

‘I don’t, but I can guess,’ Geralt replied sourly. ‘It wouldn’t be the first place where our dear friend the bard has been up to no good. He has settled down now somewhat, for he moves in decent society, but nothing was sacred to him in his youth. Only urchins and women who had climbed to the tops of tall trees were safe from him. Husbands regularly held grudges against the troubadour for unknown reasons. There is doubtless a man in Toussaint for whom the sight of Dandelion will bring back memories . . . But these are essentially trifling matters. Let’s return to the facts. What of our pursuers? I hope—’

‘I don’t think,’ Regis smiled, ‘that they followed us into Toussaint. The border is teeming with errant knights, who are extremely bored and hankering for a fight. Furthermore, we and a group of pilgrims we bumped into on the border ended up in the sacred grove of Myrkvid. And that place is fearsome. Even the pilgrims and infirm people who make for Myrkvid from the most distant corners to be healed stop in the settlement near the forest edge, not daring to go deeper. There are rumours that any who dare enter the sacred oak groves end up burned over a slow flame in the Wicker Hag.’

Geralt inhaled.

‘You mean—’

‘Of course,’ the vampire interjected again. ‘The druids are in the grove of Myrkvid. The ones who were previously in Caed Dhu, Angren, later journeyed to Loch Monduirn, and finally to Myrkvid in Toussaint. We were fated to find them. Did I say we were? I don’t recall.’

Geralt sighed deeply. Cahir, riding at his back, also sighed.

‘That friend of yours, is he among those druids?’

The vampire smiled once more.

‘Not he, but she,’ he explained. ‘Indeed, she is. She has even been promoted. She leads the entire Circle.’

‘Is she the hierophantess?’

‘She is the flaminika. That’s the highest druidic title when borne by a woman. Only men may be hierophants.’

‘True, I’d forgotten. So am I to understand that Milva and the rest—’

‘Are now in the care of the flaminika and her Circle.’ The vampire – as was his custom – answered the question while it was being asked, after which he set about answering a question not yet asked.

‘I, however, hurried to meet you. For a mysterious thing occurred. The flaminika – to whom I began to present our case – didn’t let me complete it. She said she knew everything. That she had been anticipating our arrival for some time—’

‘Really?’

‘I couldn’t hide my disbelief either.’ The vampire reined in the mule, stood up in his stirrups and looked around.

‘Are you seeking somebody or something?’ asked Cahir.

‘I’m no longer searching, I’ve found it. Let’s sit down.’

‘I’d prefer to—’

‘Let’s sit down. I’ll explain everything.’

They had to raise their voices to be able to converse over the roar of a waterfall tumbling from a considerable height down the vertical wall of a rocky precipice. Down below, where the waterfall had hollowed out a largish lake, a black cave mouth gaped in the rock. The Witcher stared at it.

‘Yes, right there,’ Regis confirmed the Witcher’s suspicion. ‘I rode here to meet you, for I was instructed to direct you there. You will have to enter that cave. I told you, the druids knew about you, knew about Ciri, knew about our mission. And they learned about it from someone who lives down there. That person – if one is to believe the druidess – wishes to talk to you.’

‘“If one is to believe the druidess”,’ Geralt repeated sneeringly. ‘I’ve been in these parts before. I know what dwells in the deep caves beneath Devil Mountain. There are various denizens there. But it’s impossible to talk to the vast majority of them, except with a sword. What else did your druidess say? What else am I to believe?’

‘She gave me clearly to understand –’ the vampire’s black eyes bored into Geralt ‘– that she isn’t generally fond of individuals who destroy and kill flora and fauna, and of witchers in particular. I explained that at the present moment you are a more of a titular witcher. That you absolutely don’t pester flora or fauna, as long as the aforementioned doesn’t pester you. The flaminika, you ought to know, is an extremely shrewd woman, and noted that you have abandoned witcherhood, not as a result of ideological changes, but because you were compelled to by circumstances. I know very well, she said, that misfortune has befallen a person close to the Witcher. The Witcher was thus forced to abandon witcherhood and go to her rescue . . . ’

Geralt didn’t comment, but his gaze was expressive enough to make the vampire hurry to explain.

‘She declared, and I quote: “The Witcher-who-is-not-a-witcher will prove he is capable of humility and sacrifice. He will enter the sombre mouth of the earth. Unarmed. Having laid down all weapons, all sharp iron. All sharp thoughts. All aggression, fury, anger and arrogance. He will enter in humility. And then in the abyss, the humble not-witcher will find answers to the questions which torment him. He will find answers to many questions. But should the Witcher remain a witcher, he will find nothing”.’

Geralt spat towards the waterfall and the cave.

‘It’s a game,’ he declared. ‘A jest! A prank! Soothsaying, sacrifice, mysterious encounters in caverns, answers to questions . . . You can only encounter such hackneyed devices from ragged wandering storytellers. Somebody’s mocking me. At best. And if it’s not mockery—’

‘I would not call it mockery under any circumstances,’ Regis said firmly. ‘None at all, Geralt of Rivia.’

‘What, then, is it? One of those notorious druidic peculiarities?’

‘We shan’t know,’ Cahir chipped in, ‘until we find out. Come on, Geralt, we’ll enter together—’

‘No.’ The vampire shook his head. ‘The flaminika was categorical in this respect. The Witcher must enter alone. Without a weapon. Give me your sword. I shall look after it during your absence.’

‘To hell with that—’ Geralt began, but Regis interrupted his flow of words with a rapid gesture.

‘Give me your sword.’ He held out a hand. ‘And if you have any other weapons leave them with me too. Remember the flaminika’s words. No aggression. Sacrifice. Humility.’

‘Do you know who I will encounter down there? Who . . . or what . . . is waiting for me in that cave?’

‘No, I don’t. Various creatures inhabit the subterranean corridors beneath Gorgon.’

‘I may be struck down!’

The vampire softly cleared his throat.

‘That cannot be ruled out,’ he said gravely. ‘But you must take that risk. I know you will, of course.’

*

Geralt was not disappointed – as he had expected, the entrance to the cave was filled with an impressive heap of skulls, ribs, tibulas and other bones. There was no stench of putrefaction, however. The mortal remains were clearly ancient and functioned as decorations intended to scare away intruders.

At least so he thought.

He entered the darkness and the bones crunched and grated beneath his feet.

His vision quickly adjusted to the gloom.

He was in a gigantic cave, a rocky cavern whose dimensions the eye was unable to take in, for its proportions broke up and vanished in the forest of stalactites suspended from the ceiling in striking festoons. Stalagmites, stocky and squat at the base, becoming slender towards the top, rose white and pink from the colourful, shimmering gravel glistening with water on the cave floor. Some of their points reached well above the Witcher’s head. Some of them were fused with stalactites, forming columns of stalagnates. No one called out. The only audible sounds were from the water, which echoed as it splashed and dripped.

He walked on, slowly, straight ahead, into the gloom, between the columns of stone. He knew he was being watched.

He felt the lack of the sword on his back intensely, importunately and distinctly – like the lack of his recently knocked-out tooth.

He slowed.

What a moment earlier he had taken as rounded boulders lying at the foot of some stalagmites now goggled great, glowing eyes at him. Great maws opened and conical fangs flashed in the matted mass of grey and brown shaggy, dust-covered hair.

Barbegazis.

He walked slowly, and stepped cautiously. Barbegazis of all sizes were everywhere. They lay in his way, with no intention of yielding. Though they had behaved extremely peacefully until that moment, he was nonetheless uncertain as to what would happen if he trod on one of them.

The stalagnates were like a forest, so there was no way of walking straight; he had to weave around them. Above, water dripped from the ceiling bristling with needles of stalactites.

The barbegazis – more and more of them were appearing – accompanied him as he walked, waddling and rolling over the cave floor. He could hear their monotonous babbling and puffing. He smelled their pungent, sour scent.

He had to stop. In his way, between two stalagmites, in a place he couldn’t pass around, lay a large echinops, bristling with masses of long spines. Geralt swallowed. He knew only too well that the echinops was capable of shooting its spines a distance of ten feet. The spines had a peculiar property – once stuck into the body they broke off and the sharp tips penetrated and worked they way in deeper and deeper until they finally reached a sensitive organ.

‘Stupid witcher,’ he heard in the gloom. ‘Cowardly witcher! He’s frit, ha, ha!’

The voice sounded odd and weird, but Geralt had heard similar voices many times. Creatures not accustomed to communicating using articulated speech spoke like that, they accented and intoned strangely, drawing out the syllables unnaturally.

‘Stupid witcher! Stupid witcher!’

He refrained from comment. He bit his lip and carefully moved past the echinops. The monster’s spines swayed like a sea anemone’s tentacles. But only for a moment, then the echinops stopped moving and once again seemed nothing more than a clump of bog grass.

Two immense barbegazis waddled across his path, jabbering and growling. From the ceiling came the flapping of webbed wings and a hissing cackle, unerringly signalling the presence of vampyrodes and vespertyls.

‘He’s come here, a murderer, a killer! A witcher!’ The same voice which had spoken previously reverberated in the gloom. ‘He’s come down here! He dared! But he has no sword, the killer. So how means he to kill? With his gaze? Ha, ha!’

‘Or maybe,’ came a second voice, with even more unnatural articulation, ‘we kill him? Haaaa?’ The barbegazis babbled in a noisy chorus. One of them, as large as a mature pumpkin, rolled closer and closer and snapped its teeth right by Geralt’s heels. The Witcher stifled the curse pressing itself against his lips and walked on. Water dripped from the stalactites, jingling with a silvery echo.

Something seized his leg. He refrained from pushing it roughly away.

The strange creature was small, not much larger than a Pekinese dog. It resembled a Pekinese a little, too. At least, its face did. The rest of it was like a small monkey. Geralt had no idea what it was. He had never seen anything like it.

‘Wi-tcha!’ sang the almost-Pekinese, in a high-pitched voice, but quite distinctly, clutching Geralt’s boot. ‘Wi-tch-tcha. Ba-stard!’

‘Get off,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Get off my boot or I’ll kick your arse.’

The barbegazis babbled louder, more urgently and menacingly. Something lowed in the darkness. Geralt didn’t know what it was. It sounded like a cow, but the Witcher bet it wasn’t.

‘Wi-tcha, the ba-stard.’

‘Let go of my boot,’ he repeated, fighting to control himself. ‘I came here unarmed, in peace. You’re bothering me—’

He broke off and choked on a wave of repellent fetor, making his eyes water and his hair curl. The strange Pekinese-like creature digging into his calf goggled and defecated right on his boot. The hideous stink was accompanied by even more hideous noises.

He swore appropriately to the situation and shoved the aggressive creature away with his foot. Much more gently than he should have. But what he was expecting happened anyway.

‘He kicked the little one!’ something roared in the darkness, above the literally thunderous jabbering and howling of the barbegazis. ‘He kicked the little one! He harmed something smaller than himself!’

The nearest barbegazis rolled right over to his feet. He felt the gnarled and steely claws grabbing and immobilising him. He didn’t fight back; he was resigned to his fate. He wiped his befouled boot on the fur of the largest and most aggressive one. He sat down, tugged by his clothes.

Something large descended a stalagnate, jumping down onto the cave floor. He knew at once what it was. A knocker. Stocky, pot-bellied, hairy, bow-legged, at least two yards across the shoulders, with an even broader ruddy beard. The knocker’s approach was heralded by the ground shaking, as though not a knocker but a Shire horse was approaching. Each of the monster’s callused and wide feet were – however ridiculous it sounds – a foot and a half long.

The knocker leaned over him and its breath smelled of vodka. The rascals distil hooch here, Geralt thought mechanically.

‘You hit someone smaller than you, witcher,’ the knocker said, breathing his foul breath into Geralt’s face. ‘You harmed a small, gentle, innocent creature without cause. We knew you couldn’t be trusted. You’re aggressive. You have the instincts of a murderer. How many of our kind have you killed, you scoundrel?’

He didn’t deign to answer.

‘Ooooh!’ The knocker breathed alcohol fumes harder. ‘I’ve dreamed of this since I was a child! Since I was a child! My dream has finally come true. Look to the left.’

Like an idiot he looked. And was punched in the teeth with a right hook so hard he saw an intense brightness.

‘Oooooh!’ The knocker bared huge crooked teeth from the mass of his reeking beard. ‘I’ve dreamed of this since I was a child! Look to the right.’

‘Enough.’ A loud and sonorous order resounded from somewhere in the depths of the cave. ‘Enough of this fun and games. Let him go, please.’

Geralt spat blood from his cut lip. He cleaned his boot in a small stream of water flowing down the rock. The almost-Pekinese grinned at him sneeringly, but from a safe distance. The knocker also grinned, massaging its fist.

‘Go, witcher,’ it growled. ‘Go to him, since he summons you. I shall wait. For you will have to return this way, after all.’

*

The cave he entered was – astonishingly – full of light. Through openings in the ceiling, bristling with stalactites, shone criss-crossing columns of brightness, drawing from the rocks and dripstone formations a kaleidoscope of brilliance and colour. Furthermore, a magical ball blazing with light – amplified by reflections in the quartz on the walls – was suspended in the air. In spite of all this illumination the end of the cave faded into the gloom, and black darkness loomed in the vista of the colonnade of stalagnates.

An immense cave painting was in the process of being created on the wall, which nature had seemingly prepared for that purpose. The painter was a fair-haired elf dressed in a paint-smudged mantle. His head seemed to be ringed by a luminous halo in the magical-natural brilliance.

‘Sit down,’ said the elf, without wresting his gaze away from the painting. He gestured to a boulder with a wave of his brush. ‘They didn’t harm you, did they?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘You’ll have to forgive them.’

‘Indeed. I will.’

‘They’re a bit like children. They were awfully glad you were coming.’

‘I noticed.’

Only then did the elf glance at him.

‘Sit down,’ he repeated. ‘I shall be at your disposal shortly. I’m just finishing.’

What the elf was finishing was a stylised animal, probably a bison. For the moment only its outline was complete – from its splendid horns to its equally magnificent tail. Geralt sat down on the boulder indicated and swore to be patient and meek – to the bounds of his abilities.

The elf, softly whistling through clenched teeth, dipped his brush into a bowl of paint and coloured his bison purple with swift flourishes. After a moment’s thought he painted tiger stripes on the animal’s side.

Geralt watched in silence.

Finally the elf took a step back, admiring the fresco which now depicted an entire hunting scene. The striped purple bison was being pursued in wild leaps by skinny human figures with bows and spears, painted with careless brushstrokes.

‘What’s it meant to be?’ asked Geralt, unable to contain himself.

The elf glanced at him in passing, sticking the clean end of the brush in his mouth.

‘It is,’ he declared, ‘a prehistoric painting executed by the primitive people who lived in this cave thousands of years ago and who mainly lived by hunting the purple bison, which became extinct long ago. Some of the prehistoric hunters were artists and felt a profound artistic need to immortalise what was in their hearts.’

‘Fascinating.’

‘It most certainly is,’ the elf agreed. ‘Your scholars have roamed through caves like this for ages, searching for traces of primitive man. And whenever they find something like this they are inordinately fascinated. For it is proof that you aren’t strangers in this land and in this world. Proof that your forebears have lived here for centuries; thus proof that this world belongs to their heirs. Why, every race has the right to some roots. Even your – human – race, whose roots should be sought in the treetops, after all. Ha, an amusing quip, don’t you think? Worthy of an epigram. Are you fond of light poetry? What do you think I ought to add to the painting?’

‘Draw huge, erect phalluses on the primitive hunters.’

‘That’s a thought.’ The elf dipped his brush in the paint. ‘The phallic cult was typical for primitive civilisations. It could also serve as the birth of a theory that the human race is yielding to physical degeneration. Its forebears had phalluses like clubs, but their descendants were left with ridiculous, vestigial little pricks . . . Thank you, Witcher.’

‘Don’t mention it. It was somehow in my heart. The paint looks very fresh for something prehistoric.’

‘In three or four days the colours will fade due to the salt exuded by the wall and the painting will look so prehistoric you won’t believe it. Your scholars will wet themselves with joy when they see it. Not one of them, I swear, will see through my deceit.’

‘They will.’

‘How is that?’

‘You won’t be able to resist signing your masterpiece, will you?’

The elf laughed dryly.

‘Quite right! You’ve seen through me. Oh, fire of vanity, how difficult it is for an artist to quell you. I’ve already signed the cave painting. Right here.’

‘That isn’t a dragonfly?’

‘No. It’s an ideogram denoting my name. I am Crevan Espane aep Caomhan Macha. For convenience I use the alias Avallac’h, and you may also address me as such.’

‘I shall be sure to.’

‘You, though, are called Geralt of Rivia. You’re a witcher. Presently you are not, however, destroying monsters or beasts, but are busy hunting for missing girls.’

‘News spreads astonishingly quickly. Astonishingly far. And astonishingly deep. You allegedly foresaw that I’d show up here. You can foretell the future, I gather?’

‘Anyone,’ Avallac’h wiped his hands on a rag, ‘can foretell the future. And everyone does it, for it is simple. It is no great art to foretell it. The art is in foretelling it accurately.’

‘An elegant deduction, worthy of an epigram. You, naturally, can prophecy accurately.’

‘And often. I, my dear Geralt, know much and am capable of much. Actually, my academic title – as you, humans, would say – indicates that. It reads in full “Aen Saevherne”.’

‘A Sage – a Knowing One.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And willing, I hope, to share that knowledge?’

Avallac’h said nothing for a moment.

‘Share?’ he finally drawled. ‘With you? Knowledge, my dear, is a privilege, and privileges are only shared with one’s equals. And why would I, an elf, a Sage, a member of the elite, share anything with a descendant of a creature that appeared in the universe barely five million years ago, having evolved from an ape, a rat, a jackal or some other such mammal? A creature that took around a million years to discover that one can execute some sort of operation with a gnawed bone using its two hairy hands? After which it shoved the bone up its rectum and shrieked for joy?’

The elf fell silent, turning and fixing his gaze on his painting.

‘Why indeed,’ he repeated, ‘do you dare to think I would share any knowledge at all with you, human? Tell me!’

Geralt wiped the rest of the shit from his boot.

‘Because, perhaps,’ he replied dryly, ‘it is inevitable?’

The elf spun around.

‘What,’ he asked through clenched teeth, ‘is inevitable?’

‘Perhaps –’ Geralt didn’t feel like raising his voice ‘– for the reason that a few years will pass and people will simply take all knowledge for themselves, heedless of whether anyone wants to share it with them or not? Including knowledge which you, elf and Sage, cunningly conceal behind cave paintings? Counting on the fact that people will not want to take pickaxes to that wall, painted with the false evidence of primitive human existence? Eh? O, my fire of vanity?’

The elf snorted. Quite cheerfully.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘It would be vanity truly carried to stupidity to believe you wouldn’t smash something. You smash everything. But what of it? What of it, man?’

‘I don’t know. Tell me. And if you don’t think it fit, I’ll take myself off. Ideally through a different exit, since your mischievous chums are waiting for me by the other one, longing to crack my ribs.’

‘By all means.’ The elf spread his arms wide in a sudden movement, and the rock wall opened with a grinding and a cracking, brutally splitting the purple bison in two. ‘Leave this way. Tread towards the light. Metaphorically or literally, that is usually the right way.’

‘A bit of a shame,’ Geralt muttered. ‘I liked the frescoes.’

‘You must be jesting,’ the elf said after a brief silence, sounding quite astonishingly kindly and friendly. ‘The fresco won’t be harmed. I shall close the rock with an identical charm, and not even the trace of a crack will remain. Come. I’ll go out with you, I shall escort you. I’ve reached the conclusion that I have something to tell you. And show you.’

It was dark inside, but the Witcher knew right away that the cave was immense – he could tell from the temperature and air currents. The gravel they walked over was wet.

Avallac’h conjured light in the elven fashion, simply using a gesture, without uttering a spell. A glowing ball rose towards the ceiling and the formations of rock crystal in the cave walls sparkled in a myriad of reflections and gleams. Shadows danced. The Witcher gasped involuntarily.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen elven sculptures and statues, but the impression was the same each time. That the figures of elves and she-elves frozen in mid-movement, in mid-flicker, weren’t the work of a sculptor’s chisel, but the result of a powerful spell, able to change living tissue into the white marble of Amell. The nearest statue depicted a she-elf sitting with her feet tucked beneath her on a basalt slab. The she-elf was turning her head away, as though alarmed by the patter of approaching steps. She was utterly naked. The white marble, polished to a milky brilliance, meant one virtually felt the warmth emanating from the statue.

Avallac’h stopped and leaned against one of the columns marking the way among an avenue of statues.

‘You have seen through me for a second time, Geralt,’ he said softly. ‘Yes, you were right, the bison cave painting was camouflage. Intended to discourage hacking and drilling through the wall. Intended to defend everything in here from plunder and devastation. Every race – the elven too – has a right to its roots. What you see here are our roots. Tread carefully, please. It is essentially a graveyard.’

The reflections of light dancing over the rock crystals drew further details from the gloom. Beyond the avenue of statues could be seen colonnades, stairways, amphitheatrical galleries, arcades and peristyles. Everything made of white marble.

‘I want it,’ Avallac’h continued, stopping and indicating with a hand, ‘to survive. Even when we depart, when this whole continent and this whole world ends up under a mile-thick layer of ice and snow, Tir ná Béa Arainne will endure. We shall leave this place, but one day we shall return. We elves. We are promised this by Aen Ithlinnespeath, the Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien prophecy.’

‘Do you really believe in it? In that prophecy? Does your fatalism really run so deep?’

‘Everything –’ the elf looked not at him, but at the marble columns covered with reliefs as delicate as cobwebs ‘– has been foreseen and prophesied. Your arrival on the continent, the war, the shedding of elven and human blood. The rise of your race, your decadence. The battle between the rulers of the North and the South. And the king of the South shall rise up against the kings of the North and overrun their lands like a flood, they will be crushed, and their nations devastated . . . And so shall begin the extinction of the world. Do your recall Ithlinne’s text, Witcher? Who is far shall die at once; who is near shall fall from the sword; who hides shall die of hunger, who survives shall perish from the frost . . . For Tedd Deireadh, the Time of the End, the Time of the Sword and the Battle Axe, the Time of Contempt, the Time of the White Cold and the Wolfish Snowstorm shall come . . . ’

‘Poetry.’

‘Do you prefer it less poetic? As a result of a change in the angle of the sun’s rays, the margin of permafrost will shift – significantly. Then the mountains will be crushed and pushed back southwards by the ice sliding from the North. Everything will be buried under snow. Under a thick layer more than a mile deep. And it will become very – very – cold.’

‘We’ll wear warm britches,’ Geralt said without emotion. ‘Sheepskins. And fur hats.’

‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ the elf agreed calmly. ‘And you’ll survive in those hats and britches, in order to return one day, dig holes and poke around in these caves, to wreck and plunder. Ithlinne’s prophecy doesn’t say so, but I know it. It’s impossible to utterly destroy humans and cockroaches; at least one pair always remains. As far as we elves are concerned, Ithlinne is more explicit: only those who follow the Swallow will survive. The Swallow, the symbol of spring, is the saviour, the one who will open the Forbidden Door, signal the way of salvation. And make possible the world’s rebirth. The Swallow, the Child of the Elder Blood.’

‘You mean Ciri?’ Geralt burst out. ‘Or Ciri’s child? How? And why?’

Avallac’h seemed not to hear.

‘The Swallow of the Elder Blood,’ he said again. ‘From her blood. Come. And look.’

The statue Avallac’h pointed at stood out even among the other astoundingly realistic statues; most captured mid-movement or mid-gesture. The white marble she-elf reclining on the slab gave the impression that – having been awoken – she was about to sit up and get to her feet. Her face was turned towards the empty place by her side, and her raised hand seemed to be touching something invisible.

There was an expression of calm happiness on the she-elf’s face.

It was a long time before Avallac’h broke the silence.

‘That is Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal. It’s not a grave, naturally, but a cenotaph. Does the statue’s position surprise you? Support was not gained for the plan to carve both of the legendary lovers in marble. Lara and Cregennan of Lod. Cregennan was a man; it would be sacrilege to waste Amell marble on a statue of him. It would be blasphemy to erect a statue of a man here, in Tir ná Béa Arainne. On the other hand, it would be an even greater crime to deliberately destroy the memory of this emotion. So a happy medium was found. Formally . . . Cregennan is not here. And yet he is. In Lara’s aspect and pose. The lovers are together. Nothing was able to separate them. Neither death, nor oblivion . . . Nor hatred.’

It seemed to the Witcher that the elf’s indifferent voice had changed for a moment. But that would have been impossible. Avallac’h approached the statue and stroked the marble arm with a cautious, gentle movement. Then he turned around and the usual, slightly sneering smile reappeared on his angular face.

‘Do you know, Witcher, what the greatest snag of longevity is?’

‘No.’

‘Sex.’

‘What?’

‘You heard right. Sex. After almost a hundred years it becomes boring. There’s nothing in it to fascinate or excite any longer, nothing that has the exciting appeal of novelty. It has all been done already . . . In this or that way, but it has happened. And then suddenly comes the Conjunction of the Spheres and you, people, appear here. Human survivors, come from another world, from your former world, which you managed utterly to destroy with your still-hirsute hands, barely five million years after evolving as a species. There’s only a handful of you, your life expectancy is ridiculously low, so your survival depends on the pace of reproduction. Thus unbridled lust never leaves you, sex totally governs you; it’s a drive more powerful even than the survival instinct. To die? Why not, if one can fuck around beforehand. That is your entire philosophy.’

Geralt didn’t interrupt or comment, although he felt a strong desire to.

‘And what suddenly happens?’ Avallac’h continued. ‘Elves, bored by she-elves, court the always-willing human females. Bored she-elves give themselves, out of perverse curiosity, to human males, always full of vigour and verve. And something happens that no one can explain: she-elves, who normally ovulate once every ten or twenty years, when copulating with a man begin to ovulate with each powerful orgasm. Some hidden hormone, or combination of hormones, became active. She-elves suddenly understand they can, in practice, only have children with humans. So, owing to the she-elves, we didn’t exterminate you when we were still the more powerful race. And later you were more powerful and began to exterminate us. But you still had allies in the she-elves. For they were the advocates of coexistence and cooperation . . . and they didn’t want to admit that essentially it was about commingling.’

‘What does that –’ Geralt cleared his throat ‘– have to do with me?’

‘With you? Absolutely nothing. But with Ciri, a great deal. For Ciri is a descendant of Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, and Lara Dorren was an advocate of coexistence with humans. Chiefly with one human. Cregennan of Lod, a human sorcerer. Lara Dorren coexisted with Cregennan often and effectively. To put it more simply: she became pregnant.’

The Witcher kept silent this time too.

‘The snag was that Lara Dorren wasn’t an ordinary she-elf. She was genetic potential. Especially prepared. The result of many years’ work. In combination with another charge – an elven one, naturally – she was meant to bear an even more special child. Engaging with the seed of a man, she ruined that chance, wasted hundreds of years’ planning and preparation. At least so it was thought at the time. No one supposed that the cross-breed begat by Cregennan could inherit anything positive from its pure-blood mother. No, such a misalliance could not bring any good—’

‘For which reason,’ Geralt interjected, ‘he was severely punished.’

‘Not the way you think.’ Avallac’h glanced at him. ‘Although the relationship between Lara Dorren and Cregennan caused incalculable damage to the elves, and it could have turned out well for humans, it was, however, humans – and not elves – who murdered Cregennan. Humans – and not elves – brought Lara to ruin. Thus it was, despite the fact that many elves had reason to hate the lovers. Personally, too.’

For the second time, the slight change in the elf’s voice puzzled Geralt.

‘One way or another,’ Avallac’h continued, ‘the peaceful coexistence burst like a soap bubble, and the races went for each other’s throats. A war began which endures until today. And meanwhile Lara’s genetic material . . . exists, as you’ve probably guessed. And has even developed. Unfortunately, it mutated. Yes, yes. Your Ciri is a mutant.’

This time, again, the elf didn’t wait for a comment.

‘Of course, the sorcerers had a hand in this, cleverly combining breeding individuals into pairs, but it got out of control. Few can guess how Lara Dorren’s genetic material regenerated so powerfully in Ciri, what the trigger was. I think it is known by Vilgefortz, the one who gave you a hiding on Thanedd. The sorcerers who experimented with Lara and Riannon’s progeny, running a veritable breeding farm, didn’t get the expected results, so they became bored and abandoned the experiment. But the experiment continued; just spontaneously. Ciri, the daughter of Pavetta, the granddaughter of Calanthe, the great-great-granddaughter of Riannon, was Lara Dorren’s true descendant. Vilgefortz learned about it, probably by accident. It is also known about by Emhyr var Emreis, the Emperor of Nilfgaard.’

‘And you know about it.’

‘I know more about it than the two of them. But that means nothing. The mill of destiny is turning, the querns of fate are grinding . . . Whatever is destined must occur.’

‘So what must occur?’

‘Whatever is destined to. That which was determined above, in the metaphorical sense, of course. Something that is determined by the action of an unerringly functioning mechanism, at the root of which lies the Purpose, the Plan and the Result.’

‘That’s either poetry or metaphysics. Or the one and the other, for they are occasionally difficult to distinguish. Are any hard facts possible? If only a very few? I’d love to discuss this and that with you, but it so happens I’m in a hurry.’

Avallac’h gave him a long look.

‘And where are you hurrying to? Ah, forgive me . . . You, it seems to me, haven’t understood anything I’ve said to you. So I’ll tell you straight: your great rescue expedition is meaningless. It has lost all meaning.

‘There are several reasons,’ the elf continued, looking at the Witcher’s granite-like face. ‘Firstly, it’s too late now, the serious evil has already occurred; you’re no longer in a position to save the girl from it. Secondly, now that she has taken the right road, the Swallow will cope wonderfully by herself. She carries too mighty a force inside her to fear anything. She doesn’t need your help. And thirdly . . . Hmmm . . . ’

‘I’m still all ears, Avallac’h. All ears!’

‘Thirdly . . . Thirdly, someone else will help her now. You can’t be so arrogant as to think that the girl’s destiny is exclusively bound to you.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then farewell.’

‘Wait.’

‘I said I’m in a hurry.’

‘Let’s suppose for a moment,’ the elf said serenely, ‘that I know what will happen, that I can see the future. What if I tell you what is to happen, what will happen anyway, irrespective of the efforts you make? Of the initiatives already undertaken? What if I told you that you could search for a peaceful place on earth and stay there, doing nothing, waiting for the inevitable consequences of the course of events. Would you choose to do something like that?’

‘No.’

‘What if I communicated to you that your activities – testifying to your lack of faith in the unwavering mechanisms of the Purpose, Plan and Result – may, though the likelihood is slight, indeed change something, but only for the worse? Would you reconsider? Oh, I see from your expression that you wouldn’t. Then I’ll simply ask you: why not?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘I do.’

‘Because I don’t believe in your metaphysical platitudes about goals, plans and preordained ideas of creators. Nor do I believe in the celebrated prophecy of Ithlinne or other prophecies. I consider them, if you can imagine it, the same bullshit and humbug as your cave painting. The purple bison, Avallac’h. Nothing more. I don’t know if you can’t – or won’t – help me. Nonetheless, I don’t feel resentment towards you . . . ’

‘You say I can’t or don’t want to help you. And how might I help?’

Geralt pondered for a moment, absolutely aware that much depended on how the question was put.

‘Will I get Ciri back?’

The answer was immediate.

‘You will. Only to lose her at once. And to be clear: forever; irrevocably. Before it comes to that, you will lose everybody who accompanies you. You will lose one of your companions in the next few weeks, perhaps even days. Perhaps even hours.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I haven’t finished yet. The direct effect of your interference in the grinding querns of the Purpose and the Plan will be the death of tens of thousands of people. Which, as a matter of fact, doesn’t matter much, since soon after, tens of millions of people will lose their lives. The world as you know it will simply vanish, cease to exist, in order – after a suitable time has passed – to revive in a totally different form. But in fact no one has, nor will have, any influence on it, no one is capable of preventing it nor staving off the course of events. Not you, not I, not sorcerers nor Sages. Not even Ciri. What do you say to that?’

‘Purple bison. All the same, I thank you, Avallac’h.’

‘While we’re about it,’ the elf shrugged, ‘I’m somewhat curious as to what a pebble falling in the gears of the querns might accomplish . . . May I do anything else for you?’

‘Not really. Because you can’t show me Ciri, I imagine?’

‘Who said so?’

Geralt held his breath. Avallac’h headed towards the cave wall with rapid steps, indicating the Witcher to follow him.

‘The walls of Tir ná Béa Arainne –’ he pointed to the sparkling rock crystals ‘– have special qualities. And I, though I say it as shouldn’t, have special abilities. Place your hands on this. Fix your gaze on it. Think intensively. About how much she needs you right now. And declare, so to speak, the mental willingness to help. Think about how you want to run and rescue her, be beside her; something like that. The image should appear by itself. And be distinct. Look, but refrain from impulsive reactions. Say nothing. It will be a vision, not communication.’

He obeyed.

The first images, in spite of the promise, weren’t distinct. They were vague, but so brutal that he stepped back involuntarily. A severed hand on a table . . . Blood splashed on a glazed surface . . . Skeletons on skeleton horses . . . Yennefer, in manacles . . .

A tower? A black tower? And behind it, in the background . . . The northern lights?

And suddenly, without warning, the image became all too clear.

‘Dandelion!’ Geralt yelled. ‘Milva! Angoulême!’

‘Eh?’ Avallac’h took an interest. ‘Ah, yes. You seem to have spoiled everything.’

Geralt leaped back from the cave wall, almost falling over on a basalt plinth.

‘It doesn’t bloody matter!’ he cried. ‘Listen, Avallac’h, I must get to that druidic forest as quickly as possible . . . ’

‘Caed Myrkvid?’

‘Very likely! My companions are in mortal danger there! They’re fighting for their lives! Other people are also in danger . . . What’s the quickest way . . . ? Oh, dammit! I’m going back for my sword and horse—’

‘No horse,’ the elf calmly interrupted, ‘is capable of carrying you to the Myrkvid grove before nightfall—’

‘But I—’

‘I haven’t finished yet. Go and get your legendary sword, and meanwhile I’ll find you a mount. A perfect steed for mountain tracks. It’s a somewhat unusual one, I’d say . . . But with its help you’ll be in Caed Myrkvid in less than half an hour.’

*

The knocker reeked like a horse – but that was where the similarity ended. Geralt had once seen in Mahakam a mountain goat-riding contest organised by dwarves, which had seemed to be a totally reckless sport. But it was only now, as he sat on the back of the knocker as it hurtled insanely up the cliff, that he learned what true recklessness was.

In order not to fall off, he dug his fingers tightly into the rough shaggy coat and squeezed his thighs against the monster’s fleecy sides. The knocker stank of sweat, urine and vodka. It flew as though possessed, the earth thudding under the impact of its gigantic feet, as though its soles were of bronze. Slowing slightly, it climbed up hillsides and pelted down them so fast the wind howled in Geralt’s ears. It rushed across ridges, mountain paths and ledges so narrow Geralt kept his eyes tightly closed so as not to look down. It cleared waterfalls, cascades, chasms and clefts too extreme even for a mountain goat, and each successful leap was accompanied by a savage and deafening roar. That is, more savage and deafening than the knocker’s usual roar – which was something it did almost constantly.

‘Don’t race like that!’ The rush of air shoved the words back down his throat.

‘Why not?’

‘You’ve been drinking!’

‘Uuuaaahaaaaaaaa!’

They raced on. The wind whistled in his ears.

The knocker reeked.

The clatter of immense feet on rock fell silent. Instead, rock fields and scree rattled. Then the ground became less rocky, and something that might have been a dwarf pine flashed by. Then a blur of green and brown, for the knocker was loping in insane bounds through a fir forest. The scent of resin mingled with the monster’s stench.

‘Uaaahaaaaaa!’

The firs ceased and fallen leaves whispered. Now red, now claret, ochre and golden.

‘Slow down!’

‘Uaaaahahhahaha!’

The knocker cleared a pile of fallen trees with a huge bound. Geralt almost bit his tongue off.

*

The breakneck ride ended as unceremoniously as it had begun. The knocker dug its heels into the ground, roared, and tossed the Witcher onto the leaf-strewn forest floor. Geralt lay still for a while and couldn’t even curse, from lack of breath. Then he stood up, hissing and rubbing his knee, which had begun to throb again.

‘You never fell off,’ the knocker stated with surprise in its voice. ‘Well, well.’

Geralt didn’t comment.

‘We’ve arrived.’ The knocker pointed with one shaggy paw. ‘That’s Caed Myrkvid.’

Beneath them was a basin, densely filled with mist. The tops of great trees showed through the haze.

‘That fog,’ the knocker anticipated the question, sniffing, ‘isn’t natural. What’s more I can smell smoke from over there. If I were you, I’d hurry. Eeeh, I’d go with you . . . I’m sick with the desire to fight! And I dreamed as a child of one day charging at people with a witcher on me back! But Avallac’h forbad me from showing myself. It’s to do with the safety of our whole tribe. . . ’

‘I know.’

‘Don’t bear a grudge that I smacked you in the mouth.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You’re alright. For a human.’

‘Thank you. For the lift too.’

The knocker bared his teeth among his red beard, and breathed vodka.

‘The pleasure’s all mine.’

*

The fog lying on Myrkvid Forest was dense and had an irregular shape, calling to mind a heap of whipped cream squeezed onto a cake by a lunatic cook. The fog reminded the Witcher of Brokilon – the Forest of the Dryads was often covered by a similarly dense, protective and camouflaging magical haze. Like Brokilon it had the dignified and menacing atmosphere of an ancient forest, here at the edge consisting predominantly of alder and beech.

And just like in Brokilon, right at the edge of the forest, on the leaf-strewn road, Geralt almost tripped over a corpse.

*

The cruelly massacred people weren’t druids or Nilfgaardians, and they certainly didn’t belong to Nightingale and Schirrú’s hassa. Before Geralt had even spied the outlines of wagons in the fog, he recalled that Regis had spoken of pilgrims. It appeared that for some the pilgrimage had not ended happily.

The stench of smoke and burning, unpleasant in the damp air, became more and more distinct, and pointed the way. Soon after, the way was also indicated by voices. Cries. And the discordant music of fiddles. Geralt made haste.

A wagon stood on the rain-softened road. More bodies lay beside the wheels.

One of the bandits was rummaging around the wagon, chucking objects and tackle onto the road. Another was holding the unharnessed horses and a third was stripping a foxskin coat from a dead pilgrim. A fourth was sawing a fiddle with a bow – evidently found among the loot – and utterly failing to get even a single pure note from the instrument.

The cacophony came in useful. It muffled Geralt’s steps.

The music broke off abruptly, the fiddle stings whined piercingly, the brigand slammed down onto the leaves and spattered them with blood. The one holding the horses didn’t even manage to shout; the sihill severed his windpipe. The third brigand didn’t manage to jump down from the wagon. He fell, yelling, with his femoral artery carved open. The last one even managed to draw his sword. But not to raise it.

Geralt shook blood from the fuller with his thumb.

‘Yes, boys,’ he said to the forest and the scent of smoke. ‘This was a stupid idea. You oughtn’t to have listened to Nightingale and Schirrú. You should have stayed at home.’

*

He soon came across further wagons and further victims. Druids in bloodstained white robes also lay among the numerous mutilated pilgrims. The smoke from the now close fire crawled low over the ground.

This time, the brigands were more vigilant. He only managed to stalk one of them, who was occupied pulling cheap rings and bracelets from the bloody hands of a murdered woman. Geralt, without hesitation, slashed the bandit, the bandit roared, and then the remaining men – brigands mixed up with Nilfgaardians – attacked him, yelling.

He dodged into the forest, to the foot of the nearest tree, so the trunk would protect his back. But before the brigands could run over, hooves thudded, and from the bushes and fog emerged a mighty horse draped in a caparison with a red and gold diagonal chequered pattern. The horse was carrying a rider clad in full armour, a snow-white cloak, and a helmet with a perforated pig-faced visor. Before the bandits could compose themselves, the knight was already breathing down their necks and carving every which way with his sword, and blood was gushing in fountains. It was a splendid sight.

Geralt didn’t have time to watch, however, having two on his hands himself: a brigand in a cherry-red jerkin and a black-uniformed Nilfgaardian. The brigand exposed himself as he lunged, so Geralt slashed him across the face, and the Nilfgaardian – seeing teeth flying – took to his heels and vanished into the fog.

Geralt was almost trampled by the horse in the chequered caparison, now running and riderless.

Without delaying, he leaped through the undergrowth towards cries, curses and thudding.

Three bandits had dragged the knight in the white cloak from the saddle and were trying to kill him. One of them, standing with legs astride, was smiting with a poleaxe; the second was striking with a sword; and the third – small and red-haired – was hopping beside them like a hare, seeking a chance and an unprotected place where he could stab with his bear spear. The knight – lying on his back – was yelling incomprehensibly from inside his helmet and deflecting the blows with a shield held in both hands. The shield sank lower with each blow; it was almost resting on his breastplate. There was no doubt. One or two more blows and the knight’s innards would burst through every slit in his armour.

Geralt was in the thick of it in three bounds, slashing the hopping red-head with the bear spear across the nape and carving open the belly of the one with the poleaxe. The knight, agile in spite of his armour, whacked the third brigand in the knee with the shield rim, and pummelled him thrice in the face as he lay on the ground until blood sprayed across his shield. He rose onto his knees, fumbled among ferns in search of his sword, buzzing like a great iron-plated drone. He suddenly saw Geralt and froze.

‘In whose hands am I?’ He trumpeted from deep within his helmet.

‘In no one’s. The men lying there are also my foes.’

‘Aha . . .’ The knight tried to raise his visor, but the metal plate was bent and the mechanism had blocked. ‘’Pon my word! Thank you a hundredfold for your succour.’

‘I thank you. For it was you who came to my aid.’

‘Indeed? When?’

He didn’t see anything, thought Geralt. He hadn’t even noticed me through the holes in that iron pot.

‘What is your name?’ the knight asked.

‘Geralt. Of Rivia.’

‘Coat of arms?’

‘It is not the time, sir knight, for heraldry.’

‘’Pon my word, ’tis the truth, stout-hearted Sir Geralt.’ Having found his sword the knight stood up. His chipped shield – like the horse’s caparison – was decorated with a gold and red diagonal chequered pattern, the letters A and H alternating in the fields.

‘They are not my ancestral arms,’ he boomed in explanation. ‘They are the initials of my suzerain lady, Duchess Anna Henarietta. I’m called the Chequered Knight. I’m a knight errant. And forbidden from revealing my name or arms. I have taken knightly vows. ’Pon my word, thanks again for the help, sir knight.’

‘The pleasure’s all mine.’

One of the defeated bandits groaned and rustled in the leaves. The Chequered Knight leaped and pinned him to the ground with a mighty thrust. The brigand’s arms and legs waved like a spider impaled on a pin.

‘Let us hurry,’ the knight said. ‘The rabble is still raging here. ’Pon my word, it’s not time to repose yet!’

‘True,’ Geralt agreed. ‘There’s a gang marauding through the forest, killing pilgrims and druids. My friends are in a predicament . . .’

‘Excuse me for a moment.’

A second brigand was showing signs of life. He was also vigorously pinned and his turned-up feet cut such a caper that his boots fell off.

‘’Pon my word!’ The Chequered Knight wiped his sword on the moss. ‘These good-for-nothings are loath to depart this life! Let it not astound you, sir knight, that I’m finishing off the wounded. ’Pon my word, I’ve not done it for many years. But these imps recover so swiftly an honest fellow may only envy them. Ever since I happened to cross swords with the same rascal thrice in a row, I began to finish them off more meticulously. Once and for all.’

‘I understand.’

‘I – you see – am errant. But not, ’pon my word, erratic! Oh, it’s my horse. Come here, Bucephalus!’

*

The forest became more open and brighter; great oaks with spreading but thin crowns began to predominate. They could now smell the smoke and stench of the fire nearby. And a moment later they could see it.

Three cottages with thatched roofs – an entire small settlement – were on fire. The tarpaulins of the nearby wagons were also on fire. Corpses were lying between the wagons; from a distance it was evident that many were wearing white druidic gowns.

The bandits and Nilfgaardians, drumming up courage by yelling, and concealed behind wagons they were pushing in front of them, were attacking a large house on stilts leaning against the trunk of a gigantic oak. The house was built from robust beams with a shingle roof down which the torches thrown by the bandits were harmlessly rolling. The besieged house was defending itself and striking back effectively – before Geralt’s eyes one of the brigands leaned imprudently out from behind a wagon and fell as though struck by lightning with an arrow in his skull.

‘Your friends,’ the Chequered Knight displayed his acuity, ‘must be in that building! ’Pon my word, they’re in desperate straits! Onward! Let us hasten to their aid!’

Geralt heard screeching yells and orders, and recognised the robber Nightingale with his bandaged cheek. He also glimpsed the half-elf Schirrú, hiding behind some Nilfgaardians in black cloaks. Suddenly horns roared, so loudly that leaves fell from the oak trees. The hooves of war horses rumbled and the swords and armour of charging knights flashed. The robbers fled, yelling, in all directions.

‘’Pon my word!’ the Chequered Knight roared, spurring on his horse. ‘It’s my comrades! They’re ahead of us! Attack, so a little glory will be left for us! Smite, kill!’

Galloping ahead on Bucephalus the Chequered Knight fell on the fleeing robbers, hacked down two in a flash, and scattered the rest like a hawk among sparrows. Two of them turned towards Geralt, and the Witcher dealt with them in the blink of an eye.

A third shot at him with a Gabriel.

A certain Gabriel, a craftsman from Verden, had invented and patented a miniature crossbow. He advertised them with the slogan “Defend yourself”. His handbill declared “Banditry and violence are rampant among us. The law is powerless and inept. Defend yourself! Don’t leave home without a handy Gabriel crossbow. A Gabriel is your guardian, a Gabriel will protect you and your dear ones from bandits.”

Sales were phenomenal. Soon every bandit packed a Gabriel during robberies.

Geralt was a witcher and could dodge a bolt. But he’d forgotten about his painful knee. His evasive manoeuvre was an inch late, and the leaf-shaped point gashed his ear. The pain blinded him, but just for a moment. The brigand was too slow to reload and defend himself. The furious Witcher slashed him across the hands, and then disembowelled him with a sweeping flourish of his sihill.

Geralt hadn’t even managed to wipe the blood from his ear and neck when he was attacked by a small character as agile as a weasel, with unnaturally shining eyes, armed with a curved Zerrikanian sabre which he was twirling with admirable skill. He parried two of Geralt’s blows, and the fine steel of the two blades rang and showered sparks. The weasel was alert and keen-eyed – he noticed at once that the Witcher was limping. He immediately began to circle and attack from a more favourable position. He was astonishingly quick. The sabre’s blade seemed to wail as he made dangerous diagonal thrusts. Geralt was finding it more and more difficult to avoid the blows. He was limping worse and worse, forced to stand on his aching leg.

The weasel suddenly hunched forward, jumped, and made a dexterous feint and lunge, slashing diagonally downwards. Geralt parried obliquely and deflected. The bandit spun nimbly, moving from his stance to a nasty cut from below, when he suddenly goggled, sneezed loudly and covered himself in snot, dropping his guard for a moment. The Witcher jabbed him fast in the neck and the blade went in as far as the vertebrae.

‘Well, who’ll tell me now,’ he panted, looking at the twitching corpse, ‘that taking drugs isn’t bad for your health?’

A bandit attacking him with a raised club tripped and fell face down in the mud, an arrow sticking out of the back of his head.

‘I’m coming, Witcher!’ Milva screamed. ‘I’m coming! Hold on!’

Geralt turned, but there was no one left to hack. Milva had shot the only brigand remaining in the vicinity. The rest fled into the forest, pursued by the colourful knighthood. Several were being tormented by the Chequered Knight on Bucephalus. He caught them, and his terrible raging could be heard from the forest.

One of the black-uniformed Nilfgaardians, not finished off precisely, suddenly leaped to his feet and bolted. Milva raised and tautened her bow in a second. The fletchings howled and the Nilfgaardian fell on the leaves with a grey-feathered arrow between his shoulder blades. The archer sighed heavily.

‘We’ll hang for this,’ she said.

‘Why do you think so?’

‘This is Nilfgaard, isn’t it? And it’s the second month I’ve been mainly shooting at Nilfgaardians.’

‘This is Toussaint, not Nilfgaard.’ Geralt felt the side of his head, and took away a bloody hand.

‘Dammit. What is it? Have a look, Milva.’

The archer examined it carefully and critically.

‘Your ear’s been torn off,’ she finally said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

‘Easy for you to say. I was fond of that ear. Help me to bind it with something, it’s dripping down my collar. Where are Dandelion and Angoulême?’

‘In the cottage, with the pilgrims . . . Oh, a pox on it . . . ’

Hooves pounded, and from the mist emerged three riders on warhorses, cloaks and pennants fluttering as they galloped. Before their war cries resounded, Geralt had grabbed Milva by the arm and pulled her under a wagon. There was no fooling around with someone charging with a lance, which gave the riders an effective range of ten feet in front of their horse’s head.

‘Get out!’ The knights’ mounts churned the earth around the wagon with their horseshoes. ‘Drop your weapons and get out!’

‘We’re going to hang,’ Milva murmured. She might have been right.

‘Ha, thugs!’ one of the knights, bearing a shield with a black bull’s head on a silver field, roared . ‘Ha, rogues! ’Pon my word, you shall hang!’

‘’Pon my word!’ crowed the other, with a uniformly blue shield, in a youthful voice. ‘We’ll carve them up on the spot!’

‘Hi, I say! Stop!’

The Chequered Knight emerged from the fog on Bucephalus. He had finally managed to lift his twisted visor, from beneath which luxuriant flaxen moustaches now peeped.

‘Free them with all haste!’ he called. ‘They are not bandits, but upright and honest folk. The lady manfully acted in defence of the pilgrims. And that fellow is a goodly knight!’

‘A goodly knight?’ Bull’s Head raised his visor and scrutinised Geralt extremely incredulously. ‘’Pon my word! It cannot be!’

‘’Pon my word!’ The Chequered Knight thumped an armoured fist into his breastplate. ‘It can, I give my word! This doughty fellow saved my life when I was in need, after I was flung to the ground by ne’er-do-wells. He is called Geralt of Rivia.’

‘Arms?’

‘I’m forbidden from revealing them,’ the Witcher grunted. ‘I can share neither my true name nor my arms. I have taken knightly vows. I am the errant Geralt.’

‘Oooh!’ a familiar insolent voice suddenly yelled. ‘Look what the cat dragged in. Ha, I told you, aunty, that the Witcher would come and rescue us!’

‘And just in time!’ shouted Dandelion, approaching with Angoulême and a small group of terrified pilgrims. He was carrying his lute and the ever-present tube of scrolls. ‘And not a second too soon. You have a fine sense of drama, Geralt. You ought to write plays for the stage!’

He suddenly fell silent. Bull’s Head leaned over in his saddle and his eyes shone.

‘Viscount Julian?’

‘Baron de Peyrac-Peyran?’

Two more knights emerged from behind the oaks. One, in a great helm adorned with a very good likeness of a white swan with outstretched wings, was leading two prisoners in a lasso. The other knight, errant, but practical, was preparing a noose and looking for a suitable bough.

‘Neither Nightingale,’ Angoulême noticed the Witcher’s expression, ‘nor Schirrú. Pity.’

‘Pity,’ Geralt admitted. ‘But we’ll try to correct that. Sir knight . . . ’

But Bull’s Head – or rather Baron de Peyrac-Peyran – wasn’t paying any attention to him. He only had eyes, it seemed, for Dandelion.

‘’Pon my word,’ he drawled. ‘My eyes do not deceive me! It’s Viscount Julian in person. Ha! The Duchess will be pleased!’

‘Who is Viscount Julian?’ the Witcher asked curiously.

‘That would be me,’ Dandelion muttered. ‘Don’t interfere, Geralt.’

‘Lady Henrietta will be pleased,’ Baron de Peyrac-Peyran repeated. ‘Ha, ’pon my word! We shall take you all to Beauclair Castle. But no excuses, viscount. I won’t hear of any excuse!’

‘Some of the brigands fled,’ Geralt spoke in quite a cool tone. ‘I suggest we catch them first. And then think about what to do with this day – so interestingly begun. What say you, baron?’

‘’Pon my word,’ said Bull’s Head, ‘nothing will come of it. Pursuit is impossible. The criminals fled across the stream, and we mustn’t put a foot over it, not even a scrap of hoof. That part of the Myrkvid Forest is an inviolable sanctuary, in accordance with the compacts entered into with the druids by Her Majesty Duchess Anna Henarietta, who benignly reigns over Toussaint—’

‘The robbers bolted in there, dammit!’ Geralt interrupted, growing furious. ‘They’re going into that inviolable sanctuary to kill! And you’re telling me about some compacts—’

‘We’ve given our knightly word!’ It seemed a mutton head would have suited Baron de Peyrac-Peyran’s shield better than a bull’s head. ‘We are forbad! Compacts! Not a single step onto druidic territory!’

‘If they’re forbidden, well that’s too bad,’ Angoulême snorted, pulling two bandit horses by their bridles. ‘Drop that empty talk, Witcher. Let’s go. I still have unfinished business with Nightingale and you, I think, would like to talk some more with the half-elf.’

‘I’m with you,’ said Milva. ‘I’ll just find some mare or other.’

‘Me too,’ Dandelion muttered. ‘I’m with you too . . . ’

‘Oh, no, no, no!’ called the bull-headed baron. ‘’Pon my word, Viscount Julian will ride with us to Beauclair Castle. The duchess wouldn’t forgive us if after meeting you we didn’t bring you to her. I shan’t stop the rest of you, you are free in your plans and ideas. As the companions of Viscount Julian, Her Grace, Lady Henarietta, would have gladly received you with all due respect and invited you to stay at the castle, but why, if you scorn her hospitality. . . ’

‘We scorn it not,’ Geralt interrupted, with a menacing glance restraining Angoulême, who was making insulting gestures with her hand behind the baron’s back. ‘Far be it from us to scorn it. We shall not fail to pay our respects and due homage to the duchess. But first we will accomplish what we must accomplish. We also gave our word; one might say that we’ve also made compacts. Once we have carried them out we shall make for Beauclair Castle. We shall unfailingly go there.’

‘If only,’ he added knowingly and with emphasis, ‘to ensure that no disgrace or dishonour befalls our comrade, Dandelion. I meant Julian, by thunder.’

‘’Pon my word!’ the baron suddenly laughed. ‘No disgrace nor dishonour will befall Viscount Julian, I’m prepared to give my word on it! For I omitted to tell you, viscount, that Duke Raymund died of apoplexy two years past.’

‘Ha, ha!’ Dandelion shouted, beaming all over. ‘The duke kicked the bucket! These truly are marvellous and joyous tidings! I mean, I meant to say, sorrow and grief, a great loss . . . May the earth lie lightly on him . . . If that is the case, let’s ride with all haste to Beauclair, noble knights! Geralt, Milva and Angoulême, I’ll see you in the castle!’

*

They forded the stream and spurred the horses into the forest, among spreading oaks and stirrup-high ferns. Milva found the trail of the fleeing gang without difficulty. They rode as quickly as they could, for Geralt feared for the druids. He was afraid the survivors of the gang, feeling safe, would want to seek vengeance on the druids for the massacre sustained from the knights errant of Toussaint.

‘Well, Dandelion’s come up trumps,’ Angoulême suddenly said. ‘When Nightingale’s men surrounded us in that cottage, he told me what he feared in Toussaint.’

‘I’d guessed,’ Witcher replied. ‘I just didn’t know he’d aimed so high. The duchess, ho!’

‘It was a good few years ago. And Duke Raymund, the one who croaked, had apparently sworn he’d tear out the poet’s heart, have it roasted and make his inconstant duchess eat it for supper. Dandelion’s lucky he didn’t fall into the duke’s clutches while he was still alive. We’re also lucky . . .’

‘That remains to be seen.’

‘Dandelion claims that Duchess Henarietta is madly in love with him.’

‘Dandelion always claims that.’

‘Shut your traps!’ Milva snapped, reining in her horse and reaching for her bow.

A brigand rushed blindly towards them, without a hat, weaving from oak to oak. He was running, falling over, getting up and running again. And screaming. Shrilly, dreadfully, awfully.

‘What the . . . ?’ Angoulême asked in astonishment.

Milva tautened her bow in silence. She didn’t shoot, but waited until the brigand approached and rushed straight for them, as though he couldn’t see them. He ran between the horses of the Witcher and Angoulême. They saw his face, as white as a sheet and contorted in horror. They saw his bulging eyes.

‘What the . . . ?’ Angoulême repeated.

Milva recovered from her astonishment, turned in the saddle and sent an arrow into the fleeing man’s back. The brigand roared and tumbled into the ferns.

The earth shook, making acorns fall from a nearby oak.

‘I wonder,’ said Angoulême, ‘what he was fleeing from . . .’

The earth shook again. The bushes rustled and broken branches cracked.

‘What is it?’ Milva stammered, standing up in her stirrups. ‘What is it, Witcher?’

Geralt looked, saw it and sighed loudly. Angoulême also saw it. And paled.

‘Oh, fuck!’

Milva’s horse also saw it. It neighed wildly, reared and then bucked. The archer flew from the saddle and sprawled heavily onto the ground. The horse raced into the forest. Without a second thought the Witcher’s steed rushed after it, unfortunately choosing a path under an overhanging oak branch. The branch toppled the Witcher from the saddle. The impact and the pain in his knee almost made him lose consciousness.

Angoulême managed to stay in control of her frenzied horse the longest, but finally she too ended up on the ground and her horse fled, almost trampling Milva as she was getting up.

And they saw more clearly the thing that was coming for them. And absolutely, absolutely lost their astonishment at the animals’ panic.

The creature resembled a gigantic tree, a branching, ancient oak; perhaps it was an oak. But if so it was a very unusual oak. Instead of standing somewhere in a clearing among fallen leaves and acorns, instead of letting squirrels scamper over it and linnets shit on it, this oak was marching briskly through the forest, stamping its sturdy roots steadily and waving its boughs. The stout trunk – or torso – of the monster had a diameter of more or less four yards, and the hollow gaping in it was probably not a hollow, but its maw, for it was snapping with a sound like the slamming of a heavy door.

Though the ground trembled beneath its terrible weight, making it difficult for them to keep their balance, the creature was loping through the ravines quite nimbly. And it wasn’t doing it aimlessly.

In front of their eyes the monster swung its boughs, swished its branches and plucked from a pit a bandit who was cowering there, just as deftly as a stork plucks a frog hidden in the grass. Entwined in the branches, the thug hung among the boughs, howling pitifully. Geralt saw that the monster was carrying three brigands caught in the same way. And one Nilfgaardian.

‘Run . . .’ he moaned, vainly trying to stand. He felt as though someone was banging a white-hot nail into his knee with the rhythmic blows of a hammer. ‘Milva . . . Angoulême . . . Run . . .’

‘We won’t leave you!’

The tree creature heard them, stamped its roots joyfully and rushed towards them. Angoulême, vainly trying to lift Geralt, swore hideously. With trembling hands, Milva tried to nock an arrow on the bowstring. Quite pointlessly.

‘Run away!’

It was already too late. The tree creature was upon them. Paralysed by terror, they could now see its prey: four robbers, hanging in a tangle of branches. Two were still alive, for they were emitting hoarse croaks and kicking their legs. The third, probably unconscious, was hanging limply. The monster was clearly trying to catch its prey alive. But it had been unsuccessful with the fourth, and it had inadvertently squeezed too hard – which was obvious from its victim’s bulging eyes and distended tongue, which was flopping down over a chin soiled with blood and vomit.

The next second they were hanging in the air, tangled in the branches, all three of them howling to high heaven.

‘Graze, graze, graze,’ they heard from below, near the roots. ‘Graze, graze, Little Tree.’

A young druidess in a white robe with a flower wreath on her head strode behind the tree creature, driving it lightly with a leafy twig.

‘Don’t harm them, Little Tree, don’t squeeze. Gently. Graze, graze, graze.’

‘We aren’t brigands . . .’ Geralt grunted from above, barely able to produce a sound from his chest, which was being crushed by the bough. ‘Order it to let us go . . . We’re innocent . . .’

‘They all say that.’ The druidess shooed away a little butterfly fluttering around her brow. ‘Graze, graze, graze.’

‘I’ve pissed myself . . .’ Angoulême whimpered. ‘I’ve bloody pissed myself!’

Milva only wheezed. Her head was lolling on her chest. Geralt swore vilely. It was the only thing he could do.

Driven by the druidess, the tree creature ran jauntily through the forest. During the run, all of the prisoners – at least those that were conscious – teeth were chattering to the rhythm of the creature’s leaps, so loudly it echoed.

After a short while they were in a large clearing. Geralt saw a group of white-robed druids, and besides them another tree creature. The other had a poorer collection – only three bandits hung from its boughs, and probably only one was still alive.

‘Oh, criminals, malefactors, oh, contemptible ones!’ declaimed one of the druids from below. He was an old man resting on a long crosier. ‘Observe carefully. See what punishment befalls criminals and base individuals in Myrkvid Forest. Look on and remember. We shall release you, that you might tell others about what you will soon behold. As a warning!’

In the very centre of the clearing stood a cage woven from wicker, a great, human-shaped effigy upon a huge pile of logs and faggots. The cage was full of yelling and struggling people. The Witcher could clearly hear the frog-like croaking of the robber Nightingale, hoarse with terror. He saw the face of the half-elf Schirrú, as white as a sheet and contorted in panicked fear, pressed against the wicker lattice.

‘Druids!’ Geralt yelled, puting all his strength into the cry, in order to be heard despite the general clamour. ‘Lady flaminika! I am the Witcher Geralt!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ responded a tall, thin woman with hair the colour of grey steel falling over her back, bound around her brow with a wreath of mistletoe.

‘I am Geralt . . . The Witcher . . . A friend of Emiel Regis . . .’

‘Again, please. I didn’t catch that.’

‘Geraaaaalt! A friend of the vampiiiire’s!’

‘Oh! You ought to have said so at once!’

At a sign from the druidess, the tree creature put them on the ground. Not very gently. Milva was unconscious, with blood dripping from her nose. Geralt stood up with difficulty and kneeled before her.

The steely-haired flaminika stood beside them and gave a slight cough. Her face was very lean, even haggard, evoking unpleasant associations of a skull covered in skin. Her cornflower-blue eyes were kind and gentle.

‘I believe she has broken ribs,’ she said, looking at Milva. ‘But we shall soon remedy that. Our healers will give her help immediately. I regret what has happened. But how was I to know who you were? I didn’t invite you to Caed Myrkvid or give my permission for you to enter our sanctuary. Emiel Regis vouched for you, admittedly, but the presence of a witcher in our forest, a paid killer of living creatures . . .’

‘I shall get out of here without a moment’s delay, honourable flaminika,’ Geralt assured her. ‘As soon as I—’

He broke off, seeing druids with flaming torches walking up to the pyre and the effigy full of people.

‘No!’ he cried, clenching his fists. ‘Stop!’

‘That cage,’ said the flaminika, seeming not to hear him, ‘was originally meant to serve as a winter manger for starving animals, was meant to have stood in the forest, stuffed with hay. But when we seized those scoundrels, I recalled the nasty rumours and calumnies which people spread about us. Very well, I thought, you can have your Wicker Hag. You made it up as a horrific nightmare, so I shall treat you to that nightmare . . .’

‘Order them to stop,’ the Witcher gasped. ‘Honourable flaminika . . . Don’t set light to it . . . One of the bandits has important information for me . . .’

The flaminika folded her arms on her chest. Her cornflower-blue eyes were still soft and gentle.

‘Oh, no,’ she said dryly. ‘No chance. I don’t believe in the institution of turning imperial evidence. Wriggling out of a punishment is immoral.’

‘Stop!’ The Witcher yelled. ‘Don’t set fire to it! Stooo— ’

The flaminika made a short gesture with her hand and Little Tree, still standing nearby, stamped down its roots and laid a bough on the Witcher’s shoulder. Geralt sat down with a thump.

‘Light it!’ the flaminika ordered. ‘I’m sorry, Witcher, but it must be thus. We druids cherish and venerate life in all its forms. But sparing the lives of criminals is sheer stupidity. Only terror deters criminals. So we shall give them an example of it. I pin great hopes on not having to repeat this example.’

The brushwood caught fire in an instant. The pyre belched smoke and flames leaped up. The yelling and screaming coming from the Wicker Hag made the Witcher’s hair stand on end. Of course, it was impossible among the cacophony – made louder by the crackle of the fire – but it seemed to Geralt that he could make out Nightingale’s desperate croaking and the high-pitched, pain-filled shrieks of the half-elf Schirrú.

The half-elf had been right, he thought. Death isn’t always the same.

And then – after a terribly long time – the pyre and the Wicker Hag mercifully exploded into an inferno of roaring fire, a fire in which nothing could survive.

‘Your medallion, Geralt,’ said Angoulême, standing beside him.

‘Eh?’ He cleared his throat, for his throat was tight. ‘What did you say?’

‘Your silver medallion with the wolf. Schirrú had it. Now you’ve lost it forever. It’ll melt in that heat.’

‘Too bad,’ he said a moment later, looking into the flaminika’s cornflower-blue eyes. ‘I’m no longer a witcher. I’ve stopped being a witcher. I’ve learned that now. On Thanedd, in the Tower of the Seagull. In Brokilon. On the bridge on the Yaruga. In the cave beneath Gorgon. And here, in Myrkvid Forest. No, I’m not a witcher now. So I’ll have to learn to manage without my medallion.’

The king loved the queen boundlessly, and she loved him with all her heart. Something so fair had to finish unhappily.

Flourens Delannoy, Fairy Tales and Stories

Delannoy, Flourens, linguist and historian b. 1432 in Vicovaro, in the years 1460–1475 secretary and librarian to the imperial court. Indefatigable scholar of legends and folktales, he wrote many treatises considered classics of ancient language and literature of the Empire’s northern regions. His most important works are: Myths and Legends of the Peoples of the North; Fairy Tales and Stories; The Surprise, or the Myth of the Elder Blood; A Saga about a Witcher, and The Witcher and the Witcher Girl, or the Endless Search. From 1476 professor at the academy in Castell Graupian, where d. 1510.

Effenberg and Talbot, Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, Volume IV

CHAPTER EIGHT

A strong wind blew in from the sea, ruffling the sails, and a drizzle like thin hail stung the voyagers’ faces painfully. The water in the Great Canal was leaden, rippled by the wind and flecked by a rash of rain.

‘Come this way, sire. The boat is waiting.’

Dijkstra sighed heavily. He was thoroughly sick of the sea voyage. He’d been delighted by those few moments on the hard and solid rock wharf, and he was pissed off at the thought of stepping onto a wobbly deck once again. But what else to do? Lan Exeter, Kovir’s winter capital, differed fundamentally from the world’s other capital cities. In the harbour of Lan Exeter, travellers arriving by sea disembarked onto the stone quay only to immediately embark onto another craft; a slender many-oared boat with a highly upturned prow and slightly lower stern. Lan Exeter was built on the water, in the wide estuary of the River Targo. The city had canals instead of streets – and all municipal transportation was by boat.

He got in, greeting the Redanian ambassador waiting for him by the gangway. The boat was pushed away from the quay, the oars struck the water evenly, the boat moved off and picked up speed. The Redanian ambassador said nothing. Ambassador, Dijkstra thought mechanically. For how many years had Redania been sending ambassadors to Kovir? A hundred and twenty, at most. For a hundred and twenty years Kovir and Poviss had been foreign to Redania. Though it hadn’t always been that way.

From time immemorial Redania had treated the countries in the North, on the Gulf of Praxeda, as part of its fiefdom. Kovir and Poviss were – it was said at the Tretogorian court – the greatest protectorates in the “Crown dominions”. Successive earls were called Troydenids, since they were descended – or so they claimed – from their common forebear, Troyden. Prince Troyden had been the natural brother of Radovid I, King of Redania, later called the Great. Even in his youth Troyden was already a lewd and extremely beastly character. People were afraid when they realised he would develop with time. King Radovid – no exception in this regard – detested his brother like the plague. He thus appointed him Earl of Kovir in order to be rid of him, to move him as far away as possible. And nowhere was further away than Kovir.

Earl Troyden was formally a liegeman of Redania, but an atypical one – he didn’t bear any feudal obligations or duties. Why, he didn’t even have to take the ceremonial feudal oath! All that was demanded of him was a pledge of ‘no interference’. Some said that Radovid simply pitied his brother, knowing that the Koviran “protectorate” couldn’t afford to pay tax or raise armies. Others, though, claimed Radovid simply wanted the earl out of his sight – the thought that his younger brother might turn up in Tretogor in person with money or military aid made him sick. No one knew what was true, but so it was, and so it remained. Many years after the death of Radovid I, the law established by the great king was still binding in Redania. Firstly, the county of Kovir was a vassal, but did not have to pay or serve. Secondly, the Koviran inheritance was in the exclusive control of the House of Troyden. Thirdly, Tretogor did not interfere in the affairs of the House of Troyden. Fourthly, members of the House of Troyden were not invited to Tretogor for ceremonies celebrating state holidays. Fifthly, nor for any other occasion.

Essentially, few knew and few were interested in what went on in the North. News about conflicts between Kovir and smaller northern rulers reached Redania, mainly by a roundabout route through Kaedwen. About alliances and wars; with Hengfors, Malleore, Creyden, Talgar and other lands with difficult-to-remember names. Someone conquered someone else and swallowed them up, someone allied with someone else in a dynastic union, someone routed and subjugated someone else. Essentially: no one knew who, whom or why.

However, news about wars and battles lured to the North a whole myriad of brawlers, adventurers, thrill seekers and other restless spirits, looking for plunder and the chance to blow off steam. They were drawn there from all the corners of the world, even from countries as distant as Cintra and Rivia. But they were above all citizens of Redania and Kaedwen. Entire cavalry squadrons came to Kovir, in particular from Kaedwen; rumour even trumpeted that the notorious Aideen, the rebellious, illegitimate daughter of the Kaedwenian monarch, rode at the head of one of them. In Redania it was said that designs were forming at the court in Ard Carraigh for the annexation of the northern county and severing it from the Redanian crown. Some even began clamouring for armed intervention.

Tretogor, however, ostentatiously announced that the North didn’t interest it. As the royal jurists deemed, the principle of mutuality applied – the Koviran state had no obligations to the crown, so the crown wouldn’t come to Kovir’s aid. All the more so since Kovir had never asked for any help.

Meanwhile, Kovir and Poviss had emerged stronger and more powerful from the wars waged in the North. Few knew about that back then. A clearer signal of the North’s growing might was a more and more vigorous export market. For decades it had been said of Kovir that the land’s only wealth was sand and sea water. That joke was recalled when production from the Koviran foundries and salt works virtually monopolised the world’s glass and salt markets.

But although hundreds of people drank from glasses with the mark of the Koviran foundries and seasoned their soup with Poviss salt, in people’s awareness it was still an extremely distant, inaccessible, harsh and hostile land. And, above all, foreign.

In Redania and Kaedwen, rather than ‘go to Hell’ people said ‘get to Poviss’. If you don’t like working for me, a master would say to his unruly journeymen, ‘the path’s clear to Kovir’. ‘We won’t have Koviran order here’, shouted a schoolmaster at his disobedient and boisterous pupils. ‘Go mouth off in Poviss’, called a farmer to his son when he was critical of his forefathers’ ard and swidden agriculture.

If anyone doesn’t like the old order, ‘the road’s open to Kovir’!

The recipients of these statements slowly – very slowly – began to ponder them and soon noticed that indeed nothing, absolutely nothing, was barring their way to Kovir and Poviss. A second wave of emigration set off for the North. Just like the previous one, this one mainly consisted of discontented mavericks who were different and wanted things done differently. But this time they weren’t troublemakers and misfits at odds with life. Well, at least not all of them.

Scholars who believed in their theories, although they had been shouted down and called demented, headed North. Technicians and constructors, convinced that contrary to popular opinion it was possible to build the machines and devices invented by the scholars. Sorcerers, for whom the use of magic to erect breakwaters wasn’t a sacrilegious offence. Merchants for whom the prospect of a growth in turnover was capable of exploding the rigid, static and short-sighted limits of risk. Farmers and stock breeders, convinced that one could create fertile fields from even the worst soil, that it was always possible to breed varieties of animals in a given climate.

Miners and geologists, for whom the bleakness of Kovir’s barren mountains and rocks was an infallible signal that if there was such paucity on the surface there must be wealth beneath, also headed North. For nature loves equilibrium.

There was wealth beneath those wastes.

A quarter of a century passed – and Kovir had extracted as many minerals as Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen taken together. Only Mahakam surpassed Kovir in the extraction and processing of iron ore, but transports full of metal serving the production of alloys went from Kovir to Mahakam. Kovir and Poviss accounted for a quarter of the world’s yield of silver, nickel, lead, tin and zinc, half of the extraction of copper ore and native copper, three quarters of the yield of manganese, chromium, titanium and tungsten ores, and the same amount of metals occurring only in their native form: platinum, ferroaurum, kryobelitium and dimeritium.

And more than eighty per cent of the world’s gold production.

Gold, with which Kovir and Poviss bought what didn’t grow or wasn’t bred in the North. And what Kovir and Poviss didn’t produce. Not because they were unable to or didn’t have the expertise, but because it didn’t pay. A craftsman from Kovir or Poviss – the son or grandson of an immigrant who went there with a bindle on his back – now earned fourfold that of his counterpart in Redania or Temeria.

Kovir traded and wanted to trade with the whole world, on a greater and greater scale. But it couldn’t.

Radovid III became king of Redania, and shared with Radovid the Great – his great-grandfather – the same name as well as the same cunning and miserliness. That king – called the Bold by fawners and hagiographers, and Rufus by everybody else – had observed what none before him had wanted to. Why didn’t Redania have a single farthing of the gigantic trade engaged in by Kovir? Why, Kovir was just a meaningless county, a fiefdom, a tiny jewel in the Redanian crown. It was time the Koviran vassal began to serve its suzerain!

A wonderful opportunity occurred to do so; Redania had a border dispute with Aedirn, as usual concerning the Pontar valley. Radovid III was determined to take up arms and began to prepare for it. He promulgated a special tax for military purposes, called the ‘Pontar tithe’. All of his subjects and vassals were to pay it. Without exception. Kovir included. Rufus rubbed his hands. Ten per cent of Kovir’s income; that was something!

Redanian emissaries made for Pont Vanis, imagined as a small town with a wooden palisade. They communicated astonishing news to Rufus on their return.

Pont Vanis wasn’t a small town. It was a great city, the summer capital of Kovir, whose ruler, King Gedovius, sent King Radovid the following answer:

The Kingdom of Kovir is no one’s vassal. Redania’s petitions and claims are groundless and based on the dead letter of a law which never had any force. The kings of Redania have never been the overlords of Kovir, for the rulers of Kovir – as can easily be checked in the annals – have never paid Redania tribute, have never carried out military servitude and, most importantly, have never been invited to celebrations of state holidays. Or any others.

Therefore, the King of Kovir informed the emissaries – with regret – that he could not recognise King Radovid as his seigneur or suzerain, much less pay him a tithe. Nor could any of the Koviran vassals or arriere vassals – which were subject exclusively to the Koviran suzerainty.

In short: let Redania mind its own business and not stick its nose into the affairs of Kovir, a sovereign kingdom.

Cold fury welled up in Rufus. A sovereign kingdom? A foreign land? Very well. We shall deal with Kovir as we would any foreign province.

Redania, along with Kaedwen and Temeria – incited by Rufus – applied against Kovir a retaliatory tax and ruthless right of storage. A merchant from Kovir, heading southward, had to, whether he liked it or not, put all his goods on sale in one of Redania’s cities and sell it or return home. That same constraint faced a merchant from the distant South, when making for Kovir.

Redania demanded heavy duty on goods which Kovir shipped by sea, even if they were not calling at Redanian or Temerian ports. Koviran ships, naturally, didn’t want to pay – and only those who didn’t manage to escape paid. The game of cat and mouse begun on the sea quickly led to an incident. A Redanian patrol craft tried to arrest a Koviran merchant, two Koviran frigates appeared, the patrol craft went up in flames. There were casualties.

The line had been overstepped. Radovid decided to discipline his disobedient vassal. A four-thousand strong Redanian army crossed the River Braa, and an expeditionary force from Kaedwen invaded Caingorn.

After a week, the two thousand surviving Redanians crossed the Braa the other way, and the poorly-equipped survivors of the Kaedwenian corps trudged home across the passes of the Kestrel Mountains. This had revealed a further purpose which the northern gold served. Kovir’s permanent army consisted of twenty-five thousand professionals seasoned by combat – and banditry – as well as mercenaries drafted from the far corners of the world, unreservedly loyal to the Koviran crown for their exceptionally generous pay and a pension guaranteed by contract. Prepared for any risk for the exceptionally generous bonuses paid out after every victorious battle. Further, these wealthy soldiers were led in battle by experienced, able – and now extremely wealthy – commanders whom Rufus and King Benda of Kaedwen knew very well; they were the same ones who not long before had served in their armies, but had unexpectedly retired and gone abroad.

Rufus was no fool and could learn from his mistakes. He quelled his swaggering remaining generals, who were demanding a crusade, ignored the merchants calling for a starvation blockade, and mollified Benda of Kaedwen, who was greedy for blood and revenge for the extermination of his elite unit. Rufus initiated negotiations unrestrained by the prospect of humiliation, by the bitter pill he had to swallow; Kovir agreed to talks, but on their territory, in Lan Exeter. He had to eat humble pie.

They sailed to Lan Exeter like petitioners, thought Dijkstra, wrapping himself in his cloak. Like humble supplicants. Quite like me today.

The Redanian squadron sailed into the Gulf of Praxeda and headed towards the Koviran coast. From the deck of the flagship Alata, Radovid, Benda of Kaedwen – and the hierarch of Novigrad accompanying them in the role of mediator – observed in astonishment the breakwaters extending into the sea, above which rose the walls and sturdy bastions of the fortress guarding access to the city of Pont Vanis. And sailing north from Pont Vanis, towards the mouth of the River Targo, the kings saw port alongside port, shipyard beside shipyard, harbour by harbour. They saw a forest of masts and the blinding white of sails. Kovir, it turned out, was prepared for blockades, embargos and duty wars. Kovir was clearly ready to dominate the seas.

Alata sailed into the broad mouth of the Targo and dropped anchor in the stony jaws of the outport. But – to the kings’ astonishment – one more trip by water awaited them. The city of Lan Exeter didn’t have streets, but canals. The Great Canal, leading from the harbour straight to the royal residence, was the main artery and axis of the metropolis. The kings transferred to galleys decorated in scarlet and gold garlands and a coat of arms on which Rufus and Benda recognised in amazement the Redanian eagle and the Kaedwenian unicorn.

As they travelled along the Great Canal, the kings and their retinues looked around and kept silent. Actually, it ought to be said they were rendered speechless. They’d been wrong to think they knew what wealth and splendour were, that they couldn’t be astonished by manifestations of affluence or any display of luxury. They went down the Great Canal, passing the impressive Admiralty building and the Merchants’ Guild. They floated alongside promenades packed with colourful and finely attired crowds. They travelled between avenues of magnificent aristocratic residences and merchants’ townhouses, reflecting in the canal’s water a spectrum of splendidly embellished, but exceptionally narrow, façades. In Lan Exeter tax was paid on a house’s frontage; the wider the frontage, the higher the tax.

On the steps leading down to the canal of Ensenada Palace, the royal winter residence, the only building with a wide frontage, was already waiting for them a welcoming committee and the royal couple: Gedovius, the king of Kovir, and his wife, Gemma. The couple welcomed the new arrivals courteously, politely . . . and uncharacteristically. Dear uncle, Gedovius greeted Radovid. Darling grandfather, Gemma smiled to Benda. Gedovius was a Troydenid, after all. Gemma, however, it turned out was descended from the rebellious Aideen, in whose veins flowed the blood of the kings of Ard Carraigh, who had fled from Kaedwen.

The proven consanguinity improved the mood and evoked affection, but didn’t help in the negotiations. By and large what followed were not negotiations. The ‘children’ briefly stated their demands. Their ‘grandfathers’ heard them out. And then signed a document, which posterity called the First Exeter Treaty. To distinguish it from those entered into later. The First Treaty also bears a name in keeping with the first words of its preamble: Mare Liberum Apertum.

The sea is free and open. Trade is free. Profit is sacred. Love the trade and profit of your neighbour like your own. To hinder someone’s trading and profiting is to break the laws of nature. And Kovir is no one’s vassal. It’s a sovereign, autonomous – and neutral – kingdom.

It didn’t look as if Gedovius and Gemma wanted – even, say, in the name of politeness – to make a single concession, even the slightest, nothing that would have rescued Radovid and Benda’s honour. Nonetheless, they did. They agreed for Radovid – during his lifetime – to use in official documents the title of King of Kovir and Poviss, and Benda – during his lifetime – the title of King of Caingorn and Malleore.

Of course, with the proviso de non preiudicando.

Gedovius and Gemma reigned for twenty-five years; the royal branch of the Troydenids ended with their son, Gerard. Esteril Thyssen ascended to the Koviran throne. And founded the House of Thyssen.

The kings of Kovir were soon after bound by blood ties to all the other dynasties of the world, and they all steadfastly abided by the Exeter Treaties. They never interfered with their neighbours’ affairs. They never raised the issue of foreign succession, though often historical turbulence meant that the king or prince of Kovir had all possible grounds to judge himself the rightful successor to the throne of Redania, Aedirn, Kaedwen, Cidaris or even Verden or Rivia. The mighty Kovir didn’t attempt territorial annexations or conquests, nor did it send gunboats armed with catapults and ballistae into foreign waters. It never seized the privilege of ruling the waves. Mare Liberum Apertum; a sea free and open for trade was sufficient for Kovir. Kovir believed in the sanctity of trade and profit.

And in absolute, unswerving neutrality.

Dijkstra put up the beaver collar of his cloak, protecting his nape from the wind and the lashing rain. He looked around, shaken from his contemplations. The water in the Great Canal looked black. In the drizzle and fog, even the Admiralty building – the boast of Lan Exeter – looked like a barracks. Even the merchants’ townhouses had lost their usual sumptuousness – and their narrow frontages seemed narrower than normal. Perhaps they are sodding narrower, thought Dijkstra. If King Esterad has raised the tax, the sly householders may have narrowed their houses.

‘Has the weather been so plague-stricken for long, Your Excellency?’ he asked, just to interrupt the annoying silence.

‘Since the middle of September, Count,’ answered the ambassador. ‘Since the full moon. It looks as though winter will come early. It has already snowed in Talgar.’

‘I thought,’ said Dijkstra, ‘the snow never melted in Talgar.’

The ambassador glanced at him, as if to make sure it was a joke and not ignorance.

‘In Talgar –’ now he showed off his wit ‘– the winter begins in September, and ends in May. The remaining seasons are spring and autumn. There’s also the summer . . . it usually falls on the first Tuesday after the August new moon. And lasts until Wednesday morning.’

Dijkstra didn’t laugh.

‘But even there,’ the ambassador turned gloomy, ‘snow at the end of October is a sensation.’

The ambassador – like most of Redania’s aristocracy – couldn’t stand Dijkstra. He considered the need to receive and entertain the arch-spy as a personal affront, and the fact that the Regency Council had charged Dijkstra and not him with negotiations with Kovir as a mortal insult. It sickened him that he, de Ruyter of the most celebrated branch of the de Ruyter family, Grafs for nine generations, should have to address a churl and upstart as ‘Count’. But as an experienced diplomat he concealed his resentment masterfully.

The oars rose and fell rhythmically, and the boat glided swiftly along the canal. They had just passed the bijou – but extremely tasteful – palace of Culture and Art.

‘Do we sail to Ensenada?’

‘Yes, Count,’ confirmed the ambassador. ‘The minister of foreign affairs stressed emphatically that he wished to see you immediately on arrival, which is why I’m taking you directly to Ensenada. In the evening I shall send a boat to the palace, for I would like to entertain you over supper—’

‘Your Excellency will deign to forgive me,’ Dijkstra interrupted, ‘but my duties won’t allow me to take you up on it. I have a prodigious amount of matters to deal with and little time, so I must manage them at the cost of pleasure. We shall sup another day. In happier, more peaceful times.’

The ambassador bowed and furtively sighed with relief.

*

He entered Ensenada, naturally, by a rear entrance. For which he was very glad. An impressive but damned long staircase of white marble led straight from the Great Canal to the main entrance of the royal winter residence, beneath a magnificent frontage supported on slender columns. The stairs leading to one of the numerous rear entrances were incomparably less spectacular, but far easier to negotiate. In spite of that, Dijkstra, as he walked, bit his lip and swore softly under his breath, so that the major-domo, lackeys and guardsmen escorting him wouldn’t hear.

More stairs and more climbing awaited him inside the palace. Dijkstra cursed again sotto voce. Probably the damp, cold and uncomfortable position in the boat was why his leg, with its smashed and magically healed ankle, had begun to make itself known with a dull, nagging pain. And a nasty memory. Dijkstra ground his teeth. He knew that the Witcher – the man responsible for his suffering – had also had his bones broken. He had profound hopes that they also pained the Witcher and wished in his heart of hearts that it would pain him as long and as severely as possible.

Dusk had already fallen outside and Ensenada’s corridors were dark. The route Dijkstra was taking behind a silent major-domo was, nonetheless, lit by a sparse row of lackeys with candlesticks. And outside the doors of the chamber to which the major-domo was leading him stood guardsmen with halberds, so erect it seemed spare halberds had been stuck up their backsides. The lackeys with candles stood more densely there, so the luminance was blinding. Dijkstra was somewhat astonished by the pomp with which he was being received.

He entered the chamber and immediately stopped being astonished. He bowed low.

‘Greetings to you, Dijkstra,’ said Esterad Thyssen, King of Kovir, Poviss, Narok, Velhad and Talgar. ‘Don’t stand by the door, come closer. Put etiquette aside, it’s an unofficial audience.’

‘Your Majesty.’

Esterad’s wife, Queen Zuleyka, responded to Dijkstra’s reverential bow with a slightly absent-minded nod, not interrupting her crocheting for a moment.

There wasn’t a soul in the chamber apart from the royal couple.

‘Precisely.’ Esterad had noticed his glance. ‘Just the two of us will chat. I beg your pardon, just the three of us. For something tells me it’ll be better this way.’

Dijkstra sat down on the scissors chair indicated, opposite Esterad. The king was wearing a crimson ermine-trimmed cape and a matching velvet chapeau. Like all the men of the Thyssen clan he was tall, powerfully built and devilishly handsome. He always looked robust and healthy, like a sailor just returned from the sea; one could almost smell the seawater and cold, salt wind coming from him. As with all the Thyssens it was difficult to determine his exact age. Judging by his hair, skin and hands – the features which most clearly express one’s age – Esterad might have passed for forty-five. Dijkstra knew the king was fifty-six.

‘Zuleyka.’ The king leaned over towards his wife. ‘Look at him. If you didn’t know he was a spy, would you give credence to it?’

Queen Zuleyka was short, quite stout and pleasantly plain. She dressed in quite a typical way for women of her looks, which was based on selecting elements of attire so that no one would guess she wasn’t her own grandmother. Zuleyka achieved this effect by wearing loose-fitting gowns, dull of cut and grey-brown of tone. On her head she wore a bonnet inherited from her ancestors. She didn’t use any makeup and didn’t wear any jewellery.

‘The Good Book,’ she spoke in a quiet and sweet little voice, ‘teaches us circumspection in judging our neighbours. For one day they will judge us, too. Let’s hope not on the basis of appearance.’

Esterad Thyssen favoured his wife with a warm look. It was widely known that he loved her boundlessly, with a love which for twenty-nine years of marriage hadn’t dimmed a jot. On the contrary, as the years passed it blazed brighter and hotter. Esterad, it was claimed, had never betrayed Zuleyka. Dijkstra couldn’t really believe in anything so unlikely, but himself had tried three times to plant on – or virtually place under – the king stunning female agents, candidates for favourites, superb sources of information. Nothing had come of it.

‘I like to speak bluntly,’ said the king, ‘therefore I shall reveal at once, Dijkstra, why I’ve decided to talk to you personally. There are several reasons. Firstly, I know you won’t shrink from bribery. I’m certain, by and large, of my ministers, but why put them to the test, lead them into temptation? What kind of bribe did you intend to offer the minister of foreign affairs?’

‘A thousand Novigradian crowns,’ the spy responded without batting an eyelid. ‘Were he to haggle, I’d have gone up to a thousand five hundred.’

‘And that’s why I like you,’ Esterad Thyssen said after moment’s silence. ‘You’re a dreadful whoreson. You remind me of my youth. I look at you and see myself at your age.’

Dijkstra thanked him with a bow. He was just eight years younger than the king. He was convinced that Esterad was well aware of it.

‘You’re a dreadful whoreson,’ the king repeated, growing serious. ‘But a respectable and decent one. And that’s a rarity in these rotten times.’

Dijkstra bowed once more.

‘You see,’ Esterad continued, ‘in every country one may encounter people who are blind fanatics for the idea of social order. People committed to an idea, prepared to do anything for it. Including crime, for to them the aim justifies the means and changes the meaning of concepts. They don’t murder, they rescue order. They don’t torture, they don’t blackmail: they safeguard the national interest and fight for order. For such people, the life of an individual – should that individual violate the dogma of the established order – is not worth a farthing or a shrug. People like that don’t acknowledge the fact that the society they serve is made up of individuals. People like that are availed of the so-called “broad” view . . . and such a view is the most certain way of not noticing other people.’

‘Nicodemus de Boot,’ Dijkstra blurted out.

‘Close, but wide of the mark.’ The king of Kovir bared his alabaster-white teeth. ‘It was Vysogota of Corvo. A lesser known, but also able, ethicist and philosopher. Read him. I recommend it. Perhaps one of his books has survived in Redania. Perhaps you didn’t burn them all? Come, come, let’s get to the point. You, Dijkstra, are also unscrupulous in your use of intrigue, bribery, blackmail and torture. You don’t bat an eyelid when condemning someone to death or ordering an assassination. That fact you do it for the kingdom you faithfully serve does not excuse you or make you any more pleasant in my eyes. Not in the slightest. Be aware of that.’

The spy nodded as a sign that he was.

‘You are, though,’ Esterad continued, ‘as it’s been said before, a whoreson of upright character. And that’s why I like and respect you, why I’ve granted you a private audience. For you, Dijkstra, having had a million opportunities, have never done anything for private gain or stolen so much as a ha’penny from the state coffers. Not even a farthing. Zuleyka, look! Is he blushing, or am I deceived?’

The queen raised her head from her crocheting.

‘Their righteousness shall be known from their modesty.’ She quoted a passage from the Good Book, although she must have seen that not even a trace of a blush had appeared on the spy’s features.

‘Very well,’ Esterad said. ‘To business. Time to move to state affairs. He, Zuleyka, crossed the sea motivated by his patriotic duty. Redania, his fatherland, is threatened. Chaos rages there, following the tragic death of King Vizimir. Redania is now governed by a band of aristocratic idiots, calling themselves the Regency Council. That band, my Zuleyka, will do nothing for Redania. In the face of danger it will either bolt or begin obsequiously to grovel before the pearl-trimmed slippers of the Nilfgaardian Emperor. That band despises Dijkstra, for he’s a spy, a murderer, an upstart and a boor. But Dijkstra crossed the sea to save his country. Demonstrating who really cares about Redania.’

Esterad Thyssen fell silent, exhaled loudly, wearied by his speech, and adjusted his crimson chapeau, which had slipped down slightly over his nose.

‘Well, Dijkstra,’ he continued. ‘What ails your kingdom? Aside from a shortage of money, naturally?’

‘Aside from a shortage of money,’ the spy’s face was inscrutable, ‘all are well, thank you.’

‘Aha,’ the king nodded. His chapeau once more slipped down over his nose and had to be adjusted again. ‘Aha. I comprehend.’

‘I comprehend,’ he continued. ‘And I applaud the idea. When one has money, one may purchase medicaments for every affliction. The crux is to have the money. Which you do not. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. Do I understand correctly?’

‘Impeccably.’

‘And how much do you need, I wonder?’

‘Not much. A million bizants.’

‘Not much?’ Esterad Thyssen grasped his chapeau in both hands in an exaggerated gesture. ‘You call that not much? Oh, my!’

‘But for Your Royal Highness,’ the spy mumbled, ‘such a sum is a trifle—’

‘A trifle?’ The king released his chapeau and raised his hands towards the ceiling. ‘Oh, my! A million bizants is a trifle. Do you hear, Zuleyka, what he’s saying? And do you know, Dijkstra, that to have a million and not to have a million, is two million together? I understand, I comprehend, that you and Philippa Eilhart are looking desperately and feverishly for an idea to defend yourselves against Nilfgaard, but what do you want? Do you plan to buy the whole of Nilfgaard?’

Dijkstra did not reply. Zuleyka crocheted on. For a moment Esterad pretended to be admiring the nude nymphs on the ceiling.

‘Come along.’ He suddenly rose and nodded to the spy. They walked over to a huge painting portraying King Gedovius sitting astride a grey horse, pointing out something which wasn’t included on the canvas to the army with his sceptre, probably indicating the right direction. Esterad fished a tiny, gilded wand from his pocket, tapped the frame of the picture with it, and murmured a spell in hushed tones. Gedovius and his grey horse vanished, and a relief map of the known world appeared. The king touched a silver button in the corner of the map with his wand and magically transformed the scale, narrowing the visible sweep of the world to the Yaruga Valley and the Four Kingdoms.

‘The blue is Nilfgaard,’ he explained. ‘The red is you. What are you gawping at? Look here!’

Dijkstra tore his gaze away from the other paintings – chiefly nudes and seascapes. He wondered which was the magical camouflage for another notorious map of Esterad’s: the one which depicted Kovir’s military and trade intelligence service, an entire network of bribed informers and blackmailed individuals, agents, operational contacts, saboteurs, hired killers, moles and active resident spies. He knew such a map existed; he had been trying unsuccessfully for many years to gain access to it.

‘The red is you,’ Esterad Thyssen repeated. ‘Looks pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?’

Yup, pretty hopeless, Dijkstra admitted to himself. Lately he had been continuously looking at strategic maps, but now, on Esterad’s relief map, the situation seemed even worse. The blue squares formed themselves into the shape of terrible dragon’s jaws, liable at any moment to snatch and crush the small, miserable red squares in its great teeth.

Esterad Thyssen looked around for something that might serve as a pointer for the map, finally drawing a decorative rapier from the nearest panoply.

‘Nilfgaard,’ he began his lecture, pointing appropriately with the rapier, ‘has attacked Lyria and Aedirn, declaring an assault on the border fort Glevitzingen as a casus belli. I’m not going to investigate who really attacked Glevitzingen wearing which disguise. It’s also senseless to speculate how many days or hours Emhyr’s armed operation occurred before the analogical undertakings by Aedirn and Temeria. I shall leave that to the historians. I’m more interested in the situation today and what it will be tomorrow. At this very moment Nilfgaard is in Dol Angra and Aedirn, shielded by a buffer in the shape of the elven dominium in Dol Blathanna, bordering with that part of Aedirn which King Henselt of Kaedwen, speaking vividly, tore from Emhyr’s teeth and himself devoured.’

Dijkstra made no comment.

‘I shall also leave a moral judgement of King Henselt’s campaign to the historians,’ Esterad continued. ‘But a single glance at the map is sufficient to see that by annexing the Northern Marches Henselt barred Emhyr’s way to the Pontar Valley. He secured Temeria’s flank. And yours, the Redanians. You ought to thank him.’

‘I did,’ Dijkstra muttered. ‘But quietly. King Demawend of Aedirn is our guest in Tretogor. And Demawend has quite a precise moral judgement of Henselt’s deed. He customarily expresses it in blunt and ringing words.’

‘I can imagine,’ the King of Kovir nodded. ‘Let’s leave it for now, and glance at the South, at the River Yaruga. Attacking in Dol Angra, Emhyr simultaneously secured his flank by concluding a separatist treaty with Foltest of Temeria. But immediately after the end of the military operations in Aedirn the emperor broke the pact without further ado and struck Brugge and Sodden. Through his cowardly negotiations Foltest gained two weeks of peace. Sixteen days to be precise. And it’s the twenty-sixth of October today.’

‘It is.’

‘Thus the situation on the twenty-sixth of October is as follows. Brugge and Sodden occupied. The strongholds of Razvan and Mayena fallen. Temeria’s army defeated in the Battle of Maribor and repulsed northwards. Maribor besieged. This morning it was still holding out. But it’s already late evening, Dijkstra.’

‘Maribor will hold out. The Nilfgaardians didn’t manage to seal it off.’

‘True. They advanced too far, they overextended their supply lines, they’re imprudently exposing their flanks. They will call off the siege before the winter, withdrawing towards the Yaruga, shortening the front. But what will happen in the spring, Dijkstra? What will happen when the grass peeps out from under the snow? Come closer. Look at the map.’

Dijkstra looked.

‘Look at the map,’ the king repeated. ‘And I shall tell you what Emhyr var Emreis will do in the spring.’

*

‘They will begin an offensive on an unparalleled scale,’ announced Carthia van Canten, adjusting her golden curls in front of the looking glass. ‘Oh, I know that information isn’t sensational in itself. Old women enliven their laundry at every town well with stories about the spring offensive.’

Assire var Anahid was unusually tetchy and impatient today, but nonetheless managed not to ask why, in that case, she was bothering her with such unsensational information. But she knew Cantarella. And if Cantarella started talking about something she had her reasons. And she usually finished her statements with conclusions.

‘I know a little more than the hoipolloi, however,’ Cantarella continued. ‘Vattier told me everything, about the entire council with the emperor. And in addition brought me a whole briefcase of maps. When he fell asleep I examined them . . . Shall I go on?’

‘But of course, my dear.’ Assire squinted.

‘The thrust of the main strike is, of course, Temeria. The border of the River Pontar, along the line Novigrad-Vizima-Ellander. A force of the Central Army, under the command of Menno Coehoorn, will strike. A force of the Eastern Army will secure the flank, striking the Pontar Valley and Kaedwen from Aedirn . . . ’

‘Kaedwen?’ Assire raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that the end of the fragile friendship struck up during the sharing of spoils?’

‘Kaedwen is threatening the right flank.’ Carthia van Canten pouted slightly with her full lips. Her doll-like face was in striking contrast to the strategic grasp she was demonstrating. ‘The strike is of a preventive character. Assigned units of a group from the Eastern Army are to bind King Henselt’s army, to remove any thoughts of helping Temeria.

‘The Verden special operations group will strike in the west,’ the blonde woman continued, ‘with the task of capturing Cidaris and tightly sealing off the blockade of Novigrad, Gors Velen and Vizima. For the General Staff is taking into account the necessity of besieging those three strongholds.’

‘You didn’t name the two armies’ commanders.’

‘The Eastern Group, Ardal aep Dahy.’ Cantarella smiled slightly. ‘The Verden Group, Joachim de Wett.’

Assire raised her eyebrows.

‘How interesting,’ she said. ‘Two princes, offended by the removal of their daughters from Emhyr’s matrimonial plans. Our emperor is either very naive, or very cunning.’

‘If Emhyr knows anything about a plot by the princes,’ said Cantarella, ‘it’s not from Vattier. Vattier told him nothing.’

‘Go on.’

‘The offensive will be on an unprecedented scale. Taken together, including front line units, reserves, auxiliary and rear services, over three hundred thousand men will be taking part in the operation. And elves, naturally.’

‘Scheduled start date?’

‘Not yet set. Supplies are a key issue. Supplies means clear roads, and no one can predict when the winter will finish.’

‘What else did Vattier speak of?’

‘He was complaining, poor thing.’ Cantarella flashed her little teeth. ‘Complaining that the emperor had abused and reprimanded him again. Publically. The reason again was the mysterious disappearance of Stefan Skellen and his entire unit. Emhyr publically called Vattier a clot, said he was a head of a department which, rather than making people disappear without trace, are surprised by such disappearances. He constructed on the subject a malicious equivoque which Vattier, sadly, wasn’t able to repeat exactly. Then the emperor asked Vattier in jest if his failure meant some other secret organisation had been set up, kept confidential even from him. Our imperator is sharp. He’s close to the target.’

‘He is,’ Assire murmured. ‘What else, Carthia?’

‘The agent Vattier had in Skellen’s unit – who also vanished – was called Neratin Ceka. Vattier must have thought very highly of him, because he’s extremely dejected over his disappearance.’

I, thought Assire, am also left dejected by the disappearance of Jediah Mekesser. But I, unlike Vattier de Rideaux, will find out what happened.

‘And Rience? Has Vattier met him again?’

‘No. He didn’t mention it.’

They were both briefly silent. The cat in Assire’s lap purred loudly.

‘Madam Assire.’

‘Yes, Carthia?’

‘Will I have to play the role of the foolish lover much longer? I’d like to return to my studies, devote myself to scholarly work—’

‘Soon,’ Assire interrupted. ‘Just a little longer. Hold on, my child.’

Cantarella sighed.

They finished their conversation and bade each other farewell. Assire var Anahid shooed the cat from the armchair and reread the letter from Fringilla Vigo, who was residing in Toussaint. She fell into pensive mood, for the letter had troubled her. It bore some message between the lines which Assire sensed, but couldn’t grasp. It was after midnight when Assire var Anahid, the Nilfgaardian sorceress, started up the megascope and established telecommunication with Montecalvo Castle in Redania.

Philippa Eilhart was in a skimpy nightdress with very thin straps, and had lipstick traces on her cheek and cleavage. Assire made an immense effort of will to suppress a grimace of distaste. Never, ever, will I be capable of understanding it, she thought. And I don’t want to understand it.

‘May we talk freely?’

Philippa made a sweeping hand movement, encircling herself in a sphere of discretion.

‘We can now.’

‘I have information,’ Assire began dryly. ‘It isn’t sensational in and of itself, even old women at wells are talking about it. Nonetheless . . . ’

*

‘The whole of Redania,’ said Esterad Thyssen, looking at his map, ‘can at this moment field thirty-five thousand frontline troops, of whom four thousand are heavy armoured cavalry. Reckoning roughly, of course.’

Dijkstra nodded. The arithmetic was absolutely precise.

‘Demawend and Meve had a similar army. Emhyr annihilated it in twenty-six days. The same thing will happen to the armies of Redania and Temeria if you don’t reinforce them. I support your idea, Dijkstra, yours and Philippa Eilhart’s. You’re in need of troops. You require valorous, well-drilled and well-equipped cavalry. You need the kind of cavalry that costs around a million bizants.’

The spy nodded, confirming that this calculation couldn’t be faulted either.

‘As you no doubt know,’ the king continued dryly, ‘Kovir has always been, is, and will be neutral. We are bound by a treaty with the Nilfgaardian Empire, signed by my grandfather, Esteril Thyssen, and the imperator Fergus var Emreis. The letter of that treaty does not permit Kovir to support the enemies of Nilfgaard with military aid. Nor with money for troops.’

‘When Emhyr var Emreis throttles Temeria and Redania,’ coughed Dijkstra, ‘he’ll look to the North. Emhyr won’t be satisfied. It may turn out that your treaty won’t be worth a hill of beans. A moment ago the talk was of Foltest of Temeria, who managed – by negotiations – to buy himself a mere sixteen days of peace with Nilfgaard—’

‘Oh, my dear,’ Esterad snapped. ‘One cannot argue like that. Treaties are like marriage: they aren’t entered in to with the thought of betrayal, and once they’re concluded one shouldn’t be suspicious. And if that doesn’t suit somebody, they shouldn’t get married. Because you can’t become a cuckold without being a husband, but you’ll admit that fear of wearing the horns is a pitiful and quite ridiculous justification for enforced celibacy. And cuckolds aren’t a subject for discussion in a marriage. As long as one doesn’t wear horns, that subject isn’t mentioned, and if one’s already wearing them, then there’s nothing to say. And since we’re talking about horns, how is the husband of the fair Marie, the Marquess de Mercey, the Redanian Minister of Finances?’

‘Your Majesty,’ Dijkstra bowed stiffly, ‘has enviable informants.’

‘Indeed I do,’ the king conceded. ‘You’d be astonished how many and how enviable. But you, too, can’t be ashamed of your own. Those you have at my courts, here and in Pont Vanis. Oh, I’ll wager each of them deserves top marks.’

Dijkstra didn’t even blink.

‘Emhyr var Emreis,’ Esterad continued, looking at the nymphs on the ceiling, ‘also has a few good and well placed agents. Which is why I repeat: Kovir’s raison d’état is neutrality and the principle of pacta sunt servanda. Kovir doesn’t break treaties. Not even in anticipation of the other side breaking a contract.’

‘May I observe,’ Dijkstra said, ‘that Redania isn’t urging Kovir to break pacts. Redania is by no means seeking an alliance or military aid against Nilfgaard. Redania wishes . . . to borrow a small sum, which we shall return—’

‘I can just see you returning it,’ the king interrupted. ‘But these are academic deliberations, for I shan’t loan you a farthing. And don’t ply me with duplicitous casuistry, Dijkstra, it suits you like a bib suits a wolf. Do you have any other, serious, intelligent and apposite arguments?’

‘I do not.’

‘You were lucky,’ Esterad Thyssen said after moment’s silence, ‘that you became a spy. You’d never have made a career in commerce.’

*

The length and breadth of the world, all royal couples had separate bed chambers. The kings – with extremely varying frequency – visited the queens’ bed chambers, and it also happened that queens paid unexpected visits to the kings’ bed chambers. Afterwards the spouses returned to their own chambers and beds.

The royal couple of Kovir were an exception in this respect too. Esterad Thyssen and Zuleyka always slept together – in one bed chamber, on an immense bed with an immense canopy.

Before falling asleep, Zuleyka – after putting on her spectacles, in which she was ashamed to appear before her subjects – customarily read her Good Book. Esterad Thyssen usually talked.

That night was no different. Esterad put on his nightcap and picked up his sceptre. He liked to hold his sceptre and play with it; he didn’t do it officially for he feared his subjects would accuse him of being pretentious.

‘You know, Zuleyka,’ he said, ‘lately I’ve been having queer dreams. I’ve dreamed of that witch, my mother, I don’t know how many times. She stands over me and repeats: “I have a wife for Tankred, I have a wife for Tankred”. And she shows me a pretty, but very young girl. And do you know, Zuleyka, who that girl is? It’s Ciri, Calanthe’s granddaughter. Do you remember Calanthe, Zuleyka?’

‘I do, my husband.’

‘Ciri,’ Esterad went on, playing with the sceptre, ‘is the one Emhyr var Emreis reputedly wants to marry. A bizarre marriage, astonishing . . . How, damn it, ought she to be a wife for Tankred?’

‘Tankred –’ Zuleyka’s voice faintly altered, as it did whenever she spoke of her son ‘– could do with a wife. Perhaps he would settle down . . . ’

‘Perhaps,’ Esterad sighed. ‘Though I doubt it, but perhaps. In any case, matrimony is some sort of chance. Hmmm . . . Ciri . . . Ha! Kovir and Cintra. The Yaruga estuary! Doesn’t sound at all bad, not at all bad. An alliance would be fine . . . A nice little coalition . . . Well, but if Emhyr has his eye on the filly . . . But why is she appearing in my dreams? And why the hell am I dreaming that sort of nonsense? At the Equinox, do you recall, when I woke you. . . Brrr, what a nightmare that was, I’m glad I can’t remember the details . . . Hmmm . . . Perhaps we ought to summon an astrologer? A soothsayer? A medium?’

‘Madam Sheala de Tancarville is in Lan Exeter.’

‘No.’ The king grimaced. ‘I don’t want that witch. Too clever. A second Philippa Eilhart is springing up under my nose! Power appeals too much to these clever women, one should not encourage them with favours and familiarity.’

‘You’re right, as ever, my husband.’

‘Hmfff . . . But those dreams . . . ’

‘The Good Book –’ Zuleyka turned over a few leaves ‘– says that when a man falls asleep, the gods open his ears and speak to him. Whereas the prophet Lebioda teaches that when gazing on a dream, one either sees great wisdom or great foolishness. The art is in recognising it.’

‘A marriage of Tankred with Emhyr’s betrothed is not exactly great wisdom,’ Esterad sighed. ‘But while we’re on the subject of wisdom, I would be immensely pleased if it came to me during my slumbers. It concerns the case with which Dijkstra came. It concerns a most trying case. For you see, my dear beloved Zuleyka, good sense permits us not to rejoice with Nilfgaard pushing northwards hard and liable any day to seize Novigrad, for from Novigrad everything – including our neutrality – looks different than from the distant South. Thus it would be good if Redania and Temeria were to hold back Nilfgaard’s advance, in order to push the invader back across the Yaruga. But would it be good, were it done using our money? Are you listening to me, my most beloved wife?’

‘I am, husband.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘All wisdom is contained in the Good Book.’

‘But does your Good Book say what to do if some Dijkstra shows up and demands a million from you?’

‘The Book,’ Zuleyka blinked from over her spectacles, ‘says nothing about base mammon. But in one passage it says: “to give is a greater happiness than to receive, and supporting a pauper with alms is noble”. It is said: “give away all, and it shall make your soul noble”.’

‘And makes the purse and breadbasket empty,’ Esterad Thyssen muttered. ‘Zuleyka, is any wisdom to be found in the Book concerning business apart from passages about noble free distribution and alms-giving? What does the Book, for instance, say about equivalent exchange?’

The queen straightened her spectacles and began to quickly turn over the pages of the incunabulum.

‘Measure for measure,’ she read.

Esterad was silent for a long while.

‘And perhaps,’ he finally drawled, ‘something more?’

Zuleyka returned to turning the pages of the Book.

‘I have found,’ she suddenly announced, ‘something amongst the wisdom of the prophet Lebioda. Should I read it?’

‘If you would.’

‘The prophet Lebioda: “in sooth, support the pauper with alms. But rather than give the pauper an entire watermelon, give him half a watermelon, for a pauper is liable to lose his wits from happiness”.’

‘Half a watermelon.’ Esterad Thyssen bristled. ‘You mean half a million bizants? And do you know, Zuleyka, that to have a half a million and not to have half a million is a whole million together?’

‘You didn’t let me finish,’ Zuleyka scolded her husband with a harsh look over her spectacles. ‘The prophet goes on: “better even is to give the pauper quarter of a watermelon. And it is even better to cause that some else give the pauper a watermelon. For in sooth, I tell you there will always be someone who has a watermelon and is inclined to share it with the pauper, if not out of nobleness, then out of calculation or on some other pretext”.’

‘Ha!’ The King of Kovir thumped his sceptre down on the bedside table. ‘In sooth, the prophet Lebioda was shrewd! Instead of giving, cause someone else to give? That appeals to me, those are in sooth flowing words! Study the wisdom of that prophet, my darling Zuleyka. I’m certain you will discover among it something that permits me to solve the problem of Redania and the army that Redania wishes to raise using my money.’

Zuleyka leafed through the book for a long time before she finally began to read.

‘“A pupil of the prophet Lebioda once spake to him: ‘teach me, master, how I am to act. For my neighbour is desirous of my favourite dog. If I give him my pet, my heart will break from sorrow. If, though, I do not give it, I shall be downhearted, for I shall pain my neighbour through my refusal. What to do?’ ‘Do you have,’ asked the prophet, ‘something you love less than your pet dog?’ ‘I have, master,’ the pupil replied, ‘an impish cat, a tiresome pest. And I love him not at all.’ And thus spake the prophet Lebioda: ‘Take that impish cat, that tiresome pest, and give it to your neighbour. Then you will know happiness. You will be rid of the cat, and will delight your neighbour. For most often it is so, that our neighbour does not desire a gift, but to be given’.”’

Esterad was silent for some time and his brow was knitted.

‘Zuleyka?’ he finally asked. ‘Was that really the same prophet?’

‘“Take that impish cat—”’

‘I heard it the first time!’ the king yelled, but immediately restrained himself.

‘Forgive me, most beloved. The point is I don’t understand what cats have to do with . . .’

He fell silent. And pondered deeply.

*

After eighty-five years, when the situation had changed enough to allow talk about certain issues and persons, Guiscard Vermuellen, Duke of Creyden, grandson of Esterad Thyssen and son of his oldest daughter, Gaudemunda, spoke. Duke Guiscard was then a venerable old man, but he clearly remembered the events he had witnessed. It was Duke Guiscard who revealed where the million bizants came from, the million with which Redania equipped its cavalry for the war against Nilfgaard. That million didn’t come – as had been thought – from Kovir’s treasury, but from the hierarch of Novigrad. Esterad Thyssen, Guiscard disclosed, obtained the Novigradian money from his shares in the maritime trade companies being set up. The paradox was that those companies were set up with the active cooperation of Nilfgaardian merchants. Thus it appeared that Nilfgaard itself – to some degree – had financed the fielding of the Redanian army.

‘Grandpappa,’ Guiscard Vermuellen recalled, ‘said something about watermelons, smiling roguishly. He said somebody always wants to give to a pauper, even if out of calculation. He also said that since Nilfgaard itself was contributing to increasing the strength and military capabilities of the Redanian Army, they couldn’t blame others for doing the same.

‘Later though,’ the old man went on, ‘grandpappa summoned my father, who was at that time the chief of intelligence, and the minister of internal affairs. When they learned what orders they were to execute, they fell into a panic. They were concerned about releasing more than three thousand people from prisons, internment camps and exile. House arrest was to be withdrawn from more than a hundred.

‘No, it didn’t only apply to bandits, common criminals and hired mercenaries. The pardons were mostly for dissidents. Among the pardoned were henchmen of the deposed King Rhyd and people of the usurper Idi, their virulent partisans. And not only those who had supported in word: most were in prison for sabotage, assassination attempts and armed revolts. The minister of internal affairs was horrified and papa extremely worried.

‘While grandpappa,’ the duke went on, ‘was laughing as though it were a first-rate joke. And then he continued – I remember every word: “It’s a great pity, gentlemen, that you don’t read the Good Book before going to sleep. If you did, you would understand the ideas of your monarch. As it is, you’ll be carrying out orders without understanding them. But don’t worry, your monarch knows what he’s doing. Now go and release all my impish cats, those tiresome pests.”

‘That’s just what he said: impish cats, pests. And he meant – which no one then could have known – subsequent heroes, commanders covered in glory and fame. Those “cats” of grandpappa’s became the celebrated condottieri: Adam “Adieu” Pangratt, Lorenzo Molla, Juan “Frontino” Guttierez . . . And Julia Abatemarco, who became famous in Redania as “Pretty Kitty” . . . You, youngsters, won’t remember it, but when I was a boy, when we played at war, every lad wanted to be “Adieu” Pangratt, and every girl Julia “Pretty Kitty” . . . But to grandpappa they were mischievous cats.

‘Later though,’ mumbled Guiscard Vermuellen, ‘grandpappa took me by the hand and led me out onto the terrace, where grandmamma Zuleyka was feeding the seagulls. Grandpappa said to her . . . Said . . . ’

The old man slowly and with great effort tried to recall the words, which, eighty-five years ago, King Esterad Thyssen had said to his wife, Queen Zuleyka, on the terrace of Ensenada Palace, towering over the Great Canal.

‘Do you know, my most beloved wife, that I have spotted one more piece of wisdom among the words of the prophet Lebioda? One that shows me yet another benefit of giving Redania those mischievous cats? Cats, my Zuleyka, come home. Cats always come home. Well, and when my cats return, when they bring their pay, their spoils, their riches . . . I shall tax them!’

*

When King Esterad Thyssen spoke to Dijkstra for the last time, it was in private, without even Zuleyka. Admittedly, a more or less ten-year-old boy was playing on the floor of the gigantic chamber, but he didn’t count, and furthermore was so busy with his lead soldiers that he paid no attention to the two men talking.

‘That is Guiscard,’ Esterad explained, nodding towards the boy. ‘My grandson, the son of Gaudemunda and that ne’er-do-well, Prince Vermuellen. But that little boy is Kovir’s only hope, should Tankred Thyssen turn out to be . . . Should anything happen to Tankred . . . ’

Dijkstra was aware of Kovir’s problem. And Esterad’s personal problem. He knew that something had already happened to Tankred. The lad, if he had any makings of a king, would only be a bad one.

‘Your matter,’ Esterad said, ‘is already by and large sorted out. You may now start to ponder on the most effective way of using the million bizants which will soon end up in the Redanian coffers.’

He bent down and surreptitiously picked up one of Guiscard’s brightly painted lead soldiers, a cavalryman with a raised broadsword.

‘Take that and conceal it well. Whoever shows you another such identical soldier will be my emissary, even if he doesn’t look like it, even though you have no faith that he is my man or is aware of the issue of our million. Anyone else will be an agent provocateur.’

‘Redania,’ Dijkstra bowed, ‘will not forget this, Your Majesty. I, however, speaking for myself, would like to assure you of my personal gratitude.’

‘Do not do so. Give me that thousand with which you hoped to gain my minister’s favour. Why, isn’t the king’s favour deserving of a bribe?’

‘Your Royal Highness is stooping . . . ’

‘We are, we are. Hand over the money, Dijkstra. To have a thousand and not to have a thousand—’

‘. . . adds up to two thousand. I know.’

*

In a distant wing of Ensenada, in a chamber of much more modest size, the sorceress Sheala de Tancarville listened to the account of Queen Zuleyka with concentration and earnestness.

‘Excellent,’ she nodded. ‘Excellent, Your Royal Highness.’

‘I did everything as instructed, Lady Sheala.’

‘Thank you for doing so. And I assure you one more time; we were acting in a good cause. For the good of the country. And dynasty.’

Queen Zuleyka coughed softly and her voice changed a little.

‘And . . . And Tankred, Lady Sheala?

‘I gave my word,’ Sheala de Tancarville said coldly. ‘I gave my word that I would reciprocate for the help with help. Your Royal Highness may sleep serenely.’

‘I desire that greatly,’ Zuleyka sighed. ‘Greatly. While we’re on the subject of sleep . . . The king begins to suspect something. Those dreams are amazing him, and when something amazes him he grows suspicious.’

‘I shall, then, stop sending the king dreams for some time,’ the sorceress promised. ‘Returning, however, to Your Majesty’s dream, I repeat, he can be confident. Prince Tankred will bid farewell to that bad company. He will not linger at the Baron of Surcratasse’s castle. Nor at Lady de Lisemore’s residence. Nor at the Redanian ambassador’s wife’s.’

‘He will no longer visit those personages? Never?’

‘Those personages,’ Sheala de Tancarville’s dark eyes lit up with a strange glint, ‘will no longer dare to trifle with Prince Tankred, for they shall be made aware of the consequences. I vouch for what I say. I vouch for the fact that Prince Tankred will take up his studies again and be a diligent scholar, a serious and level-headed young man. He shall also stop chasing skirts. He shall lose his ardour . . . until the moment we introduce to him Cirilla, Princess of Cintra.’

‘Oh, if only I could believe that!’ Zuleyka wrung her hands and raised her eyes. ‘If only I could believe that!’

‘It is sometimes difficult,’ Sheala de Tancarville smiled, unexpectedly even for herself, ‘to believe in the power of magic, Your Royal Highness. And actually, so should it be.’

*

Philippa Eilhart adjusted the gossamer-thin strap of her sheer nightdress and wiped the rest of the lipstick smudges from her cleavage. Such a smart woman, thought Sheala de Tancarville with slight distaste, and she can’t keep her hormones in check.

‘May we talk?’

Philippa surrounded herself with a sphere of discretion.

‘We can now.’

‘Everything has been sorted out in Kovir. Positively.’

‘Thank you. Has Dijkstra set sail?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Why does he delay?’

‘He conducts long conversations with Esterad Thyssen.’ Sheala de Tancarville grimaced. ‘They’ve taken an uncommon liking for each other, the king and the spy.’

*

‘Do you know the jokes about our weather, Dijkstra? That there are only two seasons in Kovir—’

‘Winter and August. I do.’

‘And do you know how to tell if summer has reached Kovir?’

‘No. How?’

‘The rain becomes a little warmer.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘Joking aside,’ Esterad Thyssen said gravely, ‘it worries me somewhat that the winters come earlier and earlier and last longer and longer. It was prophesied. You’ve read, I presume, Ithlinne’s prophecy? It’s said there that decades of unending winter will come. Some claim it’s some kind of allegory, but I’m a little afraid. In Kovir we once had four summers of cold, rainy weather and poor harvests. Were it not for the tremendous import of food from Nilfgaard, people would have begun to die of starvation in droves. Can you imagine?’

‘To be honest, I can’t.’

‘Well I can. The cooling climate may starve us all to death. Famine is a foe that is bloody hard to fight.’

The spy nodded, lost in thought.

‘Dijkstra?’

‘Your Majesty?’

‘Is there peace inside the country now?’

‘I wouldn’t say so. But I’m doing my best.’

‘I know, everyone’s talking about it. Of the traitors on Thanedd, only Vilgefortz remains alive.’

‘After the death of Yennefer, yes. Did you know, O king, that Yennefer met her death? She perished on the last day of August, in mysterious circumstances, over the infamous Sedna Trench, between the Isles of Skellige and Cape Peixe de Mar.’

‘Yennefer of Vengerberg,’ Esterad said slowly, ‘was not a traitor. She was not an accomplice of Vilgefortz. If you wish I shall supply proof.’

‘I do not,’ Dykstra responded after moment’s silence. ‘Or perhaps I will, but not right now. Now she’s more convenient to me as a traitor.’

‘I understand. Don’t trust sorceresses, Dijkstra. Philippa in particular.’

‘I’ve never trusted her. But we must co-operate. Without us Redania would plunge into chaos and perish.’

‘That is true. But if I may advise you, loosen your grip a little. You know of what I speak. Scaffolds and torture chambers throughout the land, atrocities perpetrated against elves . . . And that dreadful fort, Drakenborg. I know you do it out of patriotism. But you are building yourself an evil legend. In it you’re a werewolf, lapping up innocent blood.’

‘Someone has to do it.’

‘And someone has to bear the consequences. I know you endeavour to be just, but you can’t avoid mistakes, can you, for they can’t be avoided. Neither can you remain clean when you’re slopping around in blood. I know you’ve never harmed anybody for self-interest, but who will believe that? Who’ll want to believe that? The day that fate turns, they’ll attribute the murder of innocent people to you, and worse, claim you profited from it. And lying sticks to a fellow like tar.’

‘I know.’

‘They won’t give you a chance to defend yourself. People like you aren’t given chances. They’ll tar you . . . but later. After the fact. Beware, Dijkstra.’

‘I shall. They won’t get me.’

‘They got your king, Vizimir. With a dagger plunged up to the guard in his flank, I heard . . . ’

‘It’s easier to stab a king than a spy. They won’t get me. They’ll never get me.’

‘And they ought not to. Do you know why, Dijkstra? For there ought to be some sort of fucking justice in this world.’

The day was to come when they would recall that conversation. Both of them. The king and the spy. Dijkstra recalled Esterad’s words in Tretogor, as he listened closely to the steps of the assassins approaching from all directions, along all the corridors of the castle. Esterad recalled Dijkstra’s words on the splendid marble staircase leading from Ensenada to the Great Canal.

*

‘He could have fought back.’ The misty, unseeing eyes of Guiscard Vermuellen gazed into the abyss of his recollections. ‘There were only three assassins, and grandpappa was a powerful man. He could have fought, defended himself, until the guards arrived. He could have simply fled. But grandmama Zuleyka was there. Grandpappa shielded and protected Zuleyka. Only Zuleyka. He didn’t care about himself. When help finally arrived, Zuleyka wasn’t even grazed. Esterad had been stabbed more than twenty times. He died three hours later, without regaining consciousness.’

*

‘Have you ever read the Good Book, Dijkstra?’

‘No, Your Majesty. But I know what is written in it.’

‘I, can you believe it, opened it at random yesterday. And I came across this sentence: “On the way to eternity everyone will tread their own stairway, shouldering their own burden”. What do you think about that?’

‘Time I went, King Esterad. Time to shoulder my burden.’

‘Farewell, O Spy.’

‘Farewell, O King.’

We trekked perhaps four hundred furlongs southwards from the ancient and far-famed city of Assengard, to a land called Centloch. When one looks on that land from the hills, one sees numerous lakes arranged, artificially, in manifold dispositions. Our guide, the elf Avallac’h, ordered us to seek among those dispositions one calling to mind a cloverleaf. And, in truth, we espied one such. Moreover, it came out that there were not three but four lakes, for one, somewhat elongated, stretching from south to north, is, as it were, the stem of the leaf. That lake, known as Tarn Mira, is ringed by a black forest. Meanwhile, the mysterious Tower of the Swallow, in the elven tongue Tor Zireael, was said to rise up at its northern margin. At first, nonetheless, we saw nothing save fog. I was readying myself to ask the elf Avallac’h about the tower, when he gestured me to be silent and spoke these words: ‘Await and hope. Hope shall return with the light and a good omen. Gaze at the endless waters; there you shall discern the envoys of good tidings.’

Buyvid Backhuysen,

Peregrinations along Magic Trails and Places.

The book is humbug from beginning to end. The ruins by Tarn Mira Lake have been examined many and oft. They are not magical; contrary to the enunciations of B. Backhuysen they cannot thus be the remains of the legendary Tower of the Swallow.

Ars Magica, XIV edition

CHAPTER NINE

‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’

Yennefer held her wet, windswept hair in both hands and stopped by the railing of the steps, getting out of the way of the women running to the wharf. Pushed by a west wind, a breaker crashed against the shore and white plumes of foam kept gushing from clefts in the rocks.

‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’

Almost the entire archipelago could be seen from the upper terraces of Kaer Trolde citadel, Ard Skellig’s main stronghold. Directly ahead, beyond the strait, lay An Skellig, its southern part low and flat, its hidden northern side precipitous and scored by fjords. Far away to the left, tall, green, mountainous Spikeroog, its peaks shrouded in cloud, broke up the waves with the sharp fangs of its reefs. To the right Undvik island’s steep cliffs could be seen, teeming with gulls, petrels, cormorants and gannets. From behind Undvik emerged the forested cone of Hindarsfjall, the archipelago’s smallest island. If, though, you were to climb to the very top of one of Kaer Trolde’s towers and look southwards, you would see the solitary island of Faroe far from the others, jutting from the water like the back of a huge fish washed up at low tide.

Yennefer went down to the lower terrace, stopping by a group of women whose pride and social status prevented them from rushing pell-mell to the quayside to jostle with the excited rabble. Down below, beneath them, lay the harbour town, black and shapeless like some great marine crustacean spat out by the waves.

Longship after longship sailed out of the strait between An Skellig and Spikeroog. Their sails blazed white and red in the sun and brass bosses shone on the shields suspended from their sides.

‘Ringhorn is coming first,’ said one of the women. ‘Followed by Fenris . . .’

‘Trigla,’ an excited speaker caught sight of another. ‘Drac follows . . . Havfrue’s behind them. . .’

‘Anghira . . . Tamara . . . Daria . . . No, it’s Scorpena . . . Daria’s not there. Daria’s not there . . .’

A young, heavily pregnant woman with a thick, fair plait, cradling her belly, groaned softly, paled and fainted, collapsing on the flags of the terrace like a curtain torn from its rings. Yennefer leaped forward at once, dropping to one knee, placed her fingers on the woman’s abdomen and shouted a spell to suppress the spasms and contractions, powerfully and securely binding the placenta – which was in danger of detaching – to the womb. Just to be certain, she cast another soothing and protective spell on the baby, whose kicks she could feel under her palm. She brought the woman around by slapping her face, in order not to waste magical energy.

‘Take her away. Carefully.’

‘Foolish girl . . .’ said one of the older women. ‘A close thing . . .’

‘Hysterical . . . Her Nils may still be alive, he may be on another longship . . .’

‘Thank you for your help, madam witch.’

‘Take her away,’ Yennefer repeated, getting to her feet. Then she stifled a curse on discovering her dress had burst at the seams when she’d knelt down.

She went down to an even lower terrace. The longships were pulling into the quay one after another and the warriors going ashore. Heavily-armed, bearded berserkers from Skellige. Bandages shone white on many of them and many had to be helped to walk by their comrades. Some had to be carried.

The women of Skellige, crowded on the quayside, were looking out for their men, whooping and crying for joy if they were fortunate. If not, they fainted. Or walked away, slowly, quietly, without a word of complaint. Occasionally they looked back, hoping that the white and red of Daria’s sails would glint in the sound.

There was no sign of Daria.

Yennefer caught sight of the ruddy mane of Crach an Craite, the yarl of Skellige, one of the last to disembark from Ringhorn’s deck, towering above the other heads. The yarl was yelling orders, giving instructions, checking, taking care of things. Two women with their eyes fixed on him – one fair and the other dark – were weeping. With joy. The yarl, finally certain he had seen to and made sure of everything, walked over to the women, embraced them both in a bear hug and kissed them. And then raised his head and saw Yennefer. His eyes blazed and his weather-beaten face hardened like the stone of a reef, like a brass shield boss.

He knows, thought the sorceress. News spreads quickly. Even while still on board ship the yarl found out about my being caught in a net in the sound beyond Spikeroog. He knew he’d find me in Kaer Trolde.

Magic or carrier pigeons?

He walked unhurriedly towards her. He smelled of the sea, of salt, tar and exhaustion. She looked into his bright eyes and immediately the war cries of the berserkers, the banging of shields and the clanging of swords and battle-axes resounded in her ears. The screaming of men being killed. The screaming of men jumping into the sea from the burning Daria.

‘Yennefer of Vengerberg.’

‘Crach an Craite, Yarl of Skellige.’ She bowed slightly before him.

He didn’t return the bow. Not good, she thought.

He immediately saw the bruise, a souvenir of a blow with an oar. His face hardened again and his lips twitched, revealing his teeth for a second.

‘Whoever struck you will answer for it.’

‘No one struck me. I tripped on the stairs.’

He considered her intently and then shrugged.

‘If you don’t want to tell tales that’s your business. I have no time to launch an inquiry. Now listen. Carefully, because these will be the only words I shall utter to you.’

‘Very well.’

‘Tomorrow you will be put on a longship and shipped to Novigrad. You will be handed over to the town authorities there and afterwards to the Temerian or Redanian authorities; whichever comes forward first. And I know that both desire you just as ardently.’

‘Is that everything?’

‘Almost. Just one more clarification, which you, in truth, deserve. Skellige has quite often given refuge to people being hunted by the law. There is no shortage of opportunities and occasions on the Isles to atone for one’s guilt through hard work, fortitude, sacrifice and blood. But not in your case, Yennefer. I shall not give you refuge. If you counted on it, then you miscalculated. I detest people like you. I detest people who stir up trouble in order to gain power, who are driven by self-interest, who plot with the enemy and betray those to whom they owe not only obedience but also gratitude. I detest you, Yennefer. At the very moment you and your rebel comrades began inciting the rebellion on Thanedd at the instigation of Nilfgaard, my longships were fighting in Attre; my boys were coming to the aid of the insurrectionists there. Three hundred of my boys squared up to two thousand Black Cloaks! Valour and fidelity must rewarded, just as wickedness and treachery must be punished! How am I to reward those who fell? With cenotaphs? With inscriptions carved into obelisks? No! I shall reward and honour the fallen differently. Your blood, Yennefer, will trickle between the planks of the scaffold. In exchange for their blood, which soaked into the dunes of Attre.’

‘I’m not guilty. I didn’t participate in Vilgefortz’s plot.’

‘You will present proof of that to the judges. I will not judge you.’

‘You already have. You’ve even pronounced sentence.’

‘Enough talk! I’ve spoken: tomorrow at dawn you’ll sail in manacles to Novigrad to stand before the royal court. To receive a just punishment. And now, give me your word you won’t try to use magic.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Marquard, our sorcerer, died on Thanedd; we no longer have a mage who could get you under control. But know this – you will be under the permanent observation of Skellige’s finest bowmen. If you so much as move a hand suspiciously, you’ll be shot.’

‘Very well,’ she nodded. ‘Then I give my word.’

‘Splendid. Thank you. Farewell, Yennefer. I shall not be escorting you tomorrow.’

‘Crach.’

He turned on his heel.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t have the slightest intention of boarding a ship to Novigrad. I don’t have the time to prove my innocence to Dijkstra. I can’t risk discovering they’ve already fabricated proof of my guilt. I can’t risk dying of a sudden cerebral haemorrhage or committing suicide in my cell in some spectacular way soon after my arrest. I can’t waste time or take such a risk. Nor may I explain to you why it is so risky for me. I shan’t sail to Novigrad.’

He gazed long at her.

‘You won’t sail,’ he restated. ‘What permits you to think like that? Is it that we once shared love’s delights? Don’t count on that, Yennefer. Let bygones be bygones.’

‘I know, and I’m not counting on it. I shan’t sail to Novigrad, yarl, because I must go and help someone I vowed never to leave alone and helpless. And you, Crach an Craite, Yarl of Skellige, will help me in my undertaking. Because you took a similar vow. Ten years ago. Right here on the wharf, where we stand. To the same person. To Ciri, the granddaughter of Calanthe. The lion cub of Cintra. I, Yennefer of Vengerberg, regard Ciri as my daughter. Which is why I demand on her behalf that you keep your vow. Keep it, Crach an Craite, Yarl of Skellige.’

*

‘Really?’ Crach an Craite made sure once again. ‘You won’t even try them? None of these dainties?’

‘Really.’

The yarl did not insist, but took a lobster from the dish, laid it on a board and split it lengthwise with a powerful – though extremely accurate – blow with a cleaver. After sprinkling it liberally with lemon juice and garlic sauce, he began eating the flesh straight from the shell. With his fingers.

Yennefer ate in a dignified manner, using a silver knife and fork – but it was a mutton chop with spinach, specially prepared for her by the astonished and probably slightly offended cook. Because the sorceress didn’t want oysters, or mussels, or salmon marinated in its own juice, or gurnard and cockle soup, or stewed monkfish tail, or roast swordfish, or fried moray eel, or octopus, or crab, or lobster, or sea urchin. Or – especially – fresh seaweed. She associated everything that even faintly smelled of the sea with Fringilla Vigo and Philippa Eilhart, with the insanely dangerous teleportation, the fall into the sea, the sea water she had swallowed, and the net which had been thrown over her – to which, incidentally, had been stuck seaweed and algae identical to that on the dish. Seaweed and algae, smashed against her head and shoulders along with the excruciatingly painful blows from a pine oar.

‘So then,’ Crach resumed the conversation, sucking the flesh from the legs of the lobster after cracking open the joints, ‘I’ve decided to put my faith in you, Yennefer. I’m not doing it for you, though, be aware of that. Bloedgeas, the blood oath I gave Calanthe, does indeed tie my hands. So if your intention to go to Ciri’s aid is genuine and heartfelt, and I presume it is, I have no choice: I must help you with your scheme . . .’

‘Thank you. But rid yourself of that pompous tone, please. I repeat: I didn’t take part in the plot on Thanedd. Believe me.’

‘Is it really so important what I believe?’ he flared up. ‘You ought rather to begin with the kings, with Dijkstra, whose agents are tracking you the length and breadth of the world. With Philippa Eilhart and the sorcerers loyal to the kings. From whom, as you yourself admitted, you fled here, to Skellige. You ought to present them with proof—’

‘I have no proof,’ she interrupted, angrily stabbing her fork into a Brussels sprout the offended cook had boiled to go with the mutton chop. ‘But if I had, they wouldn’t let me present it. I can’t explain it to you; I’m forbidden from speaking. Take my word for it, Crach. Please.’

‘I said—’

‘I know,’ she interrupted. ‘You pledged your help. Thank you. But you still don’t believe in my innocence. Believe me.’

Crach threw aside the sucked-out lobster’s shell and drew a bowl of mussels closer. He rummaged around, rattling them, taking out the bigger ones.

‘Very well,’ he finally said, wiping his hands on the tablecloth. ‘I believe you. Because I want to believe. But I shall not give you refuge or protection. I cannot. You may, though, leave Skellige whenever you wish and make for wherever you wish. I’d advise haste. You came here, so to speak, on the wings of magic. Others may follow you. They can also work magic.’

‘I’m not looking for a refuge or a safe hideaway, yarl. I must go and rescue Ciri.’

‘Ciri,’ he repeated, lost in thought. ‘The lion cub . . . She was a queer child.’

‘Was?’

‘Oh,’ he flared up again. ‘I expressed myself badly. Was – because she’s no longer a child. That’s all I meant. That’s all. Cirilla, the Lion Cub of Cintra . . . she spent her summers and winters on Skellige. She was often mischievous! She was a Young Devil, not a Lion Cub . . . Damn it, I said “was” a second time . . . Yennefer, rumours find their way here from the mainland . . . Some say Ciri’s in Nilfgaard—’

‘She’s not in Nilfgaard.’

‘Others that the girl is dead.’

Yennefer said nothing, biting her lip.

‘But I reject the second rumour,’ the yarl said firmly. ‘Ciri’s alive. I’m certain. There’ve been no signs . . . She’s alive!’

Yennefer raised her eyebrows, but didn’t ask any questions. They were silent for a long time, listening intently to the roar of the waves crashing against the rocks of Ard Skellig.

‘Yennefer,’ Crach said after another moment’s silence. ‘Yet more tidings have reached us from the continent. I know that your Witcher – who hid in Brokilon after the affray on Thanedd – set off from there with the aim of reaching Nilfgaard and freeing Ciri.’

‘I repeat, Ciri is not in Nilfgaard. I know not what my Witcher – as you chose to describe him – is planning. But he . . . Crach, it’s no secret that I . . . am fond of him. But I know he won’t rescue Ciri. He won’t achieve anything. I know him. He’ll become entangled in something, get lost, start philosophising and feeling sorrow for himself. Then he’ll vent his rage, hacking whatever and whoever he can to pieces with his sword. Afterwards, to atone for it, he’ll carry out some noble, but senseless feat. Then finally he’ll be killed, foolishly, senselessly, probably by a stab in the back—’

‘They say,’ Crach quickly interjected, alarmed by the sorceress’s ominously changing, strangely trembling voice. ‘They say Ciri is bound to him by destiny. I saw it myself, back in Cintra, during Pavetta’s betrothal—’

‘Destiny,’ Yennefer interrupted sharply, ‘can be interpreted in many, many different ways. Anyway, let’s not waste time on digressions. I repeat; I don’t know what Geralt’s plans are or even whether he has any. I mean to get down to work myself. Using my own methods. And actively, Crach, actively. I’m not accustomed to sitting and weeping, holding my head in both hands. I act!’

The yarl raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

‘I shall take action,’ the sorceress repeated. ‘I’ve already devised a plan. And you, Crach, will assist me with it, in accordance with your vow.’

‘I’m ready,’ he announced firmly. ‘For anything. The longships are moored in the harbour. Give the order, Yennefer.’

She couldn’t stifle a snort of laughter.

‘Always the same. No, Crach, no demonstrations of bravery and manliness. It won’t be necessary to sail to Nilfgaard and plunge a battle axe into the lock of the City of the Golden Towers. I need less spectacular, but more tangible help . . . What’s the state of your treasury?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Yarl Crach an Craite. The help I need is expressible in cash.’

*

It began the next day, at dawn. A frantic commotion broke out in the chambers put at Yennefer’s disposal, which seneschal Guthlaf – who had been assigned to the sorceress – was having great difficulty controlling. Yennefer was sitting at a table, almost not raising her head from various papers. She was counting, totting up columns and doing calculations, which were immediately rushed to the treasury and the island branch of Cianfanellis’ bank. She was making drawings and charts which immediately ended up in the hands of craftsmen: alchemists, goldsmiths, glaziers and jewellers.

Everything went smoothly for a while and then the problems began.

*

‘I’m sorry, my lady,’ seneschal Guthlaf said slowly. ‘But if there isn’t any, there isn’t any. We gave you everything we had. We can’t make magic or do miracles! And I’ll take the liberty of observing that what’s lying before you, madam, are diamonds with a combined value of—’

‘What do I care about their combined value?’ she snorted. ‘I need one, but a suitably large one. How large, master jeweller?’

The lapidary looked again at the drawing.

‘In order to make that cut and those facets? A minimum of thirty carats.’

‘There’s no such stone,’ Guthlaf stated categorically, ‘on the whole of Skellige.’

‘That’s not true,’ the jeweller contradicted. ‘There is.’

*

‘How do you imagine this playing out, Yennefer?’ Crach an Craite frowned. ‘I’m to send armed men to storm and then plunder the temple? I’m to threaten the priestesses with my wrath if they won’t give up the diamond? It’s out of the question. I’m not especially religious, but a temple’s a temple, and priestesses are priestesses. I can only ask politely. Hint at how much it matters to me and how great my gratitude will be. But it will still only be a request. A humble supplication.’

‘That may be denied?’

‘Indeed. But there’s no harm in trying. What are we risking? Let’s sail to Hindarsfjall together and present the supplication. I’ll give the priestesses to understand what’s needed. But then everything will be in your hands. Negotiate. Present your arguments. Try bribery. Pique their ambition. Appeal to higher reasons. Despair, weep, sob, beg for mercy . . . Call on all the sea devils. Must I teach you, Yennefer?’

‘It’ll all be for nothing, Crach. A sorceress will never reach agreement with priestesses. Certain differences of our . . . outlook are too marked. And when it comes to permitting a sorceress to use a “sacred” relict or artefact . . . No, we’d better forget it. There’s no chance . . .’

‘What do you actually need that diamond for?’

‘To build a “window”. I mean a telecommunicational megascope. I have to talk to several people.’

‘Magically? At a distance?’

‘If it was enough to climb to the top of Kaer Trolde and shout loudly, I wouldn’t be bothering you.’

*

The gulls and petrels circling above the water clamoured. The red-beaked oystercatchers nesting on the steep rocks and reefs of Hindarsfjall squealed shrilly, and yellow-headed gannets screeched hoarsely and gaggled. The glistening green eyes of black-crested cormorants watched attentively as the launch sailed past.

‘That large rock suspended above the water,’ pointed out Crach an Craite, leaning on the rail, ‘is Kaer Hemdall, Hemdall’s Watchtower. Hemdall is our mythical hero. Legend has it that with the coming of Tedd Deireadh, the Time of the End, the Time of White Frost and the Wolfish Blizzard, Hemdall will face the evil powers from the land of Morhögg: the phantoms, demons and spectres of Chaos. He will stand on the Rainbow Bridge and blow his horn to signal that it is time to take up arms and fall in to battle array. For Ragh nar Roog, the Last Battle, which will decide if night is to fall, or dawn to break.’

The launch skipped nimbly over the waves, entering the calmer waters of the bay between Hemdall’s Watchtower and another rock of similarly fantastic contours.

‘That smaller rock is Kambi,’ the yarl explained. ‘In our myths the name Kambi is borne by a magical golden cock, whose crowing will warn Hemdall of the approach of Naglfar, the hellish longboat carrying the army of Darkness, the demons and phantoms of Morhögg. Naglfar is built from corpses’ fingernails. You wouldn’t believe it, Yennefer, but there are still people on Skellige who cut the nails of the dead before burial, so as not to supply the spectres of Morhögg with building materials.’

‘I would. I know the power of legend.’

The fjord protected them a little from the wind and the sail fluttered.

‘Sound the horn,’ Crach ordered his crew. ‘We’re reaching the shore. We ought to inform the pious ladies that we’re paying them a visit.’

*

The building – located at the head of a long, stone staircase – looked like a gigantic hedgehog, so overgrown was it by moss, ivy and bushes. Yennefer observed that not just bushes, but even small trees, were growing on the roof.

‘This is the temple,’ Crach confirmed. ‘The grove surrounding it is called Hindar and is also a place of worship. It’s here that people gather the sacred mistletoe, and on Skellige, as you know, people garnish and decorate everything with it, from a newborn’s cradle to a grave . . . Have a care, the steps are slippery . . . The moss, ha-ha, is almost choking religion . . . Let me take your arm . . . As ever, that same perfume . . . Yenna . . .’

‘Crach. Please. Let bygones be bygones.’

‘I beg your pardon. Let’s go on.’

Several silent young priestesses were waiting outside the temple. The yarl greeted them courteously and expressed a wish to talk to their superior, whom he called Modron Sigrdrifa. They went inside, to a space lit by shafts of light shining from stained-glass windows set high up. One of them was shining on the altar.

‘By a hundred sea devils,’ Crach an Craite muttered. ‘I’d forgotten how large Brisingamen was. I haven’t been here since I was a child . . . You could probably buy all the shipyards in Cidaris with it. Along with the labourers and the annual output.’

The yarl was exaggerating. But not by much.

A statue of Modron Freyja, the Great Mother, in her typical maternal aspect – a woman in flowing robes revealing her advanced state of pregnancy, which the sculptor had accented inordinately – towered above the modest marble altar, above figures of cats and falcons, above a stone basin for votive offerings. She stood with bowed head and facial features hidden by a scarf. Over the goddess’ arms, which were folded on her chest, was a diamond, one element of a gold necklace. The diamond was tinged slightly blue, like the clearest water. It was large.

A hundred and fifty carats, or so.

‘It wouldn’t even need cutting,’ Yennefer whispered. ‘It’s a rosette, exactly what I need. Facets perfect for diffracting light . . .’

‘That means we’re lucky.’

‘I doubt it. The priestesses will soon appear, and I, being a heathen, will be sworn at and ejected.’

‘Are you exaggerating?’

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Welcome, yarl, to the temple of the Mother. And I welcome you too, O honourable Yennefer of Vengerberg.’

Crach an Craite bowed.

‘Greetings, esteemed mother Sigrdrifa.’

The priestess was tall, almost as tall as Crach – which meant she was a head taller than Yennefer. She had fair hair and pale eyes, and an oval, none too pretty and none too feminine, face.

I’ve seen her somewhere before, thought Yennefer. Not so long ago. Where?

‘On the steps of Kaer Trolde, leading to the harbour,’ the priestess recalled with a smile. ‘When the longboats were coming in from the sound. I stood over you as you helped a pregnant woman who was about to miscarry. On your knees, worrying not at all about your very costly camlet dress. I saw it. And I shall never more pay heed to tales of cold-hearted and calculated sorceresses.’

Yennefer coughed softly and lowered her head in a bow.

‘You are standing before the altar of the Mother, Yennefer. May her grace fall on you.’

‘Esteemed mother, I . . . I wish humbly to ask you . . .’

‘Say nothing. Yarl, you are no doubt very busy. Leave us alone, here, on Hindarsfjall. We will manage to come to an agreement. We are women. It is unimportant what we are engaged in, or who we are: we always serve she who is the Virgin, the Mother and the Crone. Kneel beside me, Yennefer. Lower your head before the Mother.’

*

‘Take Brisingamen from the goddess’ neck?’ Sigrdrifa repeated, and there was more disbelief than righteous indignation in her voice. ‘No, Yennefer. It is quite impossible. The point is not even that I would not dare . . . Even if I did, Brisingamen cannot be removed. The necklace has no clasp. It is permanently bonded to the statue.’

Yennefer stayed silent for a long while, calmly eyeing up the priestess.

‘Had I known,’ she said coldly, ‘I would have set sail at once for Ard Skellig with the yarl. No, no, by no means do I regard the time spent talking to you as wasted. But I have very little of it. Very little indeed. Your kindness and warmth beguiled me somewhat, I confess—’

‘I am well-disposed towards you,’ Sigrdrifa interrupted unemotionally. ‘I also support your plans, with all my heart. I knew Ciri, I liked the child, and her fate moves me. I admire you for the determination with which you hope to go to the girl’s rescue. I shall grant your every wish. But not Brisingamen, Yennefer. Not Brisingamen. Do not ask for that.’

‘Sigrdrifa, in order to go to Ciri’s rescue, I urgently need some information. Without it I’ll be helpless. I can only acquire the knowledge I need through telecommunication. In order to communicate at a distance, I must construct a magical artefact – a megascope – using magic.’

‘A device something like your notorious crystal balls?’

‘Considerably more complex. Crystal balls only permit telecommunication with another correlated crystal ball. Even the local dwarven bank has a crystal ball for talking to another at headquarters. A megascope has somewhat greater capabilities . . . But why theorise? Without the diamond nothing will come of it anyhow. Well, I shall say farewell . . .’

‘Don’t hurry so.’

Sigrdrifa stood up and passed through the nave, stopping before the altar and the statue of Modron Freyja.

‘The goddess,’ she said, ‘is also the patron of soothsayers. Clairvoyants. Telepaths. As symbolised by her sacred animals: the cat, which sees and hears, itself unseen, and the falcon, which sees from above. And by the jewel of the goddess: Brisingamen, the necklace of clairvoyance. Why build some looking and listening device, Yennefer? Wouldn’t it be simpler to ask the goddess for help?’

Yennefer stopped herself from swearing at the last moment. After all, it was a place of worship.

‘The time for evening prayers is approaching,’ Sigrdrifa continued. ‘I shall devote myself to meditation along with the other priestesses. I shall ask the goddess for help for Ciri. For Ciri, who was here many times, in this temple, and looked at Brisingamen around the neck of the Great Mother many times. Sacrifice one more hour or two of your precious time, Yennefer. Stay here, with us, for the time of worship. Support me as I pray. With your thoughts and presence.’

‘Sigrdrifa . . .’

‘Please. Do it for me. And for Ciri.’

*

The jewel Brisingamen. On the goddess’ neck.

She stifled a yawn. Had there only been some singing, she thought, some incantations, some mystery . . . Some mystic folklore . . . It would have been less boring, she wouldn’t be feeling so drowsy. But they were simply kneeling, with bowed heads. Motionless, soundless.

But they’re capable, when they want to, of using the Power, at times just as well as we sorceresses. It’s still a mystery how they do it. Without any preparations, any learning, any studies . . . Just prayer and meditation. Divination? Some kind of autohypnosis? That’s what Tissaia de Vries claims . . . They absorb energy unconsciously, in a trance, and they acquire the ability to transform it into something like our spells. They transform energy, treating it as a gift and favour of the godhead. Faith gives them strength.

Why have we sorceresses never succeeded with anything like that?

Ought I to try? Using the atmosphere and aura of this place? I could enter a trance myself, couldn’t I? If only by gazing at the diamond . . . Brisingamen . . . Intensively thinking about how marvellously it would function in my megascope . . .

Brisingamen . . . shining like the morning star, there, in the gloom, in the smoke of incense and smouldering candles . . .

‘Yennefer.’

She jerked her head up.

It was dark in the temple. It smelled strongly of smoke.

‘Did I fall asleep? Forgive me . . .’

‘There’s nothing to forgive. Come with me.’

Outside, the night sky burned with a twinkling luminosity that changed like the colours in a kaleidoscope. The northern lights? Yennefer rubbed her eyes in amazement. The aurora borealis? In August?

‘How much are you capable of sacrificing, Yennefer?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Are you prepared to sacrifice yourself? Your priceless magic?’

‘Sigrdrifa,’ she said with anger, ‘don’t try your sublime tricks on me. I’m ninety-four years old. But treat that, please, as a confessional secret. I’m only confiding in you so you’ll understand I can’t be treated like a child.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘And I don’t mean to. For it’s the mysticism I don’t accept. I fell asleep during your worship. It wearied and bored me. Because I don’t believe in your goddess.’

Sigrdrifa turned away and Yennefer took a very deep breath in spite of herself.

‘Your disbelief is not very flattering to me,’ said a woman with eyes filled with molten gold. ‘But does your disbelief change anything?’

All Yennefer could do was to breathe out.

‘The time will come,’ said the golden-eyed woman, ‘when absolutely no one, including children, will believe in sorceresses. I tell you that with deliberate spite. By way of revenge. Let us leave.’

‘No . . .’ Yennefer finally managed. ‘No! I won’t go anywhere. Enough of this! It’s an enthrallment or hypnosis. An illusion! A trance! I have developed defence mechanisms . . . I can dispel all this with one charm, just like that! Dammit . . .’

The golden-eyed woman came closer. The diamond in her necklace burned like the morning star.

‘Your speech is slowly ceasing to serve as communication,’ she said. ‘It is becoming art for art’s sake. The more incomprehensible it is, the more profound and wise it is considered. In sooth, I preferred you when you could only say “Ugh” and “Ooh”. Come.’

‘This is an illusion, a trance . . . I won’t go anywhere!’

‘I don’t want to force you. It would be a disgrace. For you’re an intelligent and proud girl, you have character.’

A plain. A sea of grass. A moor. A boulder, jutting from the heather like the back of a crouching predator.

‘You desired my jewel, Yennefer. I cannot give it to you without first making sure of a few things. I want to check what is deep inside you. Therefore I have brought you here, to this place of Power and Might from time immemorial. Your priceless magic is apparently everywhere. Apparently it’s sufficient to merely hold out one’s hand. Are you afraid to hold it out?’

Yennefer couldn’t utter a sound from her tight throat.

‘Are, then, Chaos, art and learning,’ said the woman, whose name could not be uttered, ‘according to you, the Powers capable of changing the world? A curse, a blessing and progress? And aren’t they by any chance Faith? Love? Sacrifice?

‘Do you hear? The cock Kambi is crowing. The waves are breaking against the shore, waves pushed by Naglfar’s prow. The horn of Hemdall sounds as he stands facing his enemies on the rainbow-coloured arch of Bifrost. The White Frost is nigh, a gale and a blizzard are nigh . . . The earth trembles from the writhing movements of the Serpent . . .

‘The wolf devours the sun. The moon turns black. There is only coldness and darkness. Hatred, vengeance and blood . . .

‘Whose side will you be on, Yennefer? Will you be on the east or the west side of Bifrost? Will you be with Hemdall or against him?

‘The cock Kambi is crowing.

‘Decide, Yennefer. Choose. Only for this reason were you restored to life: that you might make a choice at the right moment.

‘Light or Darkness?’

‘Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, Order and Chaos? They are but symbols; in reality no such polarity exists! Brightness and Gloom are in each of us, a little of one and a little of the other. This conversation is pointless. Pointless. I will not come over to mysticism. To you and Sigrdrifa, the Wolf is devouring the Sun. To me it’s an eclipse. And may it remain that way.’

Remain? What?

She felt her head spinning, felt some horrendous force twisting her arms, wrenching the joints in her shoulders and elbows, racking her vertebrae as though she were being tortured. She screamed in pain, thrashed around and opened her eyes. No, it wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t be a dream. She was on a tree, hanging arms akimbo from the boughs of a gigantic ash. High above her a falcon circled. Below her, on the ground, in the gloom, she heard the hiss of snakes, the rustling of scales rubbing against each other.

Something moved beside her. A squirrel ran across her tautened and aching shoulders.

‘Are you ready?’ asked the squirrel. ‘Are you ready to offer your sacrifice? What are you prepared to sacrifice?’

‘I have nothing!’ The pain blinded and paralysed her. ‘And even if I had, I don’t believe in such a sacrifice! I don’t want to suffer for millions! I don’t want to suffer at all! For no one and in no one’s stead!’

‘No one wants to suffer. But yet it is our lot. And some suffer more. Not necessarily by choice. The point is not the bearing of suffering. The point is how it is borne.’

*

Janka! Dear Janka!

Take this hunchbacked monstrosity from me! I don’t want to look at it!

She’s your daughter as much as she is mine.

Indeed? The children I have sired are normal.

How dare you . . . How dare you suggest . . .

It was in your elven family that there were witches. It was you that aborted your first pregnancy. It was because of that. You have tainted elven blood and a tainted womb, woman. That’s why you give birth to monsters.

It is an ill-fated child . . . Such was the will of the gods! She’s your daughter as much as she is mine! What was I to do? Smother her? Not tie the birth cord? What am I to do now? Take her to the forest and leave her? What do you want from me, by the Gods?

Daddy! Mummy!

Get away, you freak.

How dare you! How dare you strike a child! Stop! Where are you going? Where? To her, are you? To her!

Yes, woman. I’m a man. I’m free to sate my lust where and when I want, as is my natural right. And I loathe you. You and the fruit of your degenerate womb. Don’t wait with supper. I won’t be back tonight.

Mummy . . .

Why are you weeping?

Why are you beating me and pushing me away? I was good, wasn’t I?

*

Mummy! Dear Mummy!

*

‘Are you capable of forgiveness?’

‘I forgave long ago.’

‘Having first satisfied your lust for vengeance.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘No.’

*

Pain, searing pain in her mutilated hands and fingers.

‘Yes, I’m guilty. Is that what you want to hear? A confession and remorse? You want to hear Yennefer of Vengerberg grovel and abase herself? No, I won’t give you that pleasure. I admit my guilt and await my punishment. But you will not hear my remorse!’

The pain reached the limits of what a person can withstand.

‘You blame me for the betrayed, the deceived, the abused, you blame me for those who died – because of me – from their own hand, from my hand . . . For once having raised a hand against myself? You can see I had my reasons! And I regret nothing! Even if I could turn back time . . . I regret nothing!’

The falcon alighted on her shoulder.

The Tower of the Swallow. The Tower of the Swallow. Hurry to the Tower of the Swallow.

O Daughter.

*

The cock Kambi crows.

*

Ciri on a black mare, at a gallop, her ashen hair tousled by the wind. Blood sprays from her face, a vivid, intense red. The black mare soars like a bird, smoothly gliding over the top rail of a high gate. Ciri sways in the saddle, but doesn’t fall off . . .

Ciri amidst the night, amidst a stony, sandy wilderness, with a raised arm. A glowing ball explodes from her hand . . . A unicorn churning up gravel with its hoof . . . Many unicorns . . . Fire . . . Fire . . .

Geralt on a bridge. In combat. Amidst fire. A flame reflected in his sword blade.

Fringilla Vigo, her green eyes wide open in sexual ecstasy, her close-cropped head on an open book, on the frontispiece . . . Part of the title is visible: Remarks on Inevitable Death . . .

Geralt’s eyes reflected in Fringilla’s.

A chasm. Smoke. Steps leading downwards. Steps that must be descended. Something is ending. Tedd Deireadh, the Time of the End, is nigh . . .

Darkness. Dampness. The dreadful cold of stone walls. The cold of iron on wrists, on ankles. Pain pulsing in mutilated hands, shooting down crushed fingers . . .

Ciri takes her by the hand. A long, dark corridor, stone columns, perhaps statues . . . Darkness. In it, whispers soft as the soughing of the wind.

A door. Endless doors with gigantic, heavy leaves open before them without a murmur. And finally, in the impenetrable darkness, a door which does not open by itself. Which it is forbidden to open.

If you are afraid, turn back.

It is forbidden to open this door. You know that.

I do.

But yet you are leading me there.

If you are afraid, turn back. There is still time to turn back. It is not yet too late.

And you?

For me it is.

The cock Kambi is crowing.

Tedd Deireadh has come.

The aurora borealis.

Dawn.

*

‘Yennefer. Wake up.’

She jerked her head up. She glanced down at her hands. She had both of them. Intact.

‘Sigrdrifa? I fell asleep . . .’

‘Come.’

‘Where to?’ she whispered. ‘Where to this time?’

‘I beg your pardon? I don’t understand you. Come. You must see it. Something has happened . . . Something strange. None of us knows how to explain it. But I can guess. Grace . . . The goddess has bestowed her grace on you, Yennefer.’

‘What do you mean, Sigrdrifa?’

‘Look.’

She looked. And sighed aloud.

Brisingamen, the sacred jewel of Modron Freyja, was no longer hanging around the goddess’s neck. It was lying at her feet.

*

‘Did I hear that correctly?’ Crach an Craite asked. ‘You’re moving to Hindarsfjall with your magical workshop? The priestesses will make the sacred diamond available to you? They’ll let you use it in your infernal machine?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, well. Yennefer, have you perhaps had a conversion? What happened on the island?’

‘Never you mind. I’m returning to the temple and that’s that.’

‘And the financial resources you asked for? Will they still be necessary?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘Seneschal Guthlaf will carry out each of your relevant instructions. But Yennefer, issue them quickly. Make haste. I’ve received fresh tidings.’

‘Dammit, I was afraid of that. Do they know where I am?’

‘No, not yet. I was warned, though, that you may appear on Skellige and was ordered to imprison you immediately. I was also ordered to take prisoners on my expeditions and extract information from them, even if it was only scraps concerning you and your sojourn in Nilfgaard or in the provinces. Yennefer, hurry. If they tracked you and caught you here, on Skellige, I would find myself in a somewhat difficult situation.’

‘I’ll do everything in my power. Including whatever it takes to avoid compromising you. Don’t worry.’

Crach grinned.

‘I said somewhat. I’m not afraid of them. Not of kings, nor of sorcerers. They can’t do anything to me, because they need me. And I was bound to help you by a feudal oath. Yes, yes, you heard right. I’m still formally a vassal of the Cintran crown. And Cirilla has formal rights to that crown. By representing Cirilla, by being her sole guardian, you have the formal right to give me orders, demand obedience and servitudes.’

‘Casuistic sophistries.’

‘Well certainly,’ he snorted. ‘I will shout as much myself, in a booming voice, if in spite of everything it turns out Emhyr var Emreis really has forced the girl to marry. Also if – by the help of some legal loopholes and flourishes – Ciri has been deprived of the right to the throne and someone else has been named as a substitute heir, including that lummox Vissegerd. Then I’ll announce my obedience and declare my feudal oath forthwith.’

‘But if,’ Yennefer squinted, ‘in spite of everything, it turns out that Ciri is dead?’

‘She’s alive,’ Crach said firmly. ‘I know that for certain.’

‘How?’

‘You won’t want to give it credence.’

‘Try me.’

‘The blood of the queens of Cintra,’ Crach began, ‘is uncannily bound to the sea. When one of the women of that blood dies the sea falls into sheer madness. It’s said that Ard Skellig bewails the daughters of Riannon. For the storm is so strong then that the waves striking from the west squeeze through crevices and caverns to the east side and suddenly salt brooks gush from the rock. And the entire island shudders. Simple folk say “See how Ard Skellig sobs. Someone has died again. Riannon’s blood has died. The Elder Blood”.’

Yennefer was silent.

‘It’s not a fairy tale,’ Crach continued. ‘I’ve seen it for myself, with my own eyes. Three times. Following the death of Adalia the Soothsayer, following the death of Calanthe . . . And following the death of Pavetta, Ciri’s mother.’

‘Pavetta,’ Yennefer observed, ‘actually perished during a storm, so it’s hard to speak—’

‘Pavetta,’ Crach interrupted, still deep in thought, ‘did not perish during a storm. The storm began after her death. The sea reacted as it always does to the death of one of the Cintran bloodline. I’ve investigated that matter long enough. And am certain of what I know.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘The ship Pavetta and Duny were sailing on vanished over the infamous Sedna Abyss. It wasn’t the first ship to vanish there. You no doubt know that.’

‘Fairy tales. Ships meet with disasters, it’s a natural thing—’

‘On Skellige,’ he interrupted quite firmly, ‘we know enough about ships and sailing to be able to distinguish between natural and unnatural disasters. Ships go down unnaturally over the Sedna Abyss. And not accidentally. That includes the ship Pavetta and Duny were sailing on.’

‘I’m not arguing.’ The sorceress sighed. ‘Anyway, does that have any meaning to us? After almost fifteen years?’

‘It does to me.’ The yarl pursed his lips. ‘I shall unravel the case. It’s only a matter of time. I’ll find out. . . I’ll find an explanation. I’ll find an explanation to all the enigmas. Including the one from the slaughter of Cintra . . .’

‘What enigma would that be?’

‘When the Nilfgaardians invaded Cintra,’ he muttered, looking her in the eyes, ‘Calanthe ordered Ciri spirited out of the town. But the town was already aflame, Black Cloaks were everywhere, the chances of getting out of the siege were faint. The queen was advised against such a risky business, and it was suggested that Ciri formally capitulate before the hetmans of Nilfgaard, thus saving her life and the Cintran state. In the blazing streets she would surely and senselessly have died at the hands of the soldierly mob. But the Lioness . . . Do you know what, according to eye witnesses, she said?’

‘No.’

‘“It would be better for the girl’s blood to flow over the cobbles of Cintra than for it to be defiled.” Defiled by what?’

‘Marriage to Emperor Emhyr. A filthy Nilfgaardian. Yarl, it’s late. I begin tomorrow at dawn . . . I shall inform you of my progress.’

‘I’m counting on it. Goodnight, Yenna . . . Hmmm . . .’

‘What, Crach?’

‘You wouldn’t by any chance, hmmm, fancy . . .’

‘No, yarl. Let bygones be bygones. Goodnight.’

*

‘Well, well.’ Crach an Craite received his guest with a tilt of his head. ‘Triss Merigold in person. What a stunning dress. And the fur . . . chinchilla, isn’t it? I would ask what brings you to Skellige . . . If I didn’t know. But I do.’

‘Wonderful,’ Triss smiled seductively and neatened her gorgeous chestnut hair. ‘It’s wonderful that you know, yarl. It will save us the introduction and the preliminary explanations, and allow us to get to business right away.’

‘What business?’ Crach crossed his arms on his chest and glared at the sorceress. ‘What ought to precede introductions, what explanations are you counting on? Who do you represent, Triss? In whose name have you come here? King Foltest, whom you served, released you from service with banishment. Although you weren’t at fault, he banished you from Temeria. Philippa Eilhart, I’ve heard, who, along with Dijkstra, is presently ruling de facto in Redania, has taken you under her wing. I see that you’re repaying for the asylum as well as you can. You don’t even flinch at assuming the role of secret agent in order to track down your old friend.’

‘You wrong me, yarl.’

‘I humbly beg your pardon. If I’m in error. Am I?’

They were silent for a long while, eyeing each other up mistrustfully. Triss finally snorted, swore and stamped a high heel.

‘Oh, to hell with it! Let’s stop leading each other by the nose! What difference does it make now, who’s serving whom, who’s siding with whom, who’s keeping faith with whom and with what motives? Yennefer’s dead. It’s still not known where or in whose grasp Ciri is . . . What’s the point of playing at secrets? I didn’t sail here as a spy, Crach. I came on my own initiative, as a private individual. Driven by concern for Ciri.’

‘Everyone is concerned about Ciri. Lucky girl.’

Triss’s eyes flashed.

‘I wouldn’t sneer at that. Particularly in your place.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

They said nothing, looking out of the window at the red sun setting beyond the wooded peaks of Spikeroog.

‘Triss Merigold.’

‘Yes, O yarl.’

‘I invite you to supper. Ah, the cook told me to ask if all sorceresses disdain finely cooked seafood?’

*

Triss did not disdain seafood. On the contrary, she ate twice as much as she had intended and now began to worry about her waistline – about the twenty-two inches she was so proud of. She decided to ease her digestion with some white wine, the celebrated Est Est of Toussaint. Like Crach, she drank from a horn.

‘And so,’ she took up the conversation, ‘Yennefer showed up here on the nineteenth of August, falling spectacularly from the sky into some fishing nets. You, as a faithful vassal of Cintra, granted her asylum. Helped her to build a megascope . . . With whom and about what she talked, you of course don’t know.’

Crach an Craite drank deeply from the horn and suppressed a burp.

‘I don’t know,’ he smiled craftily. ‘Of course I don’t know. How could I, a poor and simple sailor, know anything about the doings of mighty sorceresses?’

*

Sigrdrifa, the priestess of Modron Freyja, let her head drop low, as though Crach an Craite’s question had burdened her with a thousand-pound weight.

‘She trusted me, yarl,’ she muttered barely audibly. ‘She didn’t demand of me the swearing of an oath of silence, but she naturally cared about discretion. I really don’t know whether—’

‘Modron Sigrdrifa,’ Crach an Craite interrupted gravely, ‘I’m not asking you to act as an informer. Like you, I support Yennefer, like you I desire to find and rescue Ciri. Why, I took Bloedgeas, a blood oath! Whereas regarding Yennefer, concern for her motivates me. She’s an extremely proud woman. Even when taking a very great risk, she doesn’t stoop to making requests. Therefore it will be necessary – I can’t rule it out – to come to her aid unasked. In order to do that I need information.’

Sigrdrifa cleared her throat. She wore an uneasy expression. And when she began to speak, her voice slightly quavered.

‘She built that machine of hers . . . In essence it’s not a machine at all, because there’s no mechanism, just two looking glasses, a black velvet curtain, a box, two lenses, four lamps, well and Brisingamen, of course . . . When she utters the spell, the light from the two lamps falls—’

‘Let’s leave out the details. Who did she communicate with?’

‘She spoke to several persons. With sorcerers . . . Yarl, I didn’t hear everything, but what I heard . . . Among them are truly wicked people. None wanted to help disinterestedly . . . They demanded money . . . They all demanded money . . .’

‘I know,’ Crach muttered. ‘The bank informed me of the money orders she issued. A pretty, oh, a pretty penny my oath is costing me! But money comes and goes. What I spent on Yennefer and Ciri, I shall make good in the Nilfgaardian provinces. But go on, O mother Sigrdrifa.’

‘Yennefer,’ the priestess lowered her head, ‘blackmailed some of them. She gave them to understand she was in possession of compromising information and in the event of cooperation being declined she would reveal it to the whole world . . . Yarl . . . She’s a clever and essentially good woman . . . But she doesn’t have any scruples. She is ruthless. And merciless.’

‘Indeed, as I know. But I don’t want to know the details of the blackmail, and I advise you to forget about them as quickly as you can. It’s dangerous knowledge. Outsiders shouldn’t meddle with fire like that.’

‘I know, yarl. I owe you obedience . . . And I believe that your ends justify your means. No one shall learn anything from me. Neither a friend in a convivial chat, nor a foe torturing me.’

‘Good, Modron Sigrdrifa. Very good . . . What did Yennefer’s questions concern, do you recall?’

‘I didn’t always overhear nor understand everything, yarl. They were using jargon that was difficult to grasp . . . There was often talk of a Vilgefortz . . .’

‘Of course.’ Crach audibly ground his teeth. The priestess glanced at him fearfully.

‘They also spoke a lot about elves and about Knowing Ones,’ she continued. ‘And about magical portals. There was also mention of the Sedna Abyss . . . But mainly, it seems to me, it concerned towers.’

‘Towers?’

‘Yes. Two. The Tower of the Gull and the Tower of the Swallow.’

*

‘As I supposed,’ Triss said, ‘Yennefer began by obtaining the secret report of Radcliffe’s commission, which investigated the case of the events on Thanedd. I don’t know what news of this affair has reached you here, on Skellige . . . Have you heard of the teleporter in the Tower of the Seagull? And about Radcliffe’s commission?’

Crach an Craite glanced suspiciously at the sorceress.

‘Neither politics nor culture reach the islands,’ he grimaced. ‘We’re backward.’

‘The Radcliffe commission –’ Triss did not deign to pay attention either to his tone, nor his expression ‘– examined in detail teleportational trails leading from Thanedd. The portal on the island, Tor Lara, while it existed, negated all teleportational magic within a considerable radius. But, as you certainly know, the Tower of the Gull exploded and disintegrated, making teleportation possible. Most of the participants in the events on Thanedd got off the island using portals they opened.’

‘As a matter of fact –’ the yarl smiled ‘– you, for example, flew straight to Brokilon. With the Witcher on your back.’

‘Well, I never.’ Triss looked him in the eye. ‘Politics don’t reach here, culture doesn’t reach here, but rumours do. But let’s leave that for now, we’ll return to the work of the Radcliffe commission. The commission’s task was to determine precisely who teleported from Thanedd and whence. They used so-called synopses – spells capable of reconstructing an image of past events – and then collated the uncovered teleportational tracks with the directions they led to, as a result ascribing them to the specific individuals who had opened the portals. They were successful in practically all cases. Save one. One teleportational trail led nowhere. To be precise, into the sea. To the Sedna Abyss.’

‘Someone,’ the yarl guessed at once, ‘teleported onto a ship waiting in a previously agreed location. I just wonder why they went so far . . . And to such a notorious place. Well, but if a battle axe is hovering over your neck . . .’

‘Exactly. The commission also thought of that. And voiced the following conclusion: it was Vilgefortz, who having captured Ciri and having his other escape route cut off, took advantage of a reserve exit – he teleported with the girl to the Sedna Abyss, onto a Nilfgaardian ship waiting there. That, according to the commission, explains the fact that Ciri was presented at the imperial court in Loc Grim on the tenth of July, barely ten days after the events on Thanedd.’

‘Well, yes.’ the yarl squinted. ‘That would explain a lot. On condition, naturally, that the commission wasn’t mistaken.’

‘Indeed.’ The sorceress withstood his gaze and even afforded herself a mocking smirk. ‘Naturally, a double – and not the real Ciri – could just as easily have been presented in Loc Grim. That may also explain a lot. It doesn’t, though, explain one occurrence that the Radcliffe commission established. So bizarre that in the report’s first version it was passed over as too improbable. In the report’s second – and strictly confidential – version that occurrence was nonetheless presented. As a hypothesis.’

‘I’ve been all ears for some time, Triss.’

‘The commission’s hypothesis reads: the teleporter in the Tower of the Gull was active, was functioning. Someone passed through it and the energy of the passage was so powerful the teleporter exploded and was destroyed.’

‘Yennefer,’ Triss continued a moment later, ‘must have found out about it. What the Radcliffe commission uncovered. What was included in the confidential report. That is, there’s a chance . . . the slightest chance . . . that Ciri managed to pass safely through the Tor Lara portal. That she eluded Nilfgaard and Vilgefortz . . .’

‘Where is she then?’

‘I’d like to know that too.’

*

It was dreadfully dark; the moon, hidden behind banks of cloud, gave no light at all. But in comparison to the previous nights there was almost no wind and for that reason it was not so cold. The dugout only rocked gently on the slightly rippling water. It smelled like a swamp. Of decaying weed. And eel slime.

Somewhere by the bank a beaver slapped its tail on the water, startling both of them. Ciri was certain that Vysogota had been dozing and the beaver had woken him.

‘Go on with the story,’ she said, wiping her nose with a clean part of her sleeve not yet covered in slime. ‘Don’t sleep. When you doze off my eyelids droop too. Then the current will take us and we’ll wake up on the sea! Go on about those teleporters!’

‘When you escaped from Thanedd,’ the hermit continued, ‘you passed through the portal of the Tower of the Gull, Tor Lara. And Geoffrey Monck, probably the greatest authority in the field of teleportation, the author of the work entitled The Magic of the Elder Folk, which is the opus magnum of knowledge about elven teleporters, writes that the Tor Lara portal leads to the Tower of the Swallow, Tor Zireael—’

‘The teleport from Thanedd was warped,’ Ciri interrupted. ‘Perhaps, long ago, before it broke, it led to some swallow or other. But now it leads to a desert. That’s what we call a chaotic portal. I learned about it.’

‘I – just imagine – did too,’ the old man snorted. ‘I recall much of that wisdom. Which is why your story amazes me so much . . . Some parts of it. Particularly the ones that concern teleportation . . .’

‘Could you speak more plainly?’

‘I could, Ciri. I could. But now it’s high time we hauled in the net. It sure to be full of eels. Ready?’

‘Ready.’ Ciri spat on her hands and took hold of the gaff. Vysogota grasped the cord speeding past in the water.

‘Let’s haul it in. One, two . . . three! And into the boat! Grab them, Ciri, grab them! Into the basket before they escape!’

*

It was the second night they had rowed the dugout to the river’s boggy tributary, set nets and traps for the eels heading in great numbers towards the sea. They returned to the cottage well after midnight, smeared in slime from head to toe, wet and tired as hell.

But they didn’t go to bed at once. The haul earmarked for barter had to be put in crates and sealed securely – should the eels find the smallest crack there wouldn’t be a single one left the next morning. After the work was done Vysogota skinned two or three fat eels, chopped them into steaks, coated them in flour and fried them in a huge frying pan. Then they ate and talked.

‘You see, Ciri, one thing still nags at me. I can’t forget that right after your recovery we couldn’t agree about the dates, even though the wound on your cheek constituted the most precise of possible calendars. The cut couldn’t have been more than ten hours old, while you insisted that they’d wounded you four days earlier. Though I was certain it came down to a simple mistake, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept asking myself the question: what happened to those four lost days?’

‘So? What do you think happened to them?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s marvellous.’

The cat made a long leap and the mouse it pinned with its claws squeaked shrilly. The tomcat unhurriedly bit through its neck, disembowelled it and began to eat it with relish. Ciri watched it impassively.

‘The Tower of the Gull teleporter,’ Vysogota began again, ‘leads to the Tower of the Swallow. And the Tower of the Swallow—’

The cat ate the entire mouse, leaving the tail for dessert.

‘The Tor Lara teleporter,’ said Ciri, yawning widely, ‘is warped and leads to a desert. I’ve probably told you that a hundred times.’

‘That’s not the point, I’m talking about something else. That there’s a connection between the two teleporters. The Tar Lara portal was warped, I agree. But there is also the Tor Zireael teleporter. If you could reach the Tower of the Swallow, you could teleport back to the Isle of Thanedd. You would be far from the danger threatening you, out of reach of your enemies.’

‘Ah! That would suit me. There’s just one little snag. I have no idea where the Tower of the Swallow is.’

‘Perhaps I’ll find a remedy for that. Do you know, Ciri, what university studies give a person?’

‘No. What?’

‘The ability to make use of sources.’

*

‘I knew I’d find it,’ Vysogota said proudly. ‘I searched and searched and . . . Oh, bugger . . .’

The armful of heavy tomes slipped through his fingers; grimoires tumbled onto the threshing floor, leaves fell from their decayed bindings and were strewn around haphazardly.

‘What have you found?’ Ciri kneeled beside him, and helped him gather up the scattered pages.

‘The Tower of the Swallow!’ The hermit drove away the tomcat, which had impudently settled on one of the leaves. ‘Tor Zireael. Help me.’

‘How dusty it is! And sticky! Vysogota? What’s this? Here, in this picture? That man hanging from a tree?’

‘This?’ Vysogota examined the loose leaf. ‘A scene from the legend of Hemdall. The hero Hemdall hung from the Ash of the Worlds for nine days and nights to gain knowledge and power through sacrifice and pain.’

‘I’ve dreamed of something like that several times.’ Ciri wiped her forehead. ‘A man hanging from a tree . . .’

‘The engraving fell out of this book, here. If you like, you can read more later. But now the more important thing is . . . Ah, I have it at last. Peregrinations along Trails and Magical Places by Buyvid Backhuysen, a book regarded by some as an apocryphal work . . .’

‘You mean it’s poppycock?’

‘Something like that. But there were also those who valued the book . . . Here, listen . . . A pox on it, how dark it is . . .’

‘There’s enough light, you’re going blind from old age,’ said Ciri, with the detached cruelty befitting her age. ‘Hand it over, I’ll read it. Where from?’

‘From here.’ He pointed with a bony finger. ‘Read it aloud.’

*

‘That old Buyvid wrote in weird language. I think Assengard was some castle or other, if I’m not mistaken. But what’s this land: Centloch? I’ve never heard of any such place. And what’s trefoil?’

‘Clover. And I’ll tell you about Assengard and the Hundred Lakes when you finish reading.’

*

‘For the life of me, barely had the elf Avallac’h uttered those words, than did hurry out from beneath the lake’s waters those meagre black birds that had sheltered from the frost the whole winter at the bottom of the depths. For the swallow, as learned men know, does not fly south for the winter in the manner of other birds and return in the spring, but binds itself with its claws in great swarms and sinks to the bottom of the waters, there to spend the whole winter season, and only in the spring does it fly out de profundis from beneath the waters. Howbeit, that bird is not only the symbol of spring and hope, but also the model of unblemished purity, since it never alights on the ground nor with earthly dirt and filth have any commerce.

‘Let us, though, return to our lake: you would have said that the circling avians dispersed the fog with their wings, for tandem a marvellous, occult tower unexpectedly emerged from the vapour, and we sighed in awe with one voice, because it seemed to be a tower woven from mist, having fog as its fundamentum, and its top was crowned with the gleam of the aurora, an enchanted aurora borealis. Indeed, that tower must have been erected using powerful occult arts, beyond human ken.

‘The elf Avallac’h marked our awe and spake: “This is Tor Zireael, the Tower of the Swallow. This is the Gate of Worlds and the Threshold of Time. Feast your eyes on this sight, man, for not to everyone nor always is it given.”

‘But when asked if we might approach and from proximity gaze on the Tower or propria manu touch it, Avallac’h laughed. “Tor Zireael,” he spake, “is for you a reverie, and reveries may not be touched. And a good thing it is,” he added, “for the Tower serves only the few Chosen, for whom the Threshold of Time is a gate of hope and rebirth. But for the profane it is the portal of nightmare.”

‘Barely had he uttered those words than the fog fell once more and denied our eyes that enchanted prospect . . .’

*

‘The land of a Hundred Lakes, once called Centloch,’ Vysogota explained, ‘is called Mil Tracta today. It’s a very vast lake land bisected by the River Yelena in the northern part of Metinna, close to the border with Nazair and Mag Turga. Buyvid Backhuysen writes that they walked towards the lake from the North, from Assengard . . . Today Assengard is no more, only ruins remain and the nearest town is Neunreuth. Buyvid counted four hundred furlongs from Assengard. Various furlongs have been used, but we’ll accept the most popular reckoning, according to which four hundred and twenty furlongs gives around fifty miles. South of Assengard, which is about three hundred and fifty miles from us here in Pereplut. In other words, there are more or less three hundred miles between you and the Tower of the Swallow. Ciri. That’s some two weeks riding on your Kelpie. In the spring, of course. Not now, when the frosts may be upon us in a day or two.’

‘Assengard – which I was reading about – is a ruin today,’ Ciri murmured, wrinkling her nose pensively. ‘But I’ve seen the elven town of Shaerrawedd in Kaedwen with my own eyes – I’ve been there. People prised out and pillaged everything, they only left bare stone. I bet only stones remain of your Tower of the Swallow. The larger ones, because the smaller ones have probably been stolen. If there was a portal there as well—’

‘Tor Zireael was magical. Not visible to everybody. And teleporters are never visible.’

‘True,’ she admitted and pondered. ‘The one on Thanedd wasn’t. It suddenly appeared on a bare wall . . . Actually it appeared just in time, because that mage who was chasing me was close by . . . I could hear him . . . And then the portal materialised as though I’d summoned it.’

‘I’m certain,’ Vysogota said softly, ‘that if you reached Tor Zireael, that teleporter would also appear to you. Even in the ruins, amidst the bare stones. I’m certain you’d manage to find and activate it. And it – I’m certain – would obey your order. For I think, Ciri, that you are the chosen one.’

*

‘Your hair, Triss, is like fire in the candlelight. And your eyes are like lapis lazuli. Your lips are like coral—’

‘Stop that, Crach. Are you drunk, or what? Pour me some more wine. And talk.’

‘What about, exactly?’

‘Come off it! About how Yennefer decided to sail to the Sedna Abyss.’

*

‘How goes it? Tell me, Yennefer.’

‘First of all, you answer my question: who are the two women I invariably encounter when I come to you? And who always give me looks usually reserved for cat shit on the carpet? Who are they?’

‘Are you interested in their formal and legal – or actual – status?’

‘The latter.’

‘In that case, they’re my wives.’

‘I understand. Explain to them – when you get the chance – that bygones are bygones.’

‘I have. But women are women. Never mind. Speak, Yennefer. I’m interested in how your work is progressing.’

‘Unfortunately,’ the sorceress bit her lip, ‘there’s scant progress. And time’s running out.’

‘It is,’ the yarl nodded. ‘And constantly supplying new sensations. I received news from the continent, it ought to interest you. It comes from Vissegerd’s corps. You know, I hope, who Vissegerd is?’

‘The general from Cintra?’

‘The marshal. He commands a corps made up of Cintran emigrants and volunteers within the Temerian Army. Enough volunteers from the islands serve there for me to have first-hand news.’

‘And what do you have?’

‘You arrived here in Skellige on the nineteenth of August, two days after the full moon. The same day, the nineteenth, I mean, Vissegerd’s corps picked up a group of fugitives during fighting by the Ina. Among them were Geralt and that troubadour friend of his—’

‘Dandelion?’

‘Quite. Vissegerd accused both of spying, imprisoned and perhaps meant to execute them, but the two prisoners ran away and sent some Nilfgaardians – with whom they were reputedly in league – after Vissegerd.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘I thought so too. But I can’t get it out of my head that the Witcher, in spite of what you think, is perhaps carrying out some cunning plan. Wanting to rescue Ciri, he’s worming his way into Nilfgaard’s good graces . . .’

‘Ciri’s not in Nilfgaard. And Geralt isn’t carrying out any plans. Planning isn’t his strong point. Let’s leave it. What’s important is that it’s already the twenty-sixth of August, and I still know too little. Too little to undertake anything . . . Unless I was to . . .’

She fell silent, staring out of the window, playing with the obsidian star fastened to a black velvet ribbon.

‘Were to what?’ Crach an Craite burst out.

‘Rather than mocking Geralt, to try using his methods.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘One could try sacrifice, yarl. Apparently readiness to make sacrifices can pay off, produce favourable results . . . If only in the form of the grace of the goddess. Who likes and esteems people who sacrifice themselves and suffer for a cause.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ he said, wrinkling his brow. ‘But I don’t like what you’re saying, Yennefer.’

‘I know. Neither do I. But still, I’ve gone too far . . . The tiger may already have heard the kid’s bleating . . .’

*

‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ Triss whispered. ‘That’s precisely what I was afraid of.’

‘Which means I understood correctly.’ The muscles of Crach an Craite’s jaw worked vigorously. ‘Yennefer knew someone would eavesdrop on the conversations she was conducting using that infernal machine. Or that one of her interlocutors would basely betray her . . .’

‘Or the one and the other.’

‘She knew.’ Crach ground his teeth. ‘But carried on regardless. Because it was meant to be bait? Did she intend to be bait herself? Did she pretend to know more than she did in order to provoke the enemy? And she sailed to the Sedna Abyss . . .’

‘Throwing down the challenge. Provoking. She was taking an awful risk, Crach.’

‘I know. She didn’t want to expose any of us to danger . . . Apart from volunteers. So she asked for two longships . . .’

*

‘I have the two longships you asked for. Alkyone and Tamara. And their crews, naturally. Alkyone will be commanded by Guthlaf, son of Sven. He asked for the honour, as he’s taken a liking to you, Yennefer. Tamara will be commanded by Asa Thjazi, a captain in whom I have absolute faith. Aha, I almost forgot. My son, Hjalmar Wrymouth will also be in Tamara’s crew.’

‘Your son? How old is he?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘You started early.’

‘That’s the pot calling the kettle black. Hjalmar asked to be added to the crew for personal reasons. I couldn’t turn him down.’

‘For personal reasons?’

‘You really don’t know that story?’

‘No. Tell me.’

Crach an Craite drank from the horn and laughed at his recollections.

‘Youngsters from Ard Skellig,’ he began, ‘love playing on skates during the winter, they can’t wait for the icy weather. The first of them go out on the ice when the lake is barely ice-bound, so thin it wouldn’t support adults. Races are the favourite sport, naturally. To gather speed and hurtle, as fast as they can, from one side of the lake to the other. Other boys compete at the so-called “salmon leap”. They have to jump, in their skates, over lakeside rocks sticking up from the ice like sharks’ teeth. Like salmon leaping up waterfalls. You choose a suitably long row of rocks like that, take a run-up . . . Ha, I jumped like that when I was a scrawny kid . . .’

Crach an Craite fell into a reverie and smiled slightly.

‘Of course,’ he continued, ‘whoever jumps the longest row of rocks wins the competition and then struts around like a peacock. In my day, Yennefer, that honour often fell to your humble servant and present interlocutor, ha! During the time that interests us most, my son, Hjalmar, was the champion. He jumped over stones that none of the other boys dared to. And paraded around with his nose in the air, challenging anyone to try and defeat him. And the challenge was taken up. By Ciri, daughter of Pavetta of Cintra. Not even an islander, though she thought of herself as one, since she’d spent more time here than there.’

‘Even after Pavetta’s accident? I thought Calanthe had forbidden her from coming here?’

‘You know about that?’ He glanced at her keenly. ‘Indeed, yes, you know a great deal, Yennefer . . . A great deal. Calanthe’s rage and ban didn’t last more than six months and then Ciri began to spend her summers and winters here again . . . She skated like a demon, but to compete at the salmon leap with the lads? And challenge Hjalmar? It was unbelievable!’

‘She leaped,’ the sorceress guessed.

‘Yes, she did. The little Cintran half-devil leaped. A real Lion Cub from the Lioness’s blood. And Hjalmar – so as not to expose himself to ridicule – had to risk a jump over an even longer row of stones. Which he did. He broke a leg, broke an arm, broke four ribs and smashed his face up. He’ll have a scar for the rest of his life. Hjalmar Wrymouth! And his famous betrothed! Ha!’

‘Betrothed?’

‘Didn’t you know about that? You know so much, but not that? She visited him when he was lying in bed recovering after his famous leap. She read to him, told him stories, held his little hand . . . And when someone entered the chamber, they both blushed like poppies. Well, finally Hjalmar informed me they were betrothed. I almost had an attack of apoplexy. I’ll teach you, you rascal, I’ll give you a betrothal, but with a rawhide whip! And I was a bit anxious, for I’d seen that the Lion Cub was hot-headed, that everything about her was reckless, for she was a daredevil, not to say a little maniac . . . Fortunately Hjalmar was covered in splints and bandages, so they couldn’t do anything stupid . . .’

‘How old were they then?’

‘He was fifteen, she almost fifteen.’

‘I think your fears were a little exaggerated.’

‘Perhaps a little. But Calanthe, whom I had to inform about everything, by no means made light of the matter. I knew she had marriage plans regarding Ciri, I think it concerned the young Tankred Thyssen of Kovir, and perhaps the Redanian, Radovid. I can’t be certain. But rumours might have harmed the marriage plans, even rumours about innocent kisses or half-innocent caresses. Calanthe took Ciri back to Cintra without a moment’s delay. The girl kicked up a row, yelled and sobbed, but nothing helped. There was no arguing with the Lioness of Cintra. Afterwards, Hjalmar lay for two days with his face turned to the wall and didn’t say a word to anyone . . . As soon as he had recovered, he planned to steal a skiff and sail to Cintra by himself. For that he was strapped, and he put it behind him. But later . . .’

Crach an Craite went silent, fell into a reverie.

‘Later the summer came, then the autumn, and the entire Nilfgaardian might struck Cintra’s southern wall, through the Marnadal Stairs. And Hjalmar found another opportunity to become a man. In Marnadal, at the Battle of Cintra and later at the Battle of Sodden, he faced the Black Cloaks valiantly. Later, too, when the longships sailed for the Nilfgaardian coasts, Hjalmar avenged his make-believe betrothed with sword in hand, even though people thought she was dead by then. I didn’t believe it, because those phenomena I told you about didn’t occur . . . Well, and now, when Hjalmar learned of the possible rescue expedition, he volunteered.’

‘Thanks for the story, Crach. It was restful for me to listen. I could forget about . . . my cares.’

‘When do you set off, Yennefer?’

‘In the coming days. Perhaps even tomorrow. It remains to me to perform one more, final telecommunication.’

*

Crach an Craite’s eyes were like a hawk’s. They bored deeply, to the very core.

‘You don’t by any chance know, Triss Merigold, who Yennefer spoke to that last time before disassembling the infernal machine? On the night of the twenty-seventh of August? With whom? Or about what?’

Triss hid her eyes behind her eyelashes.

*

The beam of light diffracted by the diamond animated the surface of the looking glass with a flash. Yennefer extended both hands and intoned a spell. The blinding reflection transformed into a swirl of fog and an image quickly began to emerge from it. The image of a chamber whose walls were draped with a colourful tapestry.

A movement in the window. And an anxious voice.

‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

‘It’s me, Triss.’

‘Yennefer? Is that you? O Gods! How . . . Where are you?’

‘It isn’t important where I am. Don’t block, for the image is flickering. And take away the candlestick, it’s blinding me.’

‘I’ve done it. Of course.’

Though the hour was late, Triss Merigold was not in a negligee, or in working clothes. She was wearing an evening gown. As usual, buttoned all the way up to the neck.

‘May we talk freely?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Yennefer . . .’

‘Don’t trick me, girl. I know that expression, I’ve seen more than enough of it. You had one like that when you started sleeping with Geralt behind my back. You put on the identical innocent-whorish little mask then that I see on your face now. And it means the same now as it did then!’

Triss blushed. And beside her in the window appeared Philippa Eilhart, dressed in a dark-blue men’s doublet with silver embroidery.

‘Bravo,’ she said. ‘Sharp as usual, acute as usual. As usual difficult to comprehend and fathom. I’m glad to see you in good health, Yennefer. I’m glad that the crazy teleportation from Montecalvo didn’t end tragically.’

‘Let’s assume you are indeed glad.’ Yennefer grimaced. ‘Although that’s a most bold assumption. But we’ll leave it. Who betrayed me?’

‘Is it important?’ Philippa shrugged. ‘You’ve now been communicating for four days with traitors. With traitors to whom venality and treachery are second nature. And traitors whom you have forced to betray others in turn. One of them has betrayed you. That’s the usual course of events. Don’t tell me you didn’t expect it.’

‘Of course I did,’ Yennefer snorted. ‘I proved that by contacting you. I didn’t have to, did I?’

‘You didn’t. Which means you stand to gain from it.’

‘Bravo. Sharp as usual, acute as usual. I’m contacting you to assure you that the secret of your lodge is safe with me. I won’t betray you.’

Philippa looked at her from beneath lowered eyelashes.

‘If you expected,’ she said finally, ‘to buy yourself time, peace and safety with that declaration, you miscalculated. Let’s not kid ourselves, Yennefer. By fleeing Montecalvo you made a choice, you threw in your lot with one side of the barricade. Whoever’s not with the lodge is against it. Now you’re trying to beat us to Ciri, and the motives driving you are counter to ours. You’re acting against us. You don’t want to allow us to use Ciri to serve our political ends. Know then, that we shall do everything to prevent you using the girl to serve your own sentimental ones.’

‘So it’s war, then?’

‘Competition,’ Philippa smiled venomously, ‘Only competition, Yennefer.’

‘Fair and honourable?’

‘You must be joking.’

‘Naturally. Nonetheless, I’d like to present one matter honestly and unambiguously. Banking, of course, on gaining something from it.’

‘By all means.’

‘In the course of the next few days – perhaps even tomorrow – events will occur whose outcome I’m unable to predict. It may turn out that our competition and rivalry will suddenly cease to have any meaning. For a simple reason. There won’t be a rival any longer.’

Philippa Eilhart narrowed her eyes, which were accented with light blue eye shadow.

‘I understand.’

‘Ensure then, that I posthumously regain my reputation and good name. That I won’t be thought of as a traitor and an accomplice of Vilgefortz. I ask that of the lodge. I ask you personally.’

Philippa was briefly silent.

‘I decline your request,’ she said finally. ‘I’m sorry, but your rehabilitation is not in the interests of the lodge. Should you die, you die a traitor. To Ciri you shall be a traitor and a criminal, for then it will be easier to manipulate the maid.’

‘Before you undertake anything that may prove fatal,’ Triss suddenly said, ‘leave us something . . .’

‘A will?’

‘Something that will allow us . . . to continue . . . to follow in your footsteps. And find Ciri. Surely it’s in Ciri’s interests, after all! It’s about her life! Yennefer, Dijkstra has found . . . some tracks. If it’s Vilgefortz who has Ciri, a terrible death awaits the girl.’

‘Be quiet, Triss,’ Philippa Eilhart barked sharply. ‘There won’t be any bargaining or horse-trading here.’

‘I’ll leave you directions,’ Yennefer said slowly. ‘I’ll leave you information about what I’ve found out, and what I’ve undertaken. I’ll leave a trail you’ll be able to follow. But not for nothing. If you don’t want to rehabilitate me in the world’s eyes, then to hell with you and the world. But at least rehabilitate me in the eyes of one witcher—’

‘No,’ Philippa retorted almost immediately. ‘That isn’t in the interests of the lodge either. You shall remain a traitor and a dishonourable sorceress to your Witcher, too. It isn’t in the lodge’s interests to stir up trouble, looking for revenge, and if they have contempt for you, they won’t want revenge. Besides, he’s probably dead. Or will die any day.’

‘Information,’ Yennefer said hollowly, ‘in exchange for his life. Save him, Philippa.’

‘No, Yennefer.’

‘For it isn’t in the interests of the lodge.’ Purple fire flashed in the sorceress’s eyes. ‘Did you hear, Triss? This is your lodge. This is its true countenance, these its true concerns. What do you say to that? You were the maid’s mentor, almost an older sister, as you yourself said. And Geralt . . .’

‘Don’t beguile Triss with romance, Yennefer.’ Now Philippa’s eyes blazed in turn. ‘We’ll find the maid and rescue her without your help. And if you succeed, thanks a million, you’ll help us, you’ll save us the bother. You’ll snatch her from Vilgefortz’s hands, we’ll snatch her from yours. And Geralt? Who is Geralt?’

‘Did you hear, Triss?’

‘Forgive me,’ Triss Merigold said hollowly. ‘Forgive me, Yennefer.’

‘Oh, no, Triss. Never.’

*

Triss looked at the floor. Crach an Craite’s eyes were like a hawk’s.

‘The day after the last secret communication,’ the yarl of the Isles of Skellige said, ‘one you, Triss Merigold, know nothing about, Yennefer left Skellige, setting a course for the Sedna Abyss. When asked why exactly she was heading there, she looked me in the eye and replied that she intended to find out how natural disasters differ from unnatural ones. She set off with two longships, Tamara and Alkyone, with crews made up entirely of volunteers. That was the twenty-eighth of August, two weeks ago. I haven’t seen her since.’

‘When did you find out—?’

‘Five days later,’ he interrupted quite bluntly. ‘Three days after the September new moon.’

*

Captain Asa Thjazi, who was sitting behind the yarl, was anxious. He licked his lips, shifted around on the bench, and wrung his hands so hard the knuckles cracked.

The red sun, finally emerging from the clouds covering the sky, sank slowly over Spikeroog. ‘Speak, Asa,’ Crach an Craite ordered.

Asa Thjazi cleared his throat noisily.

‘We were making good way,’ he began, ‘the wind behind us, we were doing a good twelve knots. Then on the night of the twenty-ninth we espied the lighthouse at Peixe de Mar. We struck out a little westwards, so as not to chance on any Nilfgaardians . . . And at dawn, one day before the September new moon, we reached the region of the Sedna Abyss. Then the sorceress summoned myself and Guthlaf . . .’

*

‘I need volunteers,’ Yennefer said. ‘Only volunteers. No more than is necessary to steer a longship for a short time. I don’t know how many men are needed for that, I’m not an expert. But please don’t leave even one more man on Alkyone than is absolutely necessary. And I repeat – only volunteers. What I plan to do . . . is very dangerous. More so than a sea battle.’

‘I understand,’ the old seneschal nodded. ‘And I volunteer first. I, Guthlaf, son of Sven, request that honour, madam.’

Yennefer looked him long in the eyes.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘And I, too, am honoured.’

*

‘I also volunteered,’ said Asa Thjazi. ‘But Guthlaf disagreed. Someone, he said, must keep command on Tamara. Consequently, fifteen men volunteered. Including Hjalmar, yarl.’

Crach an Craite raised his eyebrows.

*

‘How many are needed, Guthlaf?’ the sorceress repeated. ‘How many are essential? Please reckon it exactly.’

The seneschal was silent for some time as he added up.

‘Eight of us can cope,’ he said finally. ‘If it’s not for long . . . Why, but everyone here is a volunteer, no one’s being forced—’

‘Select eight from that fifteen,’ she interrupted sharply. ‘Choose them yourself. And order those selected to transfer to Alkyone. The rest are staying on Tamara. Aha, I shall choose one of those who stays. Hjalmar!’

‘No, madam! You can’t do that to me! I volunteered and will be at your side! I want to be—’

‘Be silent! You’re staying on Tamara! That’s an order! One more word and I’ll have you tied to the mast!’

*

‘Go on, Asa.’

‘The witch, Guthlaf and those eight volunteers boarded Alkyone and sailed for the Abyss. We, on Tamara, hung back according to our orders, but not too far away. But some devilry began with the weather, which had been wonderfully favourable till then. Aye, I speak truly that it was devilry, for the power was sinister, yarl . . . May I be keelhauled if I lie . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘Where we were, I mean Tamara, the sea was calm. Though the wind whistled some and clouds darkened the horizon so day almost became night. But where Alkyone was all hell suddenly broke loose. Hell indeed . . .’

*

Alkyone’s sail suddenly fluttered so violently that they heard the flapping in spite of the distance separating the longships. The sky turned black and the clouds swirled. The sea, which seemed completely calm around Tamara, churned up and foamed white by Alkyone’s sides. Someone suddenly yelled, someone chimed in, and a moment later everybody was yelling.

A cone of black clouds was striking Alkyone, making it bob on the waves like a cork. The ship twisted, spun, its bow and stern rising and falling into the waves. At times the longship almost completely vanished from sight. At times they could only see the striped sail.

‘It’s magic!’ bawled someone behind Asa’s back. ‘It’s devil magic!’

The whirlpool spun Alkyone around faster and faster. Shields torn from the sides by centrifugal force whirred in the air like discs, and splintered oars flew in all directions.

‘Reef the sail!’ yelled Asa Thjazi. ‘To the oars! Row, boys! To the rescue!’

But it was already too late.

The sky above Alkyone turned black, and the blackness suddenly exploded in zigzags of lightning which entwined the longship like a medusa’s tentacles. The clouds, swirling in fantastic shapes, writhed up into a horrendous funnel. The longship spun around with incredible speed. The mast snapped like a match, the torn sail dashed over the breakers like a huge albatross.

‘Row, men!’

Over their own yells, over the all-deafening roar of the elements, they nonetheless heard the cries of the men from Alkyone. Cries so extraordinary they made their hair stand on end. And these were old sea dogs, bloodied berserkers, mariners who had seen and heard many things.

They dropped the oars, aware of their impotence. They were dumbfounded, they even stopped yelling.

Alkyone, still whirling, slowly rose above the waves. And rose higher and higher. They saw the keel, dripping water, covered in shellfish and algae. They saw a black shape, a figure falling into the sea. Then a second. And a third.

‘They’re jumping!’ Asa Thjazi roared. ‘Row, men, don’t stop! With all your might! We must row to their aid!’

Alkyone was now a good hundred cubits above the boiling surface of the water. It continued to whirl, an immense spindle dripping with water, entwined in a cobweb of lightning, being dragged into the swirling clouds by an unseen force.

Suddenly an ear-splitting explosion rent the air. Although fifteen pairs of oars were pushing Tamara forwards, she suddenly leaped up and flew backwards, as if rammed. The deck flew from under Thjazi’s feet. He fell over, banging his forehead on the side.

He couldn’t stand up by himself, he had to be lifted to his feet. He was dazed; he twisted and shook his head, staggering and mumbling incoherently. The screams of the crew seemed muffled. He went over to the side, tottering like a drunkard and clung on to the rail.

The wind had dropped and the sea was calm. But the sky was still black from the billowing clouds.

There wasn’t a single trace of Alkyone.

*

‘Not even a trace was left, yarl. Well, tiny pieces of rigging, some rags . . . Nothing more.’

Asa Thjazi interrupted his tale, watching the sun vanishing beyond Spikeroog’s wooded peaks. Crach an Craite, lost in thought, didn’t hurry him.

‘We know not,’ Asa Thjazi finally continued, ‘how many managed to jump before Alkyone was sucked into that devilish cloud. But no matter how many jumped, none survived. And we, though we spared neither time nor strength, fished out but two bodies. Two bodies, borne on the water. Only two.’

‘Was the sorceress,’ the yarl asked in an altered voice, ‘not among them?’

‘No.’

Crach an Craite was silent a long while. The sun was completely hidden behind Spikeroog.

‘Old Guthlaf, son of Sven is lost,’ Asa Thjazi spoke again. ‘The crabs on the bottom of the Abyss have surely ate him till the last little bone . . . And the witch is certainly lost . . . Yarl, folk are beginning to talk . . . That it’s all her fault. And punishment for her crimes . . .’

‘Foolish nonsense!’

‘She’s perished,’ Asa muttered, ‘in the Sedna Abyss. In the same place as Pavetta and Duny did back then . . . It was an accident . . .’

‘It was no accident,’ Crach an Craite said with conviction. ‘It was certainly no accident then. And nor was it now.’

It is proper for a hapless one to suffer. His pain and humiliation result from the laws of nature, and to carry out the aims of nature both the existence of the suffering one is necessary, as is that of those who, causing him suffering, enjoy their successes. That very truth ought to stifle the pang of conscience in the heart of a tyrant or malefactor. He must not bridle himself, he ought to commit all the deeds that arise in his imagination, since it is the voice of nature which suggests them. If the secret inspirations of nature lead us to evil it is evidently essential to nature.

Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade

CHAPTER TEN

The clank and thud of the cell door first opening and then closing awoke the younger of the two Scarra sisters. The elder was sitting at a table, busy scraping dried porridge from the bottom of a tin bowl.

‘Well, how was it in court, Kenna?’

Without a word Joanna Selborne, also known as Kenna, sat down on her plank bed with her elbows resting on her knees and her forehead on her hands.

The younger Scarra yawned, belched and farted loudly. Kohut, crouching on the opposite bed, muttered something indistinct and turned his head away. He was furious at Kenna, the sisters and the whole world.

In normal gaols the inmates were still traditionally separated according to sex. In military citadels it was different. Emperor Fergus var Emreis – confirming women’s equality in the imperial army by special decree – had already ruled that if it was to be emancipation, then let it be emancipation. Equality ought to be complete and outright, without any exceptions or special privileges for either sex. Since then, inmates had been serving time in mixed cells in the strongholds and citadels.

‘Well?’ the older Scarra repeated. ‘Are they letting you out?’

‘Like hell they are,’ said Kenna bitterly, head still resting on her hands. ‘I’ll be lucky if they don’t hang me. Sod it! I told the truth, hid nothing, well, you know, almost nothing. But when those whoresons started grilling me, first they made a fool out of me in front of everyone, then it turned out I wasn’t a credible person but a criminal element, and right at the end they brought out my complicity in a plot aimed at subversion with the aim of an insurrection.’

‘Subversion,’ the older Scarra nodded, as though she understood exactly what it was about. ‘Aaah, if it’s subversion . . . Then you’re in the shit, Kenna.’

‘As if I didn’t know that.’

The younger Scarra stretched, yawned like a leopard, widely and noisily, jumped down from the upper bunk, vigorously kicked away Kohut’s stool which was blocking her way and spat on the floor beside it. Kohut growled, but didn’t dare do anything more.

Kohut was mortally offended by Kenna. But was afraid of the sisters.

When Kenna had been assigned to the cell three days earlier, it soon turned out that Kohut – if he tolerated the emancipation and equality of women at all – had his own views on the subject. He had thrown a blanket over Kenna’s upper half in the middle of the night and intended to avail himself of the lower half, which he certainly would have done but for the fact that he had happened upon a tele-empathic. Kenna penetrated his brain so deeply that Kohut howled like a werewolf and cavorted around the cell as though bitten by a tarantula. Then, out of pure vindictiveness, Kenna telepathically forced him to go down on all fours and bang his head rhythmically against the metal-plated cell door. When the warders – alarmed by the dreadful thumping – opened the door, Kohut butted one of them, for which he received five lashes with a metal-tipped truncheon and as many kicks. Summing up, Kohut didn’t get the gratification he’d been hoping for. And took offence at Kenna. He didn’t even dare to take his revenge, because the next day the Scarra sisters joined them in the cell. The fair sex thus formed the majority, and furthermore it soon turned out that the sisters’ views on equality were similar to Kohut’s, if completely the other way around concerning the roles ascribed to the sexes. The younger Scarra looked at the man lasciviously and made explicit comments, while the older cackled and rubbed her hands together. As a result, Kohut slept with a stool with which he planned to defend his honour. Nonetheless, his chances and prospects were meagre; both Scarras had served on the front line and were veterans of numerous battles, so would not have been daunted by the stool. Had they’d wanted to rape him they would have, even if the man had been armed with a battle axe. Kenna, though, was certain the sisters were only joking. Well, almost certain.

The Scarra sisters were in the slammer for assaulting an officer, while in the case of Kohut – who had served as a quartermaster – an investigation was ongoing into a notorious, major scandal regarding the theft of army bows, which was creating ever-widening ripples.

‘In the shit, Kenna,’ the older Scarra repeated. ‘You’ve got yourself in a fine pickle. Or rather they got you into it. How come you never bloody caught on it was a political game?’

‘Humph.’

Scarra glanced at her, not quite knowing how to interpret her monosyllabic response. Kenna looked away.

I’m not going to tell you something I kept quiet about in front of the judges, am I? she thought. That I knew what kind of game I was getting tangled up in. Or when and how I found out.

‘You’ve landed yourself in a sorry mess,’ said the younger Scarra solemnly. She was the much more dull-witted one, who – Kenna was certain – understood nothing of what it was about.

‘And what finally happened with that Cintran princess?’ The older Scarra kept probing. ‘I mean you finally nabbed her, didn’t you?’

‘We did. If you could call it that. What’s the date today?’

‘September the twenty-second. It’s the Equinox tomorrow.’

‘Ah. Well, that’s a queer coincidence. Tomorrow, it’ll be a year to the day since those events . . . A year already . . .’

Kenna stretched out on her pallet, hands clasped behind her head. The sisters remained silent, hoping it had been an introduction to a story.

Nothing doing, sisters dear, thought Kenna, looking at the obscene drawings and even more obscene comments scrawled on the planks of the upper bunk. There won’t be any story. It’s not even that that bastard Kohut smells like a bloody nark. I just don’t feel like talking about it. I don’t feel like remembering it.

What happened a year ago. After Bonhart gave us the slip in Claremont.

We’d arrived there two days too late, she recalled, the trail had already gone cold. No one knew where the bounty hunter had gone. No one apart from the merchant Houvenaghel, that is. But Houvenaghel didn’t want to talk to Skellen, or even have him in the house. He communicated through his servants that he had no time and wouldn’t grant them an audience. Tawny Owl was cross and indignant, but what could he do? It was Ebbing, he didn’t have the necessary jurisdiction. And we could do nothing about Houvenaghel any other way – I mean our way – for he had a private army down in Claremont, and we couldn’t exactly declare war . . .

Boreas Mun sniffed around, Dacre Silifant and Ola Harsheim tried bribery, Til Echrade elven magic, I used telepathy and listened to his thoughts, but it wasn’t much use. All we learned was that Bonhart had left the town through the southern gate. But before he left . . .

In Claremont there was a tiny little temple with larches, by the southern gate and the small market place. Before leaving Claremont, Bonhart had cruelly beaten Falka with a knout in the square in front of the temple. Before everybody’s eyes, including the temple priests’. He yelled that he’d prove to her who her lord and master was. That he was flogging her with a knout as he wished, and if he so wished he’d flog her to death, because no one would stand up for her, no one would come to her aid. Neither people nor gods.

The younger Scarra was looking out of the window, hanging onto the grating. The older one was eating porridge from the bowl. Kohut took the stool, lay down and covered himself with a blanket.

The bell in the guardhouse tolled, the guards on the walls yelled out their presence . . .

Kenna turned her face to the wall.

We met several days later, she thought. Me and Bonhart. Face to face. I looked into his inhuman, fishlike eyes, thinking only of one thing – how he’d beaten the girl. And I looked into his thoughts . . . For a moment. And it was like sticking my head into a dug-up grave . . .

That was at the Equinox.

And the day before, the twenty-second of September, I’d realised that an invisible spy had wormed his way among us.

*

Stefan Skellen, the imperial coroner, listened without interrupting. But Kenna saw his face changing.

‘Again, Selborne,’ he drawled. ‘Say it again, for I don’t believe my own ears.’

‘Cautiously, my lord coroner,’ she murmured. ‘Pretend to be angry . . . That I’ve come to you with a request and you won’t grant it . . . For the sake of appearances, I mean. I’m not mistaken, I’m certain. An unseen guest has been hanging around us for two days. An invisible spy.’

Tawny Owl, to give him his due, was clever and understood at once.

‘No, Selborne, I refuse,’ he said loudly, but without over-dramatizing his tone or expression. ‘Discipline applies to everyone. There are no exceptions.’

‘Please, at least listen, lord coroner,’ Kenna didn’t have Tawny Owl’s talent, failed to avoid awkwardness, but in the scene being played out awkwardness and embarrassment by the petitioner were permissible. ‘Please at least see fit as to listen.’

‘Speak, Selborne. But be brief and to the point!’

‘He’s been spying on us for two days,’ she muttered, pretending she was humbly presenting her argument. ‘Since Claremont. He has to ride behind us secretively, and when we’re camped he approaches unseen, moves around among people, and listens.’

‘He listens, the sodding spy.’ Skellen didn’t have to pretend to be stern and angry; the fury was trembling in his voice. ‘How did you uncover him?’

‘Yesterday, when you were giving Lord Silifant his orders outside the tavern, the tomcat sleeping on the bench hissed and flattened its ears. It seemed suspicious to me, because there wasn’t anyone on that side . . . And then I picked up something, a thought, kind of, an unfamiliar thought and will. When there are familiar, ordinary thoughts all around, an unfamiliar thought like that, lord coroner, is as if someone were shouting . . . I started taking heed, intensely, I doubled my efforts and now I can sense him.’

‘Can you always sense him?’

‘No. Not always. He has some kind of magical protection. I only sense him from very close, and even then not every time. So I have to be vigilant, because I never know if he’s not hiding nearby.’

‘Just don’t scare him away,’ Tawny Owl muttered. ‘Don’t scare him away . . . I want him alive, Selborne. What do you suggest?’

‘We’ll give him the pancake treatment.’

‘The pancake treatment?’

‘Quiet, lord coroner.’

‘But . . . Oh, never mind. Very well. I’m giving you a free hand.’

‘Tomorrow, make sure we stop and billet in some village or other. I’ll sort out the rest. And now for the sake of appearances give me a dressing-down and I’ll go away.’

‘I can’t really.’ He smiled at her with his eyes and winked slightly, immediately assuming the overbearing air of a stern commander. ‘For I’m pleased with you, Miss Selborne.’

He said “miss”. Miss Selborne. As though to an officer.

He winked again.

‘No!’ he said and brandished an arm, playing his role splendidly. ‘Request denied! Dismissed!’

‘Yes sir.’

*

The next day, in the late afternoon, Skellen ordered his soldiers to make camp in a village by the River Lete. The village was prosperous, ringed by a palisade, and they rode in through a fine gate of freshly cut pine palings. The name of the village was Unicorn and it took its name from its small stone temple, inside which there was a straw effigy of a unicorn.

I remember, Kenna recalled, how we laughed at that straw idol, and the village headman gravely explained that the sacred unicorn which looked after the village had many years before been made of gold, then silver, then copper; there were several versions in bone and several in hardwood. But all of them had been stolen. People came from far away to rob or steal it. Things had only been peaceful since the unicorn had been made of straw. We set up camp in the village. As agreed, Skellen occupied the headman’s hall.

Less than an hour later we’d given the spy the pancake treatment. In classic, textbook fashion.

*

‘Please come closer,’ Tawny Owl ordered loudly. ‘Please come closer and take a look at this document . . . Hold on? Is everybody here? So I won’t have to explain twice.’

Ola Harsheim, who had just taken a sip of cream somewhat watered down with sour milk from a milking pail, licked the creamy moustache from his lips, put down the vessel, looked around and counted. Dacre Silifant, Bert Brigden, Neratin Ceka, Til Echrade, Joanna Selborne . . .

‘Dufficey’s not here.’

‘Summon him.’

‘Kriel! Duffi Kriel! To the commander for the briefing! To receive important orders! At the double!’

Dufficey Kriel ran into the hall, out of breath.

‘Everybody’s here, lord coroner,’ Ola Harsheim reported.

‘Leave the window open. We could expire from the smell of garlic in here. Open the door, too, make a draught.’

Brigden and Kriel obediently opened the window and the door. Kenna, meanwhile, thought once again that Tawny Owl would make a really splendid actor.

‘Please step this way, gentlemen. I’ve received this document from the emperor, confidential and of extraordinary gravity. Your attention, please . . .’

‘Now!’ yelled Kenna, sending a powerful directional impulse, whose effect on the senses was similar to being struck by lightning.

Ola Harsheim and Dacre Silifant picked up the milk pail and simultaneously flung the cream in the direction Kenna was indicating. Til Echrade vigorously emptied a flour barrel which had been hidden under the table. A creamy, floury shape – amorphous at first – appeared on the floor of the chamber. But Bert Brigden was alert. Correctly judging where the pancake’s head might be, he whacked it as hard as he could with a cast-iron frying pan.

Then everybody threw themselves at the spy who was plastered all over with cream and flour, tore the hat of invisibility from his head and seized his arms and legs. After upturning the table, they tied the captive’s limbs to the legs. They pulled off his boots and footwraps and stuffed one of them into his mouth which was open and ready to shout.

In order to crown their work, Dufficey Kriel kicked the captive hard in the ribs, and the others took pleasure in watching the spy’s eyes bulge out of their sockets.

‘Magnificent work,’ commented Tawny Owl, who hadn’t moved during the entire, brief, incident but had stood with his arms crossed on his chest.

‘Bravo. Congratulations. Above all to you, Miss Selborne.’

Bloody hell, thought Kenna. If it carries on like this I really am liable to end up an officer.

‘Mr Brigden,’ Stefan Skellen said coldly, standing over the prisoner spread out between the table legs, ‘put the irons in the coals, please. Mr Echrade, please make sure no children are hanging around outside.’

He leaned over and looked into the bound man’s eyes.

‘You haven’t shown your face for ages, Rience,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to think some misfortune had befallen you.’

*

The bell in the guardhouse – the signal for the changing of the guard – struck. The Scarra sisters snored euphoniously. Kohut, hugging the stool, smacked his lips in his sleep.

He played the hero, Kenna recalled, pretending to be brave, that foolhardy Rience. The sorcerer Rience, given the pancake treatment and tied to the legs of a table with his bare feet sticking up. He was playing the hero, but wasn’t fooling anybody; least of all me. Tawny Owl warned us he was a sorcerer, so I scrambled his thoughts to stop him casting spells or sending for magical help. And read his thoughts while I was about it. He was blocking my way in, but when he caught a whiff of the smoke from the coal of the brazier where the irons were heating up, his magical protection and blockades burst along all their seams like old britches, and I was able to read him freely. His thoughts didn’t differ from those of other people I’ve read in like situations. The thoughts of people who are about to be tortured. Chaotic, trembling thoughts; full of fear and despair. Cold, slimy, wet, foul-smelling thoughts. Like a corpse’s entrails.

In spite of that, when the gag was removed, the sorcerer Rience tried to play the hero.

*

‘Well, well, Skellen! You’ve caught me, you win! Congratulations. A deep bow to your technique, expertise and professionalism. Splendidly trained operatives; truly, it’s enviable. And now please release me from this unseemly position.’

Tawny Owl drew up a chair and straddled it, resting his clasped fingers and chin on the backrest. He looked down at the captive. And said nothing.

‘Have me released, Skellen,’ Rience repeated. ‘And then order your subordinates to leave. What I have to say is meant for your ears only.’

‘Mr Brigden,’ Tawny Owl said, without turning his head. ‘What colour are the irons?’

‘A bit longer, sir.’

‘Miss Selborne?’

‘I’m having difficulty reading him now,’ Kenna shrugged. ‘He’s too afraid, the fear’s drowning out all other thoughts. And there are lots of those thoughts. Including a few he’s trying to hide. Behind magical screens. But it’s not hard, I can—’

‘That won’t be necessary. We’ll try the classic method: a red-hot iron.’

‘Bloody hell!’ the spy howled. ‘Skellen! You surely don’t mean—’

Tawny Owl leaned over, his face a little changed.

‘First, it’s Mister Skellen,’ he hissed. ‘Second, yes, absolutely, I plan to order your soles scorched, Rience. I shall do it with the utmost satisfaction. For I shall treat it as an expression of historical justice. I’ll wager you don’t understand.’

Rience remained silent, so Skellen continued.

‘You see, Rience, I advised Vattier de Rideaux to scorch your heels back then, seven years ago, when you were fawning to the imperial intelligence service like a cur, begging for mercy and the privilege to be a traitor and a double agent. I repeated that advice four years ago, when you shamelessly kissed Emhyr’s arse, mediating in contacts with Vilgefortz. When, during the hunt for the Cintran wench, you were promoted from a humble little turncoat to being virtually first resident spy. I wagered Vattier that when burned you’d say who you serve . . . No, I’ve got that wrong. That you’d name everyone you serve. And everyone you betray. And then, I said, you’ll see, you’ll be astonished, Vattier, how many points on the two lists correspond. But, well, Vattier de Rideaux didn’t listen to me. And now surely regrets it. But nothing’s lost. I’ll only toast you a little, and when I know what I want to know, I shall leave you to Vattier’s disposal. And he’ll flay you, slowly, one piece at a time.’

Tawny Owl removed a handkerchief and a vial of perfume from his pocket. He sprinkled the perfume liberally on the handkerchief and pressed it to his nose. The perfume smelled pleasant, but nonetheless Kenna felt like vomiting.

‘The iron, Mr Brigden.’

‘I’m tracking you on Vilgefortz’s orders!’ Rience roared. ‘It concerns the girl! By tracking your troop I hoped to get ahead of you, reach that bounty hunter before you did! I was going to try to negotiate the wench away from him! From him, not from you! Because you want to kill her, and Vilgefortz needs her alive! What else do you want to know? I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everything!’

‘Whoa, there!’ Tawny Owl called. ‘Not so fast! Why, a fellow’s head could ache from such a racket and mass of information. Can you imagine, gentlemen, what will happen when we burn him? He’ll scream us to death!’

Kriel and Silifant cackled raucously. Kenna and Neratin Ceka didn’t join in the merriment. Neither did Bert Brigden, who had just then removed the iron from the coals and was examining it critically. The iron was so hot it seemed to be transparent, as though it wasn’t iron, but a glass tube full of molten fire.

Rience saw it and shrieked.

‘I know how to find the bounty hunter and the girl!’ he yelled. ‘I know! I’ll tell you!’

‘I’m certain of that.’

Kenna, still trying to read his thoughts, grimaced, picking up a wave of desperate, impotent fury. Something snapped in Rience’s brain, yet another partition. He’ll say something out of fear, thought Kenna, something he meant to keep until the end, as a trump card, an ace, which would have beaten all the other aces in a last, deciding hand for the highest stakes. Now he’ll discard that ace, out of a banal, revolting fear of pain.

Suddenly something popped in her head, she felt heat in her temples and then sudden cold.

And she knew. She knew Rience’s hidden thought.

By the Gods, she thought. What a pickle I’m in . . .

‘I’ll talk!’ howled the sorcerer, reddening and staring goggled-eyed in the coroner’s face. ‘I’ll tell you something genuinely important, Skellen! Vattier de Rideaux . . .’

Kenna suddenly heard another thought, belonging to someone else. She saw Neratin Ceka with a hand on his dagger moving towards the door.

Boots pounded and Boreas Mun rushed into the headman’s hall.

‘My lord coroner! Quickly, sir! You’ll never believe who’s here!’

Skellen gestured to Brigden, who was bending over towards the spy’s heels with the iron, to stop.

‘You ought to play the lottery, Rience,’ he said, looking out of the window. ‘I’ve never met anyone in my life with such luck.’

Through the window they could see a crowd and two people on horseback in the midst of it. Kenna knew at once who it was. She knew who the bony giant was, with the pale fishlike eyes, riding a powerful bay.

And who the ashen-haired girl on the splendid black mare was. With hands bound and a collar around her neck. And a bruise on her swollen cheek.

*

Vysogota returned to his cottage in a foul mood, dejected, taciturn – even angry. The reason was a conversation with a peasant, who had rowed over in a dugout canoe to collect some pelts. Perhaps for the last time before the spring, said the peasant. The weather’s getting worse by the day. The rain and wind are so bad I’m afraid to venture onto the water. Ice on the puddles in the morning, blizzards are nigh, and after that frosts. The river will rise and flood at any time, then it’s away with the dugout and out with the sleigh. But even a sleigh’s no use on Pereplut, naught but bogs far as the eye can see . . .

The peasant was right. Towards the evening it became overcast and white flakes fell from the dark blue sky. A stiff, easterly wind flattened the dry reeds, whipping up white crests over the surface of the wetland. It had become piercingly, bitterly cold.

The day after tomorrow, thought Vysogota, is the feast of Samhain. According to the elven calendar it’ll be the New Year in three days. According to the human calendar we’ll have to wait another two months.

Kelpie, Ciri’s black mare, stamped and snorted in the barn.

When he entered the cottage, he found Ciri rummaging around in his chests. He let her; even encouraged her. Firstly, it was quite a new activity – after riding Kelpie and leafing through books. Secondly, there were plenty of his daughters’ things in the chests, and the girl needed warm clothing. Several changes of clothing, for in the cold and damp it took many days before the laundry finally dried.

Ciri was selecting, trying on, putting aside and discarding various items of clothing. Vysogota was sitting at the table. He ate two boiled potatoes and a chicken wing. In silence.

‘Good workmanship.’ She showed him some objects he hadn’t seen in years and had even forgotten he had. ‘Did these also belong to your daughter? Was it a hobby of hers?’

‘Yes, she loved it. She couldn’t wait for the winter.’

‘Can I take them?’

‘Take what you want,’ he shrugged. ‘They’re of no use to me. If they’ll come in handy and if the boots fit . . . But are you packing, Ciri? Are you preparing to go?’

She fixed her eyes on the pile of clothing.

‘Yes, Vysogota,’ she said after a brief silence. ‘I’ve decided. Because you see . . . There’s no time to lose.’

‘Your dreams.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, a moment later. ‘I saw very unpleasant things in my dreams. I’m not certain if they’ve taken place, or are yet to happen. I have no idea if I can prevent it . . . But I must go. You see, once I felt aggrieved that the people closest to me didn’t come to my aid. Left me at the mercy of fate . . . But now I think they’re the ones that need my help. I have to go.’

‘Winter’s coming.’

‘That’s precisely why I must go. If I stay I’ll be stuck here until spring . . . until the spring I’ll be fretting in idleness and uncertainty, plagued by nightmares. I have to go, right now, to try to find the Tower of the Swallow. That teleporter. You worked out it’ll take me a fortnight to reach the lake. I’d be there before the November full moon . . .’

‘You can’t leave your hideout now,’ he said with effort. ‘Not now. They’ll capture you. Ciri . . . Your pursuers . . . they are very close. You cannot now—’

She threw a blouse down onto the floor and sprang up.

‘You’ve learned something,’ she said sharply. ‘From the peasant who took the pelts. Tell me.’

‘Ciri—’

‘Tell me, please!’

He told her. He was later to regret it.

*

‘The devil must have sent them, good sir hermit,’ mumbled the peasant, breaking off from counting the pelts. ‘Must of been the devil. They’ve been galloping through the forests since the Equinox, searching for some maid. Frightening folk, yelling and threatening, but always riding on, never tarrying long enough to do too much harm. But now they’ve thought up summat new: in some villages and settlements they’ve left some, what were it . . . Sent trees. They ain’t no trees, good sir, sent or otherwise, just simply three or four good-for-nothing scoundrels, naught but trouble. They say they’re going to lie in wait the whole winter, to see if the maid they’re hunting doesn’t creep out of some hidey-hole and venture into the village. Then that tree’s s’pposed to nab ‘er.’

‘Are they in your village too?’

The peasant’s face darkened and he ground his teeth.

‘Not in our village. We was lucky. But in Dun Dare, half a day from us, there’s four. They’re quartered in the inn. Scoundrels, good sir hermit, damned scoundrels, rogues. They took their pleasure with the village wenches, and when the menfolk stood up to them, they killed them, good sir, without mercy. Killed them dead . . .’

‘They killed people?’

‘Two. The headman and one other. And is there a punishment for such ne’er-do-wells, good sir? And is there a law? There’s no punishment or law! A carter who came to Dun Dare with his wife and daughter, he said that years ago there used to be witchers in the world, so they say . . . They dealt with every kind of villainy. We ought to send a witcher to Dun Dare, he’d give those rascals short shrift . . .’

‘Witchers killed monsters, not people.’

‘They’re knaves, good sir hermit, not people, naught but knaves from hell. A witcher’s what needed for them, no more, no less . . . Well, time I were going, good sir hermit . . . Ooo, winter’s coming! Soon it’ll be away with the dugout and out with the sleigh . . . And what them knaves from Dun Dare need, good sir, is a witcher . . .’

*

‘Oh, that’s right,’ Ciri repeated through clenched teeth. ‘Oh, absolutely right. A witcher what’s they need . . . Or a witcher girl. Four, is it? In Dun Dare, are they? And where is bloody Dun Dare? Upstream? Would I get there across the tussocks?’

‘By the Gods, Ciri,’ Vysogota said in terror. ‘You can’t seriously be thinking—’

‘Don’t swear by the gods, if you don’t believe in them. And I know you don’t.’

‘Let’s leave my views out of this! Ciri, what infernal ideas are you hatching? How can you even—’

‘Now you leave my convictions alone, Vysogota. I know what I have to do! I’m a witcher!’

‘You’re an unstable young person!’ he exploded. ‘You’re a child who’s been through traumatic experiences; a damaged child on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And more than that, you’re sick with a craving for revenge! Blinded by a lust for retribution! Don’t you understand that?’

‘I understand it better than you!’ she yelled. ‘Because you have no idea what it means to be hurt! You have no idea about revenge, for no one has ever truly wronged you!’

She rushed out of the cottage. A bitterly cold draught briefly blew through the hallway and the main room before she slammed the door shut. Soon after he heard neighing and the pounding of hooves.

Agitated, he banged the plate down onto the table. Let her go, he thought angrily, let her shake off the anger. It wasn’t as if he was afraid for her, she’d ridden often enough among the bogs, by day and night; she knew the paths, causeways, tussocks and meadows. If, though, she did get lost, she’d only have to let go of the reins – her black Kelpie knew the way home to the goat’s barn.

Some time after, when it was already very dark, he went out and hung the lantern on a post. He stood by the fence and listened out for the clatter of hooves or the splash of water. But the wind and the rustling of the reeds muffled all sound. The lantern on the post swayed crazily until it finally went out.

And then he heard it. From far away. No, not from the direction Ciri had ridden towards. But on the other side. From the bogs. A savage, inhuman, long-drawn-out, plaintive cry. A howl.

A moment of silence.

And again. A beann’shie.

An elven phantom. The harbinger of death.

Vysogota trembled, from cold and from fear. He quickly headed back towards the cottage, muttering and humming under his breath, so as not to hear it, not to hear it at all, because he must not hear it.

Kelpie emerged from the darkness before he managed to relight the lantern.

‘Go into the cottage,’ Ciri said, gently and softly. ‘And don’t leave. It’s a foul night.’

*

They bickered again over supper.

‘You seem to know a great deal about the problems of good and evil!’

‘Because I do! And not from scholarly books, either!’

‘No, of course. You know it all from experience. From practice. For you’ve acquired plenty of experience in your long sixteen years of life.’

‘I’ve gained enough. Quite enough!’

‘Congratulations. My learned friend.’

‘You can sneer,’ she clenched her teeth, ‘without having any idea how much evil you’ve done to the world, you aged scholars, you theoreticians with your books, with your centuries-old experience of reading moral treatises so diligently you didn’t even have time to look out of the window to see what the world was really like. You philosophers, artificially shoring up artificial philosophies in order to earn salaries at universities. And since not a soul would pay you for the ugly truth about the world, you invented ethics and morality; nice, optimistic sciences. Except they’re fallacious and deceitful!’

‘There’s nothing more deceitful than a half-baked judgement, miss! Than a hasty and incautious conclusion!’

‘You didn’t find a remedy for evil! But I, a callow witcher, have! An infallible remedy!’

He didn’t respond, but his face must have betrayed him, because Ciri leaped up from the table.

‘Do you think I’m talking nonsense? Making wild claims?’

‘I think,’ he calmly replied, ‘you’re speaking in anger. I think you’re planning your revenge in anger. And I strongly urge you to calm down.’

‘I am calm. And revenge? Answer me: why not? Why should I eschew revenge? In the name of what? Higher reasons? And what’s higher than an order of things where evil deeds are punished? To you, O philosopher and ethicist, revenge is an improper deed, reprehensible, unethical and ultimately unlawful. And I ask: where is the punishment for evil? Who should attest it, adjudge it and inflict it? The gods you don’t believe in? The great demiurge-creator you’ve decided to replace the Gods with? Or perhaps the law? Perhaps Nilfgaardian justice, imperial judgements, prefects? You naive old man!’

‘And so it’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? Blood for blood? And for that blood, more blood? A sea of blood? Do you want to drown the world in blood? O naive, damaged girl! Is that how you mean to fight evil, little witcher?’

‘Yes. Just like that! For I know what Evil fears. Not your ethics, Vysogota, not sermons, not moral treatises about a worthy life. Evil fears pain, impairment, suffering, death, the end! When wounded, Evil howls with pain like a dog! It rolls around on the floor and squeals, watching the blood spurt from its veins and arteries, seeing its bones stick out of stumps, seeing its guts crawl from its belly, sensing that with the cold, death is approaching. Then and only then does Evil’s hair stand on end and Evil finally yell: “Mercy! I repent of my sins! I’ll be good and decent now, I swear! Just save me, staunch the blood, don’t let me perish ignominiously!”

‘Yes, O hermit. That’s how you fight Evil! If Evil wants to do you harm, inflict pain on you – anticipate it, ideally when Evil isn’t expecting it. If, though, you didn’t manage to anticipate Evil, if you were harmed by Evil, then pay it back! Catch it, ideally when it has forgotten, when it feels safe. Pay it back twofold. Threefold. An eye for an eye? No! Both eyes for an eye! A tooth for a tooth? No! All its teeth for a tooth! Pay Evil back! Make it howl with pain, so its eyeballs burst from its howling. And then, looking down at the floor, you may confidently say: what’s lying there won’t harm anybody any longer, it won’t threaten anyone. For how can it threaten anyone without any eyes? If it has no hands? How can it do any harm when its guts are trailing over the sand, and the gore is soaking into it?’

‘And you,’ the hermit said slowly, ‘stand with your bloodied sword in hand, and look at the blood soaking into the sand. And you have the audacity to think that the age-old dilemma has been solved, the philosophers’ dream has been attained. You think the nature of Evil has been transformed?’

‘I do,’ she said defiantly. ‘Because what’s lying on the ground with blood gushing from it is no longer Evil. Perhaps it isn’t yet Good, but it certainly isn’t Evil anymore!’

‘They say,’ Vysogota said slowly, ‘that nature abhors a vacuum. Whatever is lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, whatever died from your sword, is no longer Evil. What is it then? Have you ever thought about that?’

‘No. I’m a witcher! When they were teaching me, I swore I would act against Evil. Always. And without thinking . . .

‘Because when you start thinking,’ she added hollowly, ‘killing stops making sense. Revenge stops making sense. And you can’t let that happen.’

He shook his head, but she gestured to him to stop arguing.

‘It’s time I finished my story, Vysogota. I’ve been unfolding it for you for thirty nights, from the Equinox to Samhain. But I haven’t told you everything. Before I leave, you have to learn what happened on the day of the Equinox in the village called Unicorn.’

*

She groaned when he pulled her from the saddle. The hip he had kicked her in the day before was hurting.

He tugged on the chain attached to the collar and pulled her towards a light-coloured building.

Several armed men were standing in the doorway. And one tall woman.

‘Bonhart,’ said one of the men, slim and brown-haired, with a thin face, holding a brass-tipped knout. ‘It has to be said that you’re full of surprises.’

‘Greetings, Skellen.’

The man addressed as Skellen looked her straight in the eye for some time. She trembled under his gaze.

‘Well?’ he addressed Bonhart again. ‘Will you explain at once, or perhaps bit by bit?’

‘I don’t like explaining things in the courtyard, for you get a mouthful of flies. May we go inside?’

‘By all means.’

Bonhart yanked the chain.

Another man was waiting in the main room. He was dishevelled and pale, and was probably the cook, because he was busy cleaning traces of flour and cream from his clothing. His eyes lit up at the sight of Ciri. He came closer.

He wasn’t the cook.

She recognised him at once, remembered those hideous eyes and the ugly mark on his face. He was the one who had pursued her on Thanedd with the Squirrels. She’d escaped him by jumping out of a window, and he had ordered the elves to jump after her. What had that elf called him? Rence?

‘Well, well!’ he said mordantly, jabbing a finger hard and painfully into her breast. ‘Miss Ciri! We haven’t seen each other since Thanedd. I’ve been looking for you a long, long time, miss. And I’ve finally found you!’

‘I don’t know, sir, who you are,’ Bonhart said coldly. ‘But what you’ve claimed to find is actually mine, so keep your mitts off, if you value your fingers.’

‘My name’s Rience.’ The sorcerer’s eyes flashed unpleasantly. ‘Kindly condescend to commit that to memory, Mr Bounty Hunter, sir. And who I am will be soon be revealed. Whom the maid belongs to will also soon be revealed. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now I only want to give her my regards and make a pledge. You don’t have anything against that, I trust?’

‘You are free to trust.’

Rience approached Ciri and looked into her eyes from close up.

‘Your guardian, the hag Yennefer,’ he said slowly and scornfully, ‘once fell into disfavour with me. And so when I got my hands on her, I, Rience, taught her pain. With these hands, with these fingers. And I promised her that should you fall into my hands, princess, I would also teach you pain. With these hands, with these fingers . . .’

‘Risky,’ Bonhart said softly. ‘You’re taking a great risk, Mr Rience, or whatever your name is, bothering my little girl and threatening her. She is vengeful, liable to hold it against you. I repeat: keep your hands, fingers and all other parts of your body well away from her.’

‘Enough.’ Skellen cut them off, without taking his curious eyes off Ciri. ‘Stop it, Bonhart. And you too, Rience, calm yourself. I’ve shown you mercy, but I may change my mind and order you bound to the table legs again. Sit down, both of you. Let’s talk like cultured people. Just the three of us and no one else. For we have, it seems to me, much to talk about. But for now we’ll put the subject of our conversations under guard. Mr Silifant!’

‘Just guard her well.’ Bonhart handed Silifant the end of the chain. ‘Guard her with your life.’

*

Kenna stayed on the sidelines. Granted, she wanted to observe the wench, whom everybody had recently been talking about, but she felt a strange aversion to pushing in amongst the small crowd surrounding Harsheim and Silifant, who were taking the mysterious captive over to a post in the courtyard.

Everybody was crowding around, jostling, peering. They were even trying to touch her, shove her, pull her. The girl trod stiffly, limping slightly, but held her head high. He’s beaten her, thought Kenna. But he didn’t break her.

‘So she must be Falka . . .’

‘The maid’s barely grown!’

‘A maid, huh? A cut-throat!’

‘I heard she slayed six men, the brute, in the arena in Claremont . . .’

‘And before that? How many others? The she-devil . . .’

‘She-wolf!’

‘And the mare, what a mare, look. A horse of marvellous blood . . . And here, by Bonhart’s saddle flap, what a sword . . . Ah . . . a marvel!’

‘Leave it alone!’ Dacre Silifant growled. ‘Don’t touch! Get your hands off other people’s things. Don’t touch the girl either; don’t paw her, don’t hinder or insult her! Show some charity. We know not if we shan’t be executing her before dawn. May she at least know peace until that time.’

‘If the wench is to go to her death,’ grinned Cyprian Fripp the younger, ‘perhaps we could sweeten the remainder of her life and satiate her well? Throw her on the hay and bed her?’

‘Aye!’ Kabernik Turent cackled, ‘We could! Let’s ask Tawny Owl if it’s allowed—’

‘I tell you it’s not allowed!’ Dacre cut them off. ‘Naught else occupies your minds, you damned fornicators! I said leave the maid in peace. Andres, Stigward, stand here by her. Don’t take your eyes off her, or move a foot away. And use the lash on any that come close!’

‘Sod that!’ said Fripp. ‘Very well, makes no difference to us. Let’s be off, fellows, to the hay barn, and join the villagers, they’re roasting a ram and a porker for the banquet. For today is the Equinox, a feast, isn’t it? While the masters are deliberating, we can make merry.’

‘Let’s go. Take a demijohn from the chest, Dede. We’ll take a drink! May we, Mr Silifant? Mr Harsheim? It’s the feast today, and we shan’t be heading anywhere tonight.’

‘Oh, what droll designs!’ Silifant frowned. ‘They think of naught but feasting and toping! And who will stay here to help guard the wench and wait on Sir Stefan’s summons?’

‘I shall stay,’ said Neratin Ceka.

‘And I,’ said Kenna.

Dacre Silifant looked at them attentively. Finally, he gestured his assent. Fripp and company roared their thanks incoherently.

‘But have a care down there, at that merrymaking!’ Ola Harsheim warned. ‘Don’t molest any wenches, or you might get jabbed in the privates with a pitchfork!’

‘Sod that! Coming with us, Chloe? And you, Kenna? Won’t you think it over?’

‘No. I’m staying.’

*

‘They left me chained to the post, with my hands bound. Two of them were guarding me. And the two standing nearby kept glancing over, watching me. The tall, good-looking woman. And a man with slightly feminine looks and bearing. Odd in some way.’

The cat sitting in the middle of the room yawned broadly, bored, because the mouse it was tormenting had stopped providing amusement. Vysogota said nothing.

‘Bonhart, Rience and that Skellen-Tawny Owl were still debating in the headman’s hall. I didn’t know what about. I might have expected the worst, but I was resigned. One more arena? Or would they simply kill me? Blow it, I thought, let it finally be over.’

Vysogota said nothing.

*

Bonhart sighed.

‘Don’t glower, Skellen,’ he repeated. ‘I simply wanted to make some money. It’s time, you notice, I retired, to sit on the porch and watch pigeons. You gave me a hundred florins for the She-Rat, you badly wanted her dead. That puzzled me. How much could the maid really be worth, I thought. And I worked out that if she were killed or handed over, she would certainly be worth less than if she were kept. An old principle of economics and commerce. Goods like her keep gaining in value. One can always haggle . . .’

Tawny Owl wrinkled his nose, as though there was a bad smell in the vicinity.

‘You’re painfully frank, Bonhart. But get to the point. To the explanations. You fled with the girl through the whole of Ebbing, and all of a sudden you show up and start explaining the laws of economics. Tell me what happened.’

‘What is there to explain?’ Rience smiled repellently. ‘Mr Bonhart has simply finally grasped who the wench really is. And how much she’s worth.’

Skellen didn’t grace him with a glance. He was looking at Bonhart, into his fishlike, expressionless eyes.

‘And he pushes this precious girl, this valuable acquisition, meant to guarantee his pension, out into the arena in Claremont,’ he drawled, ‘and makes her fight to the death. Risks her life, though she’s allegedly worth so much alive. What’s it about, Bonhart? Because something doesn’t add up.’

‘Had she perished in the arena,’ Bonhart didn’t lower his eyes, ‘it would have meant she wasn’t worth anything.’

‘I see,’ Tawny Owl frowned slightly. ‘But rather than taking the wench to another arena you brought her to me. Why, if I might ask?’

‘I repeat,’ Rience grimaced. ‘He twigged who she is.’

‘You’re shrewd, Lord Rience.’ Bonhart stretched until his joints creaked. ‘You’ve guessed right. Yes, it’s true that there’s one more riddle linked to the witcher girl trained in Kaer Morhen. In Geso, when the noblewoman was robbed, the wench’s tongue wagged. That she was apparently so important and titled that the baron’s daughter was such small beer and so low-ranking she ought to bow down before her. In that case, this Falka, I think to myself, must be at least the daughter of a count. Curious. Firstly: a witcher girl. Are there so many of them? Secondly: in the Rats’ gang. Thirdly: the imperial coroner is chasing around after her, in person, from Korath to Ebbing and ordering her killed. And on top of all that . . . she’s a high-born noble woman. Ha, I think to myself, someone ought to ask that wench who she really is.’

He was silent for a time.

‘At first –’ he wiped his nose with his cuff ‘– she wouldn’t talk. Although I asked. I asked with hand, foot and whip. I didn’t want to cut her . . . But as luck would have it, a barber surgeon turned up. With instruments for extracting teeth. I bound her to a chair . . .’

Skellen swallowed audibly. Rience smiled. Bonhart studied a cuff.

‘She told me everything, before . . . As soon as she saw the instruments. Those toothed pliers and pincers. She became more forthcoming at once. It turns out she’s a—’

‘Cintran princess,’ said Rience, looking at Tawny Owl. ‘The heiress to the throne. A candidate for marriage to Emperor Emhyr.’

‘Which Lord Skellen didn’t deign to tell me,’ the bounty hunter sneered. ‘He ordered me simply to murder her, he stressed it several times. Kill her mercilessly, on the spot! Well, Lord Skellen? Kill a queen? Our emperor’s future spouse? With whom, if one is to believe the rumours, the emperor will tie the knot any moment, after which there is to be a general amnesty?’

Bonhart glared at Skellen as he delivered his oration. But the imperial coroner didn’t lower his eyes.

‘And so,’ the hunter continued, ‘out it comes: a delicate situation. Thus, though I regret it, I gave up my plans regarding the witcher girl-princess. I’ve brought the whole predicament here, to Lord Skellen. To talk, to sort things out . . . For I’d say that this predicament is a little too much for one Bonhart . . .’

‘A very reasonable conclusion,’ said a harsh voice from Rience’s bosom. ‘Very reasonable, Mr Bonhart. What you’ve caught, gentlemen, is a little too much for you both. Luckily, you still have me.’

‘What’s that?’ Skellen leaped up from his chair. ‘What the bloody hell is that?’

‘My master, the sorcerer Vilgefortz.’ Rience drew from his bosom a tiny silver casket. ‘More precisely, my master’s voice. Coming from this magical device; it’s called a xenogloss.’

‘Greetings to all you,’ said the casket. ‘Shame I can only hear you, but urgent business prevents me from using teleprojection or teleportation.’

‘That’s all we bloody need,’ Tawny Owl snarled. ‘But I might have guessed. Rience is too stupid to act alone and by himself. I might have guessed you were lurking somewhere in the gloom, Vilgefortz. You lurk in the dark like a fat old spider, waiting for your cobweb to quiver.’

‘What a vivid comparison.’

Skellen snorted.

‘And don’t try to pull the wool over our eyes, Vilgefortz. You’re using Rience and his casket not because of the amount of work you have, but from fear of the army of sorcerers, your former comrades in the Chapter, who are scanning the whole world in search of traces of magic with your algorithm. Were you to try teleportation, they would locate you in an instant.’

‘What impressive knowledge.’

‘We haven’t been introduced.’ Bonhart bowed quite theatrically before the silver box. ‘But nevertheless, is the honourable Rience promising to torture the girl on your instructions and with your authorisation, master sorcerer? Am I not mistaken? Upon my word, the girl is becoming more and more important with every moment. It turns out she’s necessary to everybody.’

‘We haven’t been introduced,’ Vilgefortz said from the casket. ‘But I know you, Leo Bonhart, you’d be astonished just how well. And the girl is, indeed, important. After all, she’s the Lion Cub of Cintra, the Elder Blood. In keeping with Ithlinne’s Prophecy, her descendants will rule over the world in the future.’

‘Why do you need her so much?’

‘I only need her placenta. Her womb. Once I’ve removed it, you can take the rest. What do I hear there, some kind of snorting? Some kind of disgusted sighing and puffing? Whose? Bonhart’s – who physically and psychologically maltreats the girl every day in intricate ways? Or Stefan Skellen’s – who intends to kill her on the orders of traitors and plotters? Eh?’

*

I eavesdropped on them, recalled Kenna, lying on her pallet with her hands behind her head. I stood around the corner and heard their thoughts. And my hair stood on end. Over my entire body. All of a sudden I understood the extent of the predicament I’d got myself into.

*

‘Yes, yes,’ said the voice from the xenogloss, ‘you’ve betrayed your emperor, Skellen. Without hesitation, at the first opportunity.’

Tawny Owl snorted disdainfully.

‘The charge of treachery from the lips of such an arch-traitor as you, Vilgefortz, is indeed a great matter. I’d feel honoured, if it didn’t smack of a cheap, vulgar joke.’

‘I’m not accusing you of treachery, Skellen, I’m mocking your naivety and inability to betray. Who are you betraying your emperor for? For Ardal aep Dahy and de Wett, princelings, their morbid pride piqued, insulted because the emperor rejected their young daughters by planning a marriage with the Cintran. Whereas they were hoping that a new dynasty would emerge from their families, that their families would become the first in the empire, that soon they’d rise even higher than the throne! Emhyr divested them of that hope at one stroke and then they decided to amend the course of history. They aren’t yet ready with an armed rebellion, but they can at least eliminate the girl that Emhyr chose over their daughters. Of course, they don’t feel like sullying their own delicate aristocratic hands; they found a hired thug, Stefan Skellen, suffering from an excess of ambition. Was it like that, Skellen? Don’t you want to tell us?’

‘What for?’ Tawny Owl shouted. ‘And tell whom? As usual you know everything, don’t you, O great mage? Rience, as usual, doesn’t know anything and that’s as it should be, and Bonhart is unconcerned . . .’

‘You, though, as I’ve already demonstrated, don’t have anything to boast about. The princes bought you with promises, but you’re too intelligent not to realise that you’ll gain nothing with the lordlings. Today they need you as a tool to eliminate the Cintran, tomorrow they’ll get rid of you, because you’re a low-born upstart. Did they offer you Vattier de Rideaux’s position in the new empire? You surely don’t believe that, Skellen. They need Vattier more, since secret services always stay the same – coups or not. They only want to murder using your hands, but they need Vattier to take over the security apparatus. Besides, Vattier is a viscount and you’re a nobody.’

‘Indeed,’ Tawny Owl pouted. ‘I’m too intelligent not to have noticed that. In that case, I ought in turn to betray Ardal aep Dahy and join you, Vilgefortz? Is that what you’re driving at? But I am not a weathercock! If I support the idea of revolution, it’s from conviction and principle. Autocratic tyranny ought to be finished, a constitutional monarchy introduced, and after that democracy . . .’

‘What?’

‘The power of the people. A system where the people will rule. The citizenry of all states, through the most worthy and honest representatives chosen in an honest election . . .’

Rience roared with laughter. Bonhart laughed wildly. The xenogloss of the mage Vilgefortz laughed heartily, if somewhat screechingly. All three of them laughed and guffawed, weeping great tears.

‘Very well,’ Bonhart interrupted the merriment. ‘We haven’t gathered here for diversion, but to trade. The girl, for now, doesn’t belong to the population of honest citizens of all states, she belongs to me. But I can resell her. What does my lord sorcerer have to offer?’

‘Does ruling the world interest you?’

‘No.’

‘Then I shall let you,’ Vilgefortz said slowly, ‘be present during what I do to the girl. You’ll be able to watch. I know you prefer that kind of voyeurism to all other pleasures.’

Bonhart’s eyes flashed with white flame. But he was composed.

‘And more specifically?’

‘And more specifically: I’m prepared to pay your fee twentyfold. Two thousand florins. Think, Bonhart; that’s a sack of money you won’t be able to lift. You’re going to need a pack mule. It’ll suffice you for your retirement, porch, pigeons, and even for vodka and harlots, if you do it in sensible moderation.’

‘Agreed, mage, sir,’ the hunter laughed, seemingly blithely. ‘You’ve touched my heart with that vodka and those harlots. Let’s strike a deal. But I’d also be interested in that observation you suggested, too. I’d prefer, admittedly, to watch her expire in the arena, but I’d also be glad to take a look at your knife work. Throw it in as a bonus.’

‘Done.’

‘That didn’t take you long,’ Tawny Owl observed sardonically. ‘In sooth, Vilgefortz, you’ve struck up a partnership with Bonhart swiftly and smoothly. A partnership which indeed is and will be a societas leonina. But might you have forgotten something? The headman’s hall where you’re sitting and the Cintran you’re trading are surrounded by two dozen armed soldiers. My soldiers.’

‘My dear Skellen,’ came Vilgefortz’s voice from the box. ‘You insult me by thinking I plan to disadvantage you in the exchange. On the contrary. I mean to be extremely generous. I can’t guarantee you – as you deigned to call it – democracy. But I guarantee you material assistance, logistical support and access to information, owing to which you’ll stop being a tool and a minion to the conspirators, and will become a partner. One whose person and opinion Prince Joachim de Wett, Duke Ardal aep Dahy, Count Broinne, Count d’Arvy and all the rest of the blue-blooded plotters will take into account. What if it’s a societas leonina? Certainly, if Cirilla is the loot, then I shall take the lion’s share, deservedly so, it seems to me. Does it pain you? After all, you will make a considerable profit. If you give me the Cintran, Vattier de Rideaux’s position is yours for the taking. And as the head of the secret service, Stefan Skellen, one can enact all sorts of utopias, perhaps even democracy and honest elections. So as you see, I give you the fulfilment of your life’s dreams and ambitions in exchange for one skinny fifteen-year-old. Do you see that?’

‘No,’ Tawny Owl shook his head. ‘I only hear it.’

‘Rience.’

‘Yes, master.’

‘Give Lord Skellen an example of the quality of our information. Tell him what you got out of Vattier.’

‘There’s a spy in your troop,’ said Rience.

‘What?’

‘You heard. Vattier de Rideaux has planted someone here. They know about everything you’re doing. Why you’re doing it and for whom. Vattier has an agent amongst you.’

*

He walked quietly over to her. She almost didn’t hear him.

‘Kenna.’

‘Neratin.’

‘You listened in to my thoughts. Over there, in the headman’s hall. You know what I was thinking. So you know who I am.’

‘Listen, Neratin—’

‘No. You listen, Joanna Selborne. Stefan Skellen is betraying his country and his emperor. He’s conspiring. Everyone who’s with him will end up on the scaffold. Will be torn apart by horses in Millennium Square.’

‘I don’t know anything, Neratin. I carry out my orders . . . What do you want from me? I serve the coroner . . . And who do you serve?’

‘The empire. Viscount de Rideaux.’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘To demonstrate good sense.’

‘Go away. I won’t betray you, I won’t tell . . . But go away, please. I can’t, Neratin. I’m a simple woman. It’s too much for my head . . .’

*

I don’t know what to do. Skellen said ‘Miss Selborne’. As though to an officer. Who am I serving? Him? The emperor? The empire?

And how am I to know?

Kenna pushed herself away from the corner of the cottage, flourished a withy and growled menacingly to drive away some village children who were curiously watching Falka sitting at the foot of the post. Oh, I’ve got myself in a fine pickle.

Oh, there’s a whiff of the noose in the air. And horse shit in Millennium Square.

I don’t know how it will finish, thought Kenna. But I have to go inside her. Enter Falka. Sense her thoughts if only for a moment. Know what she knows.

Understand.

*

‘She came close,’ said Ciri, stroking the cat. ‘She was tall, well-groomed, standing out very much from the rest of that pack . . . Even pretty, in her own way. And commanding respect. The two who were guarding me, vulgar oafs, stopped swearing when she approached.’

Vysogota said nothing.

‘She,’ Ciri went on, ‘leaned over and looked me in the eyes. I felt something at once . . . Something strange . . . It was as though something had crunched at the back of my head. It hurt. There was a rushing sound in my ears. For a moment everything went very bright . . . Something entered me, something repulsive and slimy . . . I recognised it. Yennefer had shown it to me in the temple . . . But I didn’t want to allow that woman do it . . . So I simply pushed away the thing she’d put into me, pushed it away and expelled it from myself, with all the strength I could muster. And the tall woman bent backwards and staggered, as though she’d been punched, took two steps backwards . . . And blood rushed from her nose. From both nostrils.’

Vysogota said nothing.

‘But I,’ Ciri raised her head, ‘understood what had happened. I suddenly felt the Power in me. I’d lost it in Korath desert, I’d renounced it. Later I couldn’t draw on it, couldn’t make use of it. But she, that woman, had given me the Power, had literally shoved the weapon into my hand. It was my chance.’

*

Kenna staggered and sat down heavily on the sand, swaying and feeling for the ground as though drunk. Blood was pouring from her nose and down her mouth and chin.

‘What’s . . .’ Andres Vierny leaped up, but all of a sudden seized his head in both hands, opened his mouth and uttered a croak. He stared at Stigward with eyes wide open, but blood was already dripping from the pirate’s nose and ears and his eyes had clouded over. Andres dropped to his knees, looking at Neratin Ceka, who was standing to one side and watching impassively.

‘Nera . . . tin . . . Help . . .’

Ceka didn’t move. He was looking at the girl. She turned her eyes on him and he tottered.

‘It’s not necessary,’ he quickly forestalled. ‘I’m on your side. I want to help you. Here, I’ll cut through your bonds . . . Take the knife, cut through the collar yourself. I’ll fetch the horses.’

‘Ceka . . .’ Andres Vierny stammered out, choking. ‘You trai—’

The girl struck him with a gaze and he fell onto Stigward, who was lying motionless and curled up in a foetal position. Kenna still couldn’t stand up. Sticky drops of blood dripped onto her chest and stomach.

‘Alarm!’ yelled Chloe Stitz, suddenly appearing from behind the cottages and dropping a mutton rib. ‘Alaaaaarm! Silifant! Skellen! The girl’s getting away!’

Ciri was already mounted. She was holding a sword.

‘Yaaaaaa, Kelpie!’

‘Alaaaaaaarm!’

Kenna was clawing the sand. She couldn’t get up. Her legs were totally unresponsive, as though made of wood. A psionic, she thought. I’ve encountered a super-psionic. The girl is about ten times stronger than me . . . I’m lucky she didn’t kill me . . . How come I’m still conscious?

A group was now running from the cottages, led by Ola Harsheim, Bert Brigden and Til Echrade, and the guards from the gate – Dacre Silifant and Boreas Mun – hurried into the courtyard. Ciri wheeled her horse around, yelled and galloped towards the river. But armed men were already running from there.

Skellen and Bonhart dashed out of the hall. Bonhart holding his sword. Neratin Ceka yelled, rode his horse at them and knocked them both down. Then he hurled himself, straight from the saddle, at Bonhart and pinned him to the ground. Rience dashed out onto the threshold and looked on, dumbfounded.

‘Seize her!’ Skellen roared, springing up from the ground. ‘Seize her or kill her!’

‘Alive!’ Rience howled. ‘Aliiiive!’

Kenna saw Ciri driven away from the riverside palisade, rein her mare around and speed towards the gate. She saw Kabernik Turent leap forward and try to drag her from the saddle, saw a sword flash and a crimson outpouring gush from Turent’s neck. Dede Vargas and Fripp the younger also saw it. They decided not to bar the girl’s way, but bolted between the shacks.

Bonhart jumped to his feet, pushed Neratin Ceka away with a blow of his sword pommel and smote him terribly, diagonally across his breast, and then raced after Ciri. Neratin, slit open and spurting blood, managed to catch him by the legs, and only released him when he was skewered to the sand with the point of a sword. But those few seconds of delay were sufficient. The girl spurred her mare, fleeing from Silifant and Mun. Skellen came up stealthily and wolf-like from the left, and swung an arm. Kenna saw something sparkle in flight, saw the girl writhe and sway in the saddle and a fountain of blood erupt from her face. She leaned back so far that for a moment she was lying on the mare’s croup. She didn’t fall but straightened up and remained in the saddle, then pressed herself to the horse’s neck. The black mare jostled the armed men and raced straight for the gate. Behind her ran Mun, Silifant and Chloe Stitz with a crossbow.

‘She won’t jump it! She’s ours!’ Mun yelled triumphantly. ‘No horse can clear seven feet!’

‘Don’t shoot, Chloe!’

Chloe Stitz didn’t hear in the general uproar. She stopped. Put the crossbow to her cheek. It was widely known that Chloe never missed.

‘She’s dead meat!’ she cried. ‘Dead meat!’

Kenna saw a man whose name she didn’t know run forward, raise a crossbow and shoot Chloe point-blank in the back. The bolt passed right through her in an explosion of blood. Chloe dropped without a sound.

The mare reached the gate and drew back its head a little. And jumped. It soared and quite simply scaled the gate, gracefully gathered up its fore hooves and streamed over it like a black silk ribbon. Its curled hind hooves didn’t even brush the upper bar.

‘Ye Gods!’ screamed Dacre Silifant. ‘Ye Gods, what a horse! Worth its weight in gold!’

‘The mare goes to whoever catches her!’ Skellen screamed. ‘To horse! Mount up and after her!’

The search party galloped through the finally open gate, kicking up dust. Bonhart and Boreas Mun galloped ahead of everyone.

Kenna stood up with effort. And immediately staggered and sat down heavily on the sand. Her legs were tingling painfully.

Kabernik Turent wasn’t moving, but lay in a red puddle with arms and feet splayed apart. Andres Vierny tried hard to lift the still-unconscious Stigward.

Chloe Stitz, huddled up on the sand, seemed as tiny as a child.

Ola Harsheim and Bert Brigden dragged the short man, the one who’d killed Chloe, before Skellen. Tawny Owl was panting and trembling with fury. From the bandolier slung across his chest he took out another orion, the same kind of steel star he had wounded the girl’s face with a moment earlier.

‘May you rot in hell, Skellen,’ said the short man. Kenna recalled his name. Mekesser. Jediah Mekesser. A Gemmerian. She had first met him in Rocayne.

Tawny Owl stooped and swung his arm vigorously. The six-toothed star whined in the air and plunged deeply into Mekesser’s face, between his eye and nose. He didn’t even cry out when hit, but simply began shaking violently and spasmodically in Harsheim and Brigden’s grip. He shook for a long time and bared his teeth so ghoulishly that everybody turned their heads away. Everybody except Tawny Owl.

‘Pull my orion from him, Ola,’ said Stefan Skellen, when at last the corpse was hanging inertly in the two men’s arms. ‘And bury that scum in the muck, with that other scum, the hermaphrodite. Not a trace shall remain of those two execrable traitors.’

The wind suddenly howled and clouds massed. It suddenly became dark.

*

The guards on the citadel walls shouted. The Scarra sisters were snoring a duet. Kohut pissed noisily into the empty bucket. Kenna pulled the blanket up under her chin. She was thinking back.

They didn’t catch the girl. She vanished. Simply vanished. Boreas Mun – unprecedentedly – lost the black mare’s trail after about three miles. Suddenly, without warning, it became dark, the wind flattening trees almost to the ground. The rain lashed down, nay, even thunder rumbled and lightning flashed.

Bonhart didn’t give up. They returned to Unicorn. They all yelled at one another, interrupting and shouting each other down: Bonhart, Tawny Owl, Rience and the fourth, mysterious, inhuman, croaking voice. Then they ordered the entire hanza to mount up, unlike those – like me – who were unable to ride. They banded together peasants with torches and drove them into the forests. They returned just before dawn.

With nothing. If you didn’t count the horror in their eyes.

The tales, Kenna recalled, only began a few days later. In the beginning everyone was too afraid of Tawny Owl and Bonhart. They were so furious it was better to get out of their way. Even Bert Brigden, an officer, was hit across the head with the handle of a knout for some imprudent word.

But later people talked about what had happened during the chase. About the tiny straw unicorn from the little chapel that suddenly grew to the size of a dragon and scared the horses so much the riders fell from them, only miraculously avoiding breaking their necks. About the cavalcade of fiery-eyed apparitions galloping across the sky on skeleton horses led by a terrible skeleton king ordering his phantom servants to wipe out the black mare’s hoof prints with their ragged cloaks. About the macabre choir of goatsucker nightjars, calling: “Liiiquorrrr of blood, liiiquorrrr of blood!” About the horrific wailing of the ghastly beann’shie, the harbinger of death . . .

The wind, rain, clouds, bushes and fantastically-shaped trees, and fear, which turns everything into nightmares, commented Boreas Mun, who had been there, after all. That’s the whole explanation. But the nightjars? The nightjars were screaming, as nightjars always do, he added.

And the trail, the hoof prints, which suddenly vanish, as though the horse had flown up into the heavens?

The face of Boreas Mun, a tracker able to track down a fish in water, stiffened at the question. The wind, he answered, the wind covered the tracks with sand and foliage. There’s no other explanation.

Some people even believed, Kenna recalled. Some people even believed that they were all natural or predictable phenomena. And even laughed at them.

But they stopped laughing. After Dun Dare. No one laughed after Dun Dare.

*

He stepped back involuntarily and sucked in air on seeing her.

She had mixed goose lard with soot from the chimney and with the greasepaint thus created had blackened her eye sockets and eyelids, extending them with long lines to her ears and temples.

She looked like a demon.

‘From the fourth tussock up to the high forest, keeping to the very edge,’ he repeated the directions. ‘Then along the river until you get to three dead trees, and then due west through a hornbeam woodland. When you see the pines, ride along the edge and count the tracks. Turn into the ninth and don’t turn off after that. Then it’ll be the Dun Dare settlement, there’s a hamlet on the north side. A few cottages. And beyond them, at the crossroads, a tavern.’

‘I remember. I’ll make it, don’t worry.’

‘Be most vigilant at the bends in the river. Beware of places where the reeds thin out. And places covered in knotgrass. And should darkness overtake you before the pine forest, stop and wait until morning. Under no circumstances ride across the bogs at night. It’s almost a new moon now, and the clouds—’

‘I know.’

‘As far as the Lake Land goes . . . Head north, across the hills. Avoid main roads, the main roads are heaving with soldiers. When you get to a river, a large river, which is called the Sylte, you’re over halfway.’

‘I know. I have the map you drew.’

‘Oh, yes. Indeed.’

Ciri checked her harness and saddlebags yet again. Mechanically. Not knowing what to say. Putting off what had to be said.

‘It was agreeable to have you to stay,’ he forestalled her. ‘Truly. Farewell, O witcher girl.’

‘Farewell, O hermit. Thank you for everything.’

She was already in the saddle, already prepared to click her tongue at Kelpie, when he came over and took her arm.

‘Ciri. Stay. See out the winter . . .’

‘I’ll reach the lake before the frosts. But later, if it’s as you said, nothing will matter any longer. I’ll teleport back to Thanedd. To the school in Aretuza. To Madam Rita . . . Vysogota . . . Like it used to be . . .’

‘The Tower of the Swallow is a legend. Remember, it’s just a legend.’

‘I’m just a legend,’ she said bitterly. ‘Have been since my birth. Zireael, the Swallow, the Unexpected Child. The Chosen One. The Child of Destiny. The Child of the Elder Blood. I’m going, Vysogota. Farewell.’

‘Farewell, Ciri.’

*

The tavern by the crossroads past the hamlet was empty. Cyprian Fripp the younger and his three companions had forbidden the local people from entering and drove away travellers. They, however, spent their time eating and drinking, never leaving the smoky, gloomy tavern, which smelled as a tavern usually does in winter when the doors and windows are kept shut – of sweat, cats, mice, footwraps, pinewood, farts, fat, burnt food and wet, steaming clothing.

‘Sod this rotten place,’ centurion Yuz Jannowitz, a Gemmerian, said for probably the hundredth time, gesturing towards the serving wenches to bring him vodka. ‘Damn that Tawny Owl. Ordering us to hunker down in this mangy hole! I’d sooner be riding through forests with the patrols!’

‘Then you must be stupid,’ replied Dede Vargas. ‘It’s bloody freezing outside! I’d druther be here in the warm. With the maid close at hand!’

He slapped the wench hard on the bottom. She squealed, not very convincingly and with evident apathy. She was slow-witted, to tell the truth. Working in a tavern had only taught her that when they slap or pinch you, you should squeal.

Cyprian Fripp and his company had already begun to take advantage of the two serving wenches the day after arriving. The innkeeper was afraid to complain and the wenches too dim-witted to think about protesting . . . Life had taught them that if a wench protested she got hit. It was more judicious, usually, to wait till they get bored.

‘That there Falka,’ Rispat La Pointe, bored, took up another stock topic of their bored evening conversations, ‘croaked somewhere in the forests, I tell you. I saw Skellen slice her face open with the orion and the blood shooting out in a fountain! She can’t have come through that, I tell you!’

‘Tawny Owl missed her,’ Yuz Jannowitz stated. ‘He barely scratched her with the orion. Granted he carved her face up good and proper, saw it for myself. But did it stop the wench jumping the gate? Did she fall from her horse? Not a chance! And we measured the gate afterwards: seven foot effing two. And? She jumped it! And then what! You couldn’t have stuck a knife blade between the saddle and her little arse.’

‘Blood was pouring from her,’ protested Rispat La Pointe. ‘She rode away, I’m telling you, rode off and then fell and croaked in a hollow somewhere. Wolves and birds ate the carcass, martens finished it off, and ants. That’s the end, deireadh. So we’re sitting here in vain, drinking our money away. Our money, it is, for I don’t seem to see any pay!’

‘It can’t be that no traces or signs of a corpse are left,’ said Dede Vargas with conviction. ‘Something’s always left: the skull, pelvis or one of the bigger bones. Rience, that sorcerer, will eventually find Falka’s remains. Then the matter will be over.’

‘And perhaps then they’ll drive us so hard we’ll recall with delight this idleness and this lousy pigsty.’ Cyprian Fripp the younger threw a bored glance at the tavern’s walls, on which he already knew every nail and every damp patch. ‘And that poxy booze. And those two, what smell of onions, and when you rut them they lie like calves, staring at the ceiling and picking their teeth.’

‘Everything’s better than this tedium,’ Yuz Jannowitz stated. ‘I feel like howling! Let’s fucking do something! Anything! Shall we torch the village or what?’

The door creaked. The sound was so unexpected that all four of them leaped up from their seats.

‘Scram!’ Dede Vargas roared. ‘Get out, old man! Beggar! Filthy bastard! Get back outside!’

‘Leave him.’ Fripp, bored, waved an arm. ‘See, he’s lugging some pipes. He’s just a beggar, probably an old soldier who earns a crust by playing and singing in taverns. It’s cold and rainy outside. Let him stay . . .’

‘Just well away from us.’ Yuz Jannowitz showed the beggar where to sit. ‘Or we’ll be crawling with lice. I can see from here what specimens are crawling over him. You’d think they were tortoises, not lice.’

‘Give him some victuals, landlord!’ Fripp the younger beckoned imperiously, ‘And us some hooch!’

The beggar took off his bulky fur hat and solemnly gave off a stench that filled the room.

‘Thanks be to you, m’lord,’ he said. ‘For today is Samhain’s Eve, a holy day. It doesn’t befit to drive anyone away on a holy day, to be soaked and frozen in the rain. It befits to regale a body on a holy day . . .’

‘In truth!’ Rispat La Pointe slapped himself in the forehead. ‘Today is Samhain’s Eve! The end of October!’

‘A night of witchcraft.’ The beggar slurped the watery broth he was brought. ‘A night of ghosts and horrors!’

‘Oho!’ said Yuz Jannowitz. ‘The old gimmer, heed you, is about to divert us with beggarly tales!’

‘Let him divert us,’ Dede Vargas yawned. ‘Anything’s better than this boredom!’

‘Samhain,’ repeated Cyprian Fripp the younger. ‘It’s already five weeks since Unicorn. And two weeks that we’ve been here. Two whole weeks! Samhain, ha!’

‘A night of portents.’ The beggar licked the spoon, fished something out of the bowl with a finger and ate it. ‘A night of dread and witchcraft!’

‘What did I say?’ Yuz Jannowitz grinned. ‘We’ll have a beggar’s tale!’

The beggar sat up straight, scratched himself and hiccoughed.

‘Samhain Eve,’ he began with emphasis, ‘the last night before the November new moon, is the last night of the old year to the elves and when the new day dawns it’ll be their New Year. Thus there is among the elves a custom that on the night of Samhain every fire in the homestead and yard should be lit with a single pitch taper, and the rest of the taper stowed well away until May, when Beltane is kindled with the same flame. Then, they say, there will be prosperity. Not only elves do thus; some of our folk do likewise. To protect themselves from evil spirits . . .’

‘Ghosts!’ Yuz snorted. ‘Just listen to the old fart!’

‘It’s Samhain night!’ the beggar said in an excited voice. ‘On this night spirits walk the earth! The spirits of the dead knock on the windows. “Let us in,” they moan, “let us in”. Then they should be given honey and groats, all sprinkled with vodka . . .’

‘I’d sooner sprinkle my own throat with vodka,’ Rispat La Pointe chortled. ‘And your ghosts, old man, can kiss me right here.’

‘Oh, m’lord, don’t make fun of ghosts, they’re liable to hear, and they’re vengeful! Today it’s Samhain Eve, a night of dread and witchcraft! Prick up your eyes, do you hear something rustling and tapping all about? It’s the dead coming from the beyond, they want to steal into homesteads, to warm themselves by the fire and eat their fill. There, over the bare stubble fields and leafless forests rages a gale and a frost, the poor ghosts are chilled, so they head towards homesteads where there’s fire and warmth. Then one mustn’t forget to put out food for them in a bowl on the step, or on the threshing floor, for if the phantoms find nothing there, they go into cottages themselves after midnight, to search for—’

‘Oh my!’ one of the serving wenches whispered loudly, and immediately squealed, as Fripp pinched her behind.

‘Not a bad tale!’ he said. ‘But a long way off being a good one! Pour the old man a mug of mulled wine, landlord, and perhaps he’ll tell a good one! The test of a good ghost story, boys, is when you goose the wenches and they’re so engrossed they don’t even notice!’

The men cackled and the two girls, whose degree of attentiveness was being tested, squealed. The beggar quaffed the mulled wine, slurping loudly and burping.

‘Just don’t get drunk or fall asleep here!’ Dede Vargas warned menacingly. ‘We aren’t giving you drink for nothing! Tell a tale, sing, play the pipes! We want merriment!’

The beggar opened his mouth, where a single tooth stood like a white milepost in a dark steppe.

‘It, it’s Samhain, m’lord! What music? What playing? ’Tis not allowed! Samhain’s music is the gale outside! It’s the howling of werewolves and vampires, the wailing and moaning of vengeful ghosts, and ghouls grinding their teeth! The beann’shie howls and cries and whoever hears her cry is destined to die soon. Every evil spirit leaves its hideaway, witches fly to their last coven before winter! Samhain is a night of frights, of marvels and visions! Don’t venture into the forest or a leshy will maul you to death! Don’t pass through the boneyard or a corpse will seize you! Better not to leave your house at all, and to be on the safe side stick a new iron knife into the threshold. No evil will dare to pass over it. Whereas womenfolk must closely guard their children, for on Samhain night a rusalka or weeper may steal her child and replace it with a loathsome changeling. And if any woman is with child she better not go outside, for a night spirit may enchant the foetus in her womb! Instead of a babe a striga with iron teeth will be born—’

‘Lawks!’

‘With iron teeth. First it bites its mother’s breast. Then her hands. It bites her face . . . Ooh, but now I have a hunger . . .’

‘Have a bone, there’s still meat on it. Bain’t be healthy for old people to eat too much, they might choke and peg it, ha, ha! Oh, all right, bring him more wine, wench. Well, old man, go on about those ghosts!’

‘Samhain, m’lord, is the last night for spectres to make merry. Later the frost takes their strength away, so they sink into the Chasm, beneath the earth, from where they don’t stick their noses out the whole winter. For that reason from Samhain right until February, to the holy day of Imbaelk, is the best time for an expedition to haunted places, to search for treasure. If when it’s warm someone pokes around by a wight’s barrow, for example, the wight will awake as sure as eggs is eggs, jump out annoyed and devour the rummager. But from Samhain to Imbaelk poke and dig around, as much as you’re able: the wight sleeps soundly like an old bear.’

‘What has he dreamed up, the old bugger!’

‘But I speaks the truth, m’lord. Yes, yes. Samhain is a magical, awful night, but also at once the best for all kinds of prophecies and predictions. On such a night it’s worth telling fortunes and prophesying from bones and palms and from a white cock, from an onion, from cheese, from a cony’s innards, from a rotting flittermouse . . .’

Fripp spat on the ground.

‘The night of Samhain, a night of frights and phantoms . . . Better to sit tight at home. With all the family . . . By the fire . . .’

‘With all the family,’ Cyprian Fripp repeated, suddenly grinning voraciously at his comrades. ‘All the family, see? Along with her, what’s been slyly hiding away from us in the bushes!’

‘The blacksmith’s daughter!’ Yuz Jannowitz guessed at once. ‘That golden-haired peach! You’re cute, Fripp. Perhaps we’ll catch her at home today! Well, boys? Shall we dart over to the blacksmith’s shack?’

‘Ooh, why not now.’ Dede Vargas stretched vigorously. ‘I can see that blacksmith’s daughter in front of me now, I tell you, those titties bouncing, that little bottom wiggling . . . We ought to have taken her then, not wait, but Dacre Silifant, that stupid stickler. . . Well, but now Silifant ain’t here, and the blacksmith’s daughter’s at home! Waiting!’

‘We’ve already hacked down the village headman with a battle axe.’ Rispat grimaced. ‘We butchered the churl who came to help him. Do we need more corpses? The blacksmith and his son are built like oak trees. We won’t take them with fear. We need to—’

‘Cut them up,’ Fripp completed the sentence calmly. ‘Just cut them a little, nothing more. Drink up, we’ll get set and ride to the village. We’ll have ourselves a Samhain! We’ll don our sheepskins with the fur on the outside, we’ll bellow and clamour, the boors will think it’s devils or wights!’

‘Shall we fetch the blacksmith’s daughter here, to our quarters, or make merry our way, in the Gemmerian style, in front of her family?’

‘The one doesn’t rule out the other.’ Fripp the younger looked out into the night through the window’s oiled parchment. ‘What a blizzard’s whipped up, dammit! The poplars are bending right over!’

‘Oh, ho, ho,’ said the beggar from over his mug. ‘That isn’t the wind, m’lord, that’s not a blizzard! It’s witches dashing astride their brooms, though some are in stone mortars, sweeping over their tracks with their brooms. Who knows when one of them may cross a fellow’s path in the forest or steal up from behind? Who knows when she may attack! And she has teeth like these!’

‘It’s children you should be frightening with witches, beggar!’

‘Don’t speak, my liege, at the wrong time. For I’ll tell you more, that the most menacing hags, the countesses and duchesses of the witchly state, oh, ho, ho, they don’t ride on brooms, or on peels or in mortars, no! Those ones gallop on their black cats!’

‘He, he, he, he!’

‘It be the truth! For on Samhain Eve, on that one and only night of the year, hags’ cats turn into mares as black as pitch. And woe betide he who on a night as black as a pall hears the clatter of hooves and sees a hag on a black mare. He who meets such a witch will not shun death. The witch will twist him around like a leaf blown in the wind and carry him off to the beyond!’

‘You can finish when we return! And come up with a good tale, you bloody beggar, and make ready your pipes! When we return, there’ll be revels here! There’ll be dancing and the blacksmith’s maid will be dandled . . . What is it, Rispat?’

Rispat La Pointe, who had gone out onto the porch to relieve himself, returned at a run with a face as white as snow. He was gesticulating frantically, pointing at the door. He didn’t manage to utter a word. And there was no need. A horse neighed loudly from the courtyard.

‘The black mare,’ said Fripp, his face almost stuck to the parchment. ‘The same black mare. It’s her.’

‘A witch?’

‘It’s Falka, you dolt.’

‘It’s her ghost!’ Rispat sucked in air. ‘A phantom! She can’t have survived! She died and is returned as a spectre! On the night of Samhain . . .’

‘She will come at night like a black pall,’ muttered the beggar, pressing the empty mug to his belly. ‘And who shall meet her will not avoid death . . .’

‘Weapons, get your weapons,’ Fripp said excitedly. ‘Quickly! Cover the door from both sides! Don’t you understand? We’ve struck lucky! Falka doesn’t know about us, she’s come here to get warm, cold and hunger have driven her out of her hideout! Straight into our arms! Tawny Owl and Rience will shower us with gold! Get your weapons . . .’

The door creaked.

The beggar hunched over the table and squinted. His sight was poor. His eyes were old and ruined, fogged and chronically sore. On top of that it was gloomy and smoky in the tavern. So the beggar could barely see the slender figure that had entered the main chamber from the hallway, dressed in a jerkin of muskrat pelts, wearing a hood and shawl which covered her face. The beggar had good hearing, though. He heard the soft cry of one of the serving wenches, the clatter of the other’s clogs and the innkeeper’s hushed curse. He heard the scraping of swords in scabbards. And Cyprian Fripp’s quiet, scornful voice:

‘We have you, Falka! Didn’t expect us here, did you?’

‘Oh, yes I did,’ the beggar heard. And he trembled at the sound of her voice.

He saw the slender figure move and heard a sigh of terror. The muffled scream of one of the wenches. He couldn’t see that the girl named Falka had removed her hood and shawl. He couldn’t see her hideously disfigured face. Or her eyes painted all around with a paste of soot and grease, like a demon’s.

‘I am not Falka,’ said the girl. The beggar saw again her fast, blurred movement, saw something shine fierily in the light of the cressets.

‘I’m Ciri of Kaer Morhen. I’m a witcher! I’ve come here to kill you.’

The beggar, who had seen many a tavern brawl in his life, had a practiced method for avoiding injury: he ducked under the table, curled up and grabbed the table legs tightly. From that position, naturally, he couldn’t see anything. And didn’t want to. He was clutching the table tightly, and it was sliding around the room with the other furniture, amidst clattering, banging and crunching, the thudding of heavily booted feet, curses, shouts, grunts and the clanging of steel.

One of the serving wenches was yelling shrilly, unremittingly.

Someone tumbled onto the table, shifting it along with the beggar, and fell onto the floor alongside him. The beggar yelled, feeling hot blood splash onto him. Dede Vargas, the one who had at first wanted to drive him away – the beggar recognised him by the brass buttons on his jerkin – croaked horribly and thrashed about, spurting blood and flailing his arms around. One of his wild movements caught the beggar right in the eye. He could no longer see anything. The screaming serving wench choked, fell silent, took a breath and began to yell again, at a somewhat higher pitch.

Someone sprawled on the floor with a thud and blood splashed the freshly cleaned pine floorboards. The beggar couldn’t tell that the dying man was Rispat La Pointe, slashed in the side of the neck by Ciri. He didn’t see her turn a pirouette right in front of Fripp and Jannowitz’s noses, and pass through their guards like a shade, like grey smoke. Jannowitz slipped behind her with a swift, soft, feline turn. He was an expert swordsman. Standing firmly on his right foot he struck out with a long, extended thrust, aiming at the girl’s face, straight at her hideous scar. He couldn’t miss.

But he did.

He was too slow to shield himself. She lunged from close up, two-handed, cutting him across his chest and stomach. And at once sprang back, whirled around, evading Fripp’s blow, and slashing the crouching Jannowitz across the neck. Jannowitz pitched over headfirst against a bench. Fripp leaped over the bench and the corpse and struck powerfully. Ciri parried obliquely, made a half-turn and jabbed him in the side above his hip. Fripp staggered, sprawled onto the table and instinctively extended his arms in front of himself to keep his balance. The moment he rested his hand on the table Ciri hacked it off in a swift slash.

Fripp raised the stump spurting blood, examined it intently and then looked at the hand lying on the table. And suddenly dropped – sitting down heavily on the floor with a thud, just as though he had slipped on some soap. He sat, yelling, and then began to bay, with a savage, high-pitched, long-drawn-out wolf-like howl. Crouching under the table, the blood-drenched beggar heard the ghastly duet continue for a moment – the monotonously yelling serving wench and the spasmodically howling Fripp.

The wench was the first to fall silent, her screaming ending in an inhuman, choking croak. Fripp simply fell silent. ‘Mamma . . .’ he suddenly said, utterly distinctly and lucidly. ‘Dear mamma . . . What is this . . . ? How did . . . ? What has . . . happened to me? What’s . . . the matter with me?’

‘You’re dying,’ said the disfigured girl.

What was left of the beggar’s hair stood up on his head. He clenched his teeth on the sleeve of his coat in order to stop them chattering.

Cyprian Fripp the younger made a sound as though he was having difficulty swallowing. After that he uttered no more sounds. None at all.

It was completely silent.

‘What have you done . . . ?’ the innkeeper groaned in the silence. ‘What have you done, girl . . . ?’

‘I’m a witcher. I kill monsters.’

‘They’ll hang us . . . They’ll burn down the tavern and the village!’

‘I kill monsters,’ she repeated, but in her voice suddenly appeared something like surprise. Something like hesitancy. Uncertainty.

The innkeeper moaned and groaned. And sobbed.

The beggar slowly emerged from under the table, moving away from Dede Vargas’s body, and his hideously mutilated face.

‘You ride a black mare . . .’ he mumbled. ‘On a night as black as a pall . . . You sweep away the tracks behind you . . .’

The girl turned around and looked at him. She had already wrapped the shawl around her face and the black-ringed spectral eyes looked out from over it.

‘Whoever meets you,’ the beggar mumbled, ‘will not avoid death . . . For you yourself are death.’

The girl looked long at him. Long. And rather dispassionately.

‘You’re right,’ she said finally.

*

Somewhere in the swamps, far away, but much closer than before, a beann’shie’s plaintive wailing sounded a second time.

Vysogota lay on the floor, where he had collapsed as he was getting out of bed. He found to his horror that he couldn’t stand up. His heart pounded in his throat, choking him.

Now he knew whose death the elven apparition’s nocturnal cry was auguring. Life was beautiful, he thought. In spite of everything.

‘O Gods . . .’ he whispered. ‘I don’t believe in you . . . But if you do exist . . .’

A dreadful pain suddenly exploded in his chest, behind his breastbone. Somewhere in the swamps, far away, but much nearer than before, the beann’shie howled savagely for the third time.

‘If you do exist, protect the witcher girl on the road!’

‘I have enormous eyes, all the better to see you with!’ shrieked the great, iron wolf. ‘I have enormous paws, all the better to seize and hug you with! Everything about me is enormous, everything, and soon you will discover it for yourself. Why are you looking at me so strangely, little girl? Why do you not answer?

The witcher girl smiled.

‘I have a surprise for you.’

Flourens Delannoy, The Surprise, from the book Fairy Tales and Stories

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The novices stood before the high priestess as straight as ramrods, tense, mute, slightly pale. They were ready to set off, prepared down to the minutest detail. Men’s grey travelling clothes, warm, loose-fitting sheepskin coats and comfortable elven boots. Haircuts which could easily be kept clean and tidy on camps and marches, so as not to interfere with work. Very small bundles, containing only provisions and essential equipment. The army was to provide them with the rest. The army they were enlisting in.

The faces of the two girls were composed. Seemingly. Triss Merigold could see that the hands and lips of the two girls were quivering faintly.

The wind tugged at the bare branches of the trees in the temple grounds, swept dead leaves across the flagstones of the courtyard. The sky was a deep blue. A blizzard was in the air. You could feel it.

Nenneke broke the silence.

‘Do you have your postings?’

‘I don’t,’ Eurneid mumbled. ‘For the moment I’ll be in winter quarters in a camp outside Vizima. The recruiting officer said that in the spring mercenary units from the North will be stopping there . . . I’m to be a nurse in one of them.’

‘But I,’ said Iola the Second, ‘already have my posting. To Mr Milo Vanderbeck, field surgeon.’

‘Mind you don’t disgrace me.’ Nenneke gave the novices a menacing look. ‘Mind you dishonour neither myself, nor the temple, nor the name of Great Melitele.’

‘Certainly not, O mother.’

‘And look after yourselves.’

‘Yes, O mother.’

‘You’ll be dead tired attending the wounded, you will not know sleep. You’ll be frightened and have doubts as you gaze on pain and death. And then it’s easy to misuse narcotics or stimulants. Be careful of that.’

‘We know, O mother.’

‘War, fear, slaughter and blood,’ the high priestess’ eyes drilled into the two girls, ‘mean a slackening of morals, and for some are also a powerful aphrodisiac. How they will act on you, my girls, you do not and cannot know at present. Please be careful about that too. If, though, it comes to it, take preventative measures. Should one of you get into trouble, in spite of that, stay well away from shady quacksalvers and village wise-women! Search for a temple, or better yet a sorceress.’

‘We know, O mother.’

‘That’s everything. Now come closer to receive my blessing.’

She placed her hands on their heads in turn, embraced and kissed them in turn. Eurneid sniffed, Iola the Second simply burst into tears. Nenneke, although her eyes were shining a little more than usual, snorted.

‘Don’t make a scene,’ she said, seemingly crossly and sharply. ‘You’re going to a normal war. People return from them. Take your things and I bid you goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, O mother.’

They walked briskly towards the temple gate, without looking back. The high priestess Nenneke, the sorceress Triss Merigold and the scribe Jarre watched them go.

Jarre drew attention to himself by grunting intrusively.

‘What’s the matter?’ Nenneke glared at him.

‘You let them!’ the boy exploded bitterly. ‘You allowed them, girls, to sign up! And me? Why am I not allowed? Am I to continue leafing through dusty parchments, here, behind these walls? I’m neither a cripple nor a coward! It’s a disgrace for me to stay in the temple, when even girls—’

‘Those girls,’ the high priestess interrupted, ‘have spent their whole young lives learning to treat and heal illnesses and to care for the sick and wounded. They are going to war not out of patriotism or a hankering after adventure, but because there are countless wounded and sick people there. Piles of work, day and night! Eurneid and Iola, Myrrha, Katje, Prine, Debora and the other girls are the temple’s contribution to this war. The temple, as part of society, is repaying its debt to society. It’s giving the army and the war its contribution: experts and specialists. Do you understand that, Jarre? Specialists! Not arrow fodder!’

‘Everybody’s joining the army! Only cowards are staying at home!’

‘You’re talking nonsense, Jarre,’ Triss said sharply. ‘You don’t understand anything.’

‘I want to go to war . . .’ the boy’s voice broke. ‘I want to rescue . . . Ciri . . .’

‘My, my,’ Nenneke said mockingly. ‘The knight errant wants to ride out to rescue his sweetheart. On a white horse . . .’

She fell silent under the sorceress’s gaze.

‘In any case; enough of this, Jarre.’ She shot the boy a black look. ‘I said I’m not letting you! Return to your books! Study. Your future is scholarship. Come, Triss. Let’s not waste time.’

*

A bone comb, a cheap ring, a book with a tattered binding, and a faded light blue sash lay spread out on a cloth before the altar. Iola the First, a priestess with prophetic powers, was kneeling over the objects.

‘Don’t hurry, Iola,’ Nenneke, standing beside her, warned. ‘Start concentrating slowly. We don’t want a dazzling prophecy, we don’t want an enigma with a thousand solutions. We want an image. A distinct image. Take the aura from these objects; they belonged to Ciri, Ciri touched them. Take the aura. Slowly. There’s no hurry.’

Outside, a strong wind howled and a snowstorm whirled. Snow quickly covered the temple’s roofs and courtyard. It was the nineteenth day of November. A full moon.

‘I’m ready, O mother,’ Iola the First said in her melodious voice.

‘Begin.’

‘One moment.’ Triss sprang up from the bench and threw the chinchilla fur from her shoulders. ‘One moment, Nenneke. I want to enter the trance with her.’

‘That isn’t safe.’

‘I know. But I want to see. With my own eyes. I owe her that. I owe it to Ciri . . . I love that girl like a sister. She saved my life in Kaedwen, risking her own life to do it . . .’

The sorceress’s voice suddenly broke.

‘Just like Jarre.’ The high priestess shook her head. ‘Run to the rescue, blindly, recklessly, not knowing where or why. But Jarre is a naive young boy, and you’re supposedly a mature, wise sorceress. You ought to know that you won’t be helping Ciri by entering a trance. But you may harm yourself.’

‘I want to enter the trance with Iola,’ Triss repeated, biting her lip. ‘Let me, Nenneke. As a matter of fact, what am I risking? An epileptic fit? Even if I am, you’d pull me out of it, wouldn’t you?’

‘You risk,’ Nenneke said slowly, ‘seeing things you ought not to see.’

The hill, Triss thought in horror, Sodden Hill. Where I died. Where I was buried and my name was carved into the obelisk over the grave. The hill and the grave that will one day call for me.

I know it. It was prophesied.

‘I’ve already made my decision,’ she said coldly, haughtily standing up and throwing her luxuriant hair back with both hands onto her shoulders.

‘Let us begin.’

Nenneke kneeled down and rested her forehead on her folded hands.

‘Let us begin,’ she said softly. ‘Make ready, Iola. Kneel beside me, Triss. Take Iola’s hand.’

It was dark outside. The snowstorm moaned. Snow was falling.

*

In the South, far beyond the Amell mountains, in Metinna, in a land called Hundred Lakes, in a place far from the town of Ellander and the Temple of Melitele, five hundred miles away as the crow flies, a nightmare jolted the fisherman Gosta awake. After waking, Gosta could remember nothing of the dream, but an eerie anxiety kept him awake for a long time.

*

Every experienced angler knows you must wait for the first ice to land a perch.

That year, the winter – although unexpectedly early – played tricks and was as fickle as a pretty, popular girl. The first frost and snowstorm came as an unpleasant surprise, like a brigand from an ambush, at the beginning of November, right after Samhain, when no one had been expecting snow or frost and there was still plenty of work to do. By the middle of November the lake was already glazed over with a very thin layer of ice, which seemed just about able to bear the weight of a man, when the fickle winter suddenly subsided. Autumn returned, torrents of rain shattered the ice and a warm, southerly wind pushed it against the bank and melted it. What the devil? the peasants wondered. Is this winter or is it not?

Not even three days passed before winter returned. This time it came with no snow, with no wind; instead, the frost gripped like a pair of blacksmith’s tongs until everything creaked. Over the course of a night the eaves dripping with water now grinned with sharp-fanged icicles, and astonished waterfowl almost froze to their duck ponds.

And the lakes of Centloch heaved a sigh and turned to ice.

Gosta waited one more day, just to be sure, then took the chest with a shoulder strap where he kept his fishing tackle down from the loft. He stuffed his boots well with straw, donned a sheepskin coat, took his chisel and a sack and hurried to the lake.

It’s common knowledge that it’s best to fish for perch with the first ice.

The ice was thick. It sagged a little beneath the man, groaned a little, but held firm. Gosta reached the broad water, cut an ice-hole with the chisel, sat down on the chest, unwound a horsehair line fastened to a short larch rod, attached a little tin fish with a hook, and cast it into the water. The first perch, measuring half a cubit, snatched the bait before it had sunk or the line become taut.

Before an hour was up more than four dozen striped green fish with blood-red fins lay all around the ice hole. Gosta had more perch than he needed, but his angler’s euphoria wouldn’t let him stop fishing. After all, he could always give the fish away to his neighbours.

He heard a long-drawn-out snort.

He lifted his head up from the ice hole. A splendid black horse was standing on the lake shore, steam belching from its nostrils. The face of the rider, who was dressed in a muskrat coat, was covered.

Gosta swallowed. It was too late to run. In his heart of hearts he hoped the rider wouldn’t dare to venture out onto the thin ice.

He was still mechanically moving his rod as another perch jerked the line. The angler hauled it out, removed the hook and tossed it down on the ice. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the rider dismount, toss the reins onto a leafless bush and walk towards him, treading gingerly on the slippery surface. The perch flapped about on the ice, flexing its spined dorsal fin and moving its gills. Gosta stood up and reached for his chisel, which as a last resort might serve as a weapon.

‘Fear not.’

It was a girl. Now, the scarf was removed he could see her face, disfigured by a hideous scar. On her back was a sword. He saw a hilt of exquisite workmanship, sticking up above her shoulder.

‘I won’t do you any harm,’ she said quietly. ‘I only want to ask the way.’

Course you do, thought Gosta. Pull the other one. Now, in winter. In the frost. Who treks or travels? Only a brigand. Or an outcast.

‘This land, is it Mil Trachta?’

‘It is . . .’ he mumbled, staring into the ice hole, into the black water. ‘Mil Trachta. But we says: Hundred Lakes.’

‘And Tarn Mira lake? Do you know of such a place?’

‘Everyone does.’ He glanced at the girl, frightened. ‘We calls it Bottomless Lake, mind. It’s enchanted. Awfully deep . . . Rusalkas live there, drown folk, they do. And phantoms live in the ancient, enchanted ruins.’

He saw her green eyes light up.

‘There are ruins there? A tower, perhaps?’

‘What tower?’ He couldn’t suppress a snort. ‘Stone upon stone, covered over with stone, overgrown with weeds. A heap of rubble . . .’

The perch had stopped flopping, and was lying, moving its gills, amidst its colourful, striped brothers. The girl stared at it, lost in thought.

‘Death on the ice,’ she said, ‘has something bewitching about it.’

‘Eh?’

‘How far is it to the lake with the ruins? Which way should I ride?’

He told her. He showed her. He even scratched it on the ice with the sharp end of the chisel. She nodded, trying to remember. The mare at the lakeside struck its hooves on the frozen ground and snorted, belching steam from its nostrils.

*

He watched her move away along the western edge of the lake, gallop along the edge of the cliff against a background of leafless alders and birches, through a breathtaking, fairy-tale forest, adorned with a white icing of hoarfrost. The black mare ran with unutterable grace, swiftly, but at the same time lightly, the beat of its hooves barely audible on the frozen ground, a faint silver powder of snow dropping from the branches it knocked against. As though it were not an ordinary horse but one from a fairy-tale, as if a spectral horse was running through a mythical forest, the trees bound in hoarfrost like icing.

And perhaps it was an apparition?

A demon on a ghostly horse, a demon that assumed the form of a girl with huge green eyes and a disfigured face?

Who, if not a demon, travels in winter? Or asks the way to enchanted ruins?

After she had ridden away, Gosta quickly packed away his fishing tackle. He walked home through the forest. He was going out of his way, but his good sense and instincts warned him not to take the forest tracks, to stay out of sight. The girl, his good sense told him, had not – contrary to all appearances – been a phantom. She was a human being. The black mare hadn’t been an apparition, it was a horse. And people who gallop through the wilds – in winter, to boot – are very often being hunted.

An hour later a search party galloped along the forest track. Fourteen horses.

*

Rience shook the silver box once again, swore and smacked his saddle pommel in fury. But the xenogloss was silent. As the grave.

‘Magic shit,’ commented Bonhart coldly. ‘It’s broken, the cheap gewgaw.’

‘Or Vilgefortz is showing what he thinks of us,’ Stefan Skellen added.

Rience raised his head and glared at the two of them.

‘Thanks to this cheap gewgaw,’ he stated caustically, ‘we’re on the trail and won’t lose it now. Thanks to Lord Vilgefortz we know which way the girl is headed. We know where we’re going and what we have to do. I’d call that plenty. Compared to your efforts of a month ago.’

‘Don’t talk so much. Hey, Boreas? What does the trail say?’

Boreas Mun straightened up and cleared his throat.

‘She was here an hour before us. She’s riding hard where she can. But it’s difficult terrain. Even on that exceptional mare she’s not more than five, six miles ahead of us.’

‘And so she’s still pushing on among those lakes,’ Skellen muttered. ‘Vilgefortz was right. And I didn’t believe him . . .’

‘Neither did I,’ Bonhart admitted. ‘Until yesterday, when those peasants confirmed there really is some kind of magical structure by Tarn Mira.’

The horses snorted, steam billowing from their nostrils. Tawny Owl glanced over his left shoulder at Joanna Selborne. For several days he had been none too pleased by the telepath’s expression. I’m getting edgy, he thought. This chase has exhausted all of us, physically and mentally. It’s time to be done with it. High time.

A cold shudder ran down his back. He recalled the dream that had visited him the night before.

‘Very well!’ he said, coming back to his senses. ‘That’s enough meditation. To horse!’

*

Boreas Mun hung from his saddle, looking for tracks. It wasn’t easy. The earth had frozen solid, hard as iron, and the loose snow, quickly blown away by the wind, only lingered in furrows and clefts. It was in them that Boreas was searching for the black mare’s hoof prints. He had to pay close attention in order not to lose the trail, especially now, when the magical voice coming from the silver box had fallen silent, stopped giving advice and instructions.

He was unbelievably weary. And anxious. They’d been tracking the girl for almost three weeks, since Samhain and the massacre in Dun Dare. Almost three weeks in the saddle, constantly on the hunt. And still neither the black mare nor the girl riding it had weakened or slowed their pace.

Boreas Mun looked for tracks.

He couldn’t stop thinking about a dream from the night before. In it he had been drowning. The black water had closed over his head and he sank to the bottom, the icy water gushing into his throat and lungs. He awoke hot and sweaty, wet through, although a truly bitter winter was raging around them.

That’s enough, he thought, hanging from his saddle, looking for tracks. It’s high time we were done with it.

*

‘Master? Do you hear me? Master?’

The xenogloss was silent as the grave.

Rience moved his arms vigorously and breathed on his numb hands. The cold nipped his neck and shoulders, his lower back and loins hurt; each jolt of the horse reminded him of the pain. He didn’t even feel like swearing. Almost three weeks in the saddle, in an unending pursuit. In the bitter cold and for several days in severe frost.

And Vilgefortz was silent.

We are too. And we’re scowling at each other.

Rience rubbed his hands and pulled down his sleeves.

Skellen, he thought, looks at me strangely. Might he be plotting a betrayal? He came to an agreement with Vilgefortz too quickly and too easily back then . . . And that troop, those thugs, it’s him they’re loyal to, it’s his orders they carry out. When we seize the maid, he’s liable – heedless of the agreement – to kill or carry her away to those conspirators of his, in order to enact his insane ideas about democracy and civil government.

But perhaps Skellen’s got over his conspiracies by now? Perhaps that born conformist and opportunist is now thinking about delivering the maid to Emperor Emhyr?

He looks at me strangely. That Tawny Owl. And that whole mob of his . . . That Kenna Selborne . . .

And Bonhart? Bonhart is an unpredictable sadist. When he speaks of Ciri, his voice trembles with fury. Depending on his whims, if we capture the girl he’s liable to beat her to death or kidnap her and make her fight in the arena. The agreement with Vilgefortz? He won’t care about it. Particularly now, when Vilgefortz . . .

He removed the xenogloss from his bosom.

‘Master? Do you hear me? It’s Rience . . .’

The device was silent. Rience didn’t even feel like swearing.

Vilgefortz remains silent. Skellen and Bonhart made a pact with him. Only in a day or two, when we catch up with the girl, it may turn out that there is no pact. And then I might have my throat cut. Or ride in fetters to Nilfgaard, as proof of and as ransom against Tawny Owl’s loyalty . . .

Sod it!

Vilgefortz remains silent. He isn’t giving us any advice. He’s not giving us directions. He isn’t dispelling our doubts with his calm, logical voice, which touches the depths of your soul. He’s silent.

The xenogloss has broken down. Perhaps because of the cold? Or maybe . . .

Maybe Skellen was right? Perhaps Vilgefortz really has turned his attention to something else and doesn’t care about us or our fate?

By all the devils, I never thought it would turn out like this. Had I, I wouldn’t have been so enthusiastic about this mission . . . I would have gone and killed the Witcher instead of Schirrú . . . Damn it! I’m freezing out here and Schirrú is probably nice and warm . . .

To think that I insisted on going after Ciri, and Schirrú after the Witcher. I asked for it myself . . . Back at the beginning of September when Yennefer fell into our hands.

*

The world, a moment ago still an unreal, soft and muddily sticky blackness, abruptly took on hard surfaces and contours. It became brighter. And materialised.

Yennefer opened her eyes, rocked by convulsive shivers. She lay on the stones, among dead bodies and tarred planks, littered with the remains of the rigging of the longship Alkyone. She could see feet all around her. Feet in heavy boots. One of the boots had just kicked her, to bring her around.

‘Get up, witch!’

Another kick, sending pain shooting right into the roots of her teeth. She saw a face bending over her. ‘Get up, I said! On your feet! Recognise me?’

She blinked. Yes, she did. It was the man she had burned, when he was fleeing from her using a teleporter. Rience.

‘We’ll square accounts,’ he promised her. ‘We’ll square accounts for everything, you slut. I’ll teach you what pain is. I’ll teach you what pain is with these fingers and these hands.’

She tensed up, clenched and spread her fingers, ready to cast a spell. And immediately curled up in a ball, choking, wheezing and trembling. Rience guffawed.

‘Nothing doing, eh?’ she heard. ‘You haven’t even got a scrap of power! You’re no match for Vilgefortz when it comes to sorcery! He’s squeezed the very last drop out of you, like whey from curds. You can’t even—’

He didn’t complete the sentence. Yennefer pulled out a dagger from a sheath fastened to her inner thigh, sprang like a cat and thrust blindly. She missed. The blade merely brushed her target, tearing his trousers. Rience leaped aside and fell over.

Immediately, a hail of blows and kicks rained down on her. She howled as a heavy boot dropped on her hand, squeezing the dagger from her crushed fist. Another boot kicked her in the belly. The sorceress curled up, rasping. She was picked up from the ground, her arms jerked behind her. She saw a fist flying towards her, the world suddenly flashed brightly, and her face exploded with pain. A wave of pain passed downwards, to her stomach and crotch, transforming her knees into a thin jelly. She drooped in the arms holding her up. Someone seized her from behind by the hair, lifting up her head. She was struck once more, in the eye socket, and again everything vanished in a blinding flash.

She didn’t faint. She could still feel. They beat her. They beat her hard, cruelly, as a man is beaten. With blows that aren’t just meant to hurt, but meant to fracture, meant to crush all energy and the will to resist from the victim. She was beaten, jerking in the steely grip of many hands.

She wanted to faint but couldn’t. She could feel it.

‘Enough,’ she suddenly heard from far away, from behind the curtain of pain. ‘Have you gone mad, Rience? Do you mean to kill her? I need her alive.’

‘I vowed to her, master,’ snarled the shadow looming in front of her, which gradually took on Rience’s form and face. ‘I promised I’d pay her back . . . With these hands . . .’

‘I care little for what you promised her. I repeat, I need her alive and capable of articulated speech.’

‘It’s not so easy,’ laughed the one holding her by the hair, ‘to knock the life out of a cat or a witch.’

‘Don’t be clever, Schirrú. I said she’s been sufficiently beaten. Pick her up. How do you do, Yennefer?’ The sorceress spat red and lifted her puffy face. At first she didn’t recognise him. He was wearing a kind of mask, covering the entire left side of his head. But she knew who it was.

‘Go to hell, Vilgefortz,’ she mumbled, gingerly touching her front teeth and cut lips with her tongue.

‘What did you make of my spell? Did you like it when I lifted you and that boat up from the sea? Did you enjoy the flight? What charms did you protect yourself with to survive the fall?’

‘Go to hell.’

‘Tear that star from her neck. And to the laboratory with her. Let’s not waste time.’

She was dragged, pulled, occasionally carried. A stony plain, with Alkyone lying smashed on it amid numerous other wrecks with protruding ribs, like the skeletons of sea monsters. Crach was right, she thought. The ships that disappeared without trace on the Sedna Abyss weren’t victims of natural disasters. Ye Gods . . . Pavetta and Duny . . .

Above the plain, in the distance, mountain peaks thrust up into the overcast sky.

Then there were walls, gates, cloisters, floors, staircases. Everything somehow odd, unnaturally large . . . Still too few details to let her work out where she was, where she’d come to, where the spell had carried her. Her face was swelling up, making observations all the more difficult. Smell became the one sense supplying her with information – she smelled formalin, ether and spirits. And magic. The smells of a laboratory. She was brutally shoved down into a steel armchair. Cold, painfully tight clamps slammed shut on her wrists and ankles. Before the steel jaws of a vice tightened on her temples and immobilised her head, she managed to glance around the large and glaringly lit room. She saw one more armchair and a strange steel construction on the stone floor.

‘Yes indeed,’ she heard the voice of Vilgefortz from behind her. ‘That little chair is for your Ciri. It’s been here for ages; it can’t wait. Neither can I.’

She heard him up close, literally felt his breath. He stuck some needles into her head, attached something to her ears. Then he stood before her and removed the mask. Yennefer sucked in air involuntarily.

‘That’s the work of your Ciri,’ he said, indicating his once classically beautiful, now hideously mutilated face, criss-crossed with golden clasps and fastenings securing a multifaceted crystal in his left eye socket.

‘I tried to catch her when she entered the Tower of the Gull,’ the sorcerer calmly explained. ‘I meant to save her life, certain that the teleporter would kill her. How naive of me! She passed through smoothly, with such force that the portal exploded, blew up right in my face. I lost an eye and my left cheek, as well as a lot of skin from my face, neck and chest. A very disagreeable, very bothersome, very complicated accident. And very ugly, isn’t it? Ha, you ought to have seen me before I began to regenerate magically.

‘If I believed in such things,’ he continued, pushing a bent copper tube into her nose, ‘I’d have thought it was Lydia van Bredevoort’s revenge. From beyond the grave. I’m regenerating, but it’s slow, time-consuming and heavy going. It’s particularly difficult with the regeneration of the eyeball . . . The crystal in my eye socket plays its role splendidly; I can see in three dimensions, but yet it’s a foreign body, and the lack of a natural eyeball occasionally makes me absolutely furious. Then, seized by – let’s face it – irrational anger, I vow to myself that when I catch Ciri – immediately after catching her – I’ll order Rience to pluck out one of those huge, green eyes. With his fingers. With these fingers, as he likes to say. You’re saying nothing, Yennefer? Perhaps because you know I’d also like to rip out one of your eyes? Or both?’

He stuck thick needles into the veins on the back of her hands. Sometimes he missed and jabbed to the very bone. Yennefer gritted her teeth.

‘You’ve caused me problems. You’ve made me interrupt my work. You’ve exposed me to risk. Forcing your way over the Sedna Abyss in that boat, towards my Maelstrom . . . The echo of our brief duel was powerful and travelled far, it may have reached the wrong ears, prying ears. But I couldn’t stop myself. The thought that I would have you here, that I’d be able to connect you up to my scanner, was too appealing.

‘For you can’t possibly imagine –’ he stuck in another needle ‘– that I was taken in by your provocation? That I swallowed the bait? No, Yennefer. If you think so, you’re mistaking stars reflected in the surface of a pond at night for the sky. You thought you were tracking me, whereas in fact I was tracking you. You made my job easier by sailing over the Abyss. For I cannot find Ciri, you see, even with the help of my peerless scanning device. The girl has powerful, innate defence mechanisms, her own powerful anti-magical and suppressive aura: it’s the Elder Blood, after all. But my super-scanners ought to detect her anyhow. Yet they don’t.’

Yennefer was now completely entwined in a network of silver and copper wires and encased in a scaffolding of silver and porcelain tubes. Glass vessels containing colourless liquids wobbled on racks placed by the chair.

‘And so I thought –’ Vilgefortz thrust another tube into her nose, this time a glass one ‘– that the only way of tracking Ciri was an empathic probe. For that I needed someone who had a sufficiently strong emotional bond with the girl and had developed an empathic matrix, a kind of algorithm – to coin a phrase – of feelings and mutual affection. I thought about the Witcher, but he had disappeared, and besides, witchers are poor mediums. I planned to order the kidnapping of Triss Merigold, our Fourteenth from the Hill. I pondered over abducting Nenneke of Ellander . . . But when it turned out that you, Yennefer of Vengerberg, were literally forcing yourself into my hands . . . Truly I couldn’t have hoped for anything better . . . Once connected to the scanner you will track down Ciri for me. Admittedly, the operation requires your cooperation . . . But there are, as you know, ways of making people cooperate.

‘Of course,’ he went on, rubbing his hands, ‘you deserve a few explanations. For example – how did I find out about the Elder Blood? About Lara Dorren’s legacy? What that gene actually is? How Ciri ended up having it? Who passed it on to her? How will I take it from her and what will I use it for? How does the Sedna Maelstrom work, who have I sucked into it, what did I do with them and why? Plenty of questions, aren’t there? It’s such a pity there’s no time to tell you everything, explain everything. Nay, even astonish you, for I’m certain several of the facts would astonish you, Yennefer . . . But, as has been said before, there’s no time. The elixirs are beginning to take effect, so it’s time you started concentrating.’

The sorceress clenched her teeth, stifling the deep groan shooting from her guts.

‘I know,’ Vilgefortz nodded, drawing closer a professional looking megascope; a screen and a great crystal ball on a tripod, wrapped around by a web of silver wires. ‘I know it’s most disagreeable. And very painful. The sooner you set about scanning, the sooner it’ll be over. Well, Yennefer. I want to see Ciri, here, on this screen. Where she is, who she’s with, what she’s doing, what she eats, where and with whom she sleeps.’

Yennefer screamed shrilly and wildly, in despair.

‘It hurts,’ Vilgefortz guessed, staring at her with his living eye and his dead crystal. ‘Well, of course it hurts. Start scanning, Yennefer. Don’t resist. Don’t play the hero. You know full well it’s impossible to endure this. The result of resistance may be pitiful; a stroke will follow, you’ll suffer paraplegia or simply turn into a vegetable. Start scanning!’

She clenched her jaw so hard her teeth creaked.

‘Why not, Yennefer?’ the mage said kindly. ‘If only out of curiosity! You’re surely curious about how your darling’s coping. Perhaps danger is hanging over her? Perhaps she’s in need? You know, after all, how many people wish Ciri ill and desire her death. Start scanning. When I find out where the girl is, I’ll bring her here. She’ll be safe . . . No one will find her here. Ever.’

His voice was warm and velvety.

‘Start scanning, Yennefer. Start scanning. I implore you. I give you my word: I’ll only take what I need from Ciri. And then I’ll give both of you your freedom. I swear.’

Yennefer gritted her teeth even harder. Blood trickled down her chin. Vilgefortz suddenly stood up and beckoned.

‘Rience!’

Yennefer felt some kind of device tightening over her hands and fingers.

‘At times,’ said Vilgefortz, bending over her, ‘where magic, elixirs and narcotics fail, what works on the stubborn is good old-fashioned pain. Don’t make me do it. Start scanning.’

‘Go to hell, Vilgefoooortz!’

‘Tighten the screws, Rience. Slowly.’

*

Vilgefortz glanced at the torpid body being dragged across the floor towards the stairs to the cellar. Then he lifted his eye towards Rience and Schirrú.

‘There’s always the risk,’ he said, ‘that one of you will fall into the hands of my enemies and be interrogated. I’d like to think that you’ll demonstrate as much fortitude. Yes, I’d like to think so. But I don’t.’

Rience and Schirrú said nothing. Vilgefortz started up the megascope again and projected the image generated by the huge crystal onto the screen.

‘That’s all she could produce,’ he said, pointing. ‘I wanted Cirilla, she gave me the Witcher. Fascinating. She didn’t allow the girl’s empathic matrix to be wrested from her, but she cracked when it came to Geralt. And I didn’t suspect her of harbouring any feelings for Geralt at all . . . Well, for now let’s settle for what we have. Witcher, Cahir aep Ceallach, the bard Dandelion, some woman? Hmmm . . . Who’ll undertake this task? The final solution to the witcher problem?’

*

Schirrú volunteered, recalled Rience, raising himself up in the stirrups to give his saddle-sore buttocks at least some relief. Schirrú volunteered to kill the Witcher. He recognised the countryside Yennefer had traced Geralt and his company to; he had friends or family there. Vilgefortz sent me, meanwhile, to negotiate with Vattier de Rideaux, and then to tail Skellen and Bonhart . . .

And I – stupidly – was glad at the time, certain that the easier and more pleasant task had fallen to me. One I would make short, easy, pleasant work of . . .

*

‘If the peasants weren’t lying –’ Stefan Skellen stood up in his stirrups ‘– the lake must be over that hill, in the valley.’

‘The trail leads there,’ Boreas Mun confirmed.

‘Why have we stopped here?’ Rience rubbed a frozen ear. ‘Spur on the horses and let’s go!’

‘Not so fast.’ Bonhart held him back. ‘Let’s split up. We’ll encircle the valley. We don’t know which of the lake’s shores she took. If we choose the wrong way, we may put the lake between us.’

‘How very true,’ Boreas nodded.

‘The lake’s frozen over.’

‘It may be too thin for the horses. Bonhart’s right, we must split up.’

Skellen quickly issued orders. The group led by Bonhart, Rience and Ola Harsheim, numbering seven horses in total, galloped along the eastern shore, quickly disappearing into the black forest.

‘Very well,’ Tawny Owl ordered. ‘Let’s go, Silifant . . .’

He realised at once that something wasn’t right.

He reined his horse around, slapped it with his knout and rode directly for Joanna Selborne. Kenna backed up her mount, and her face seemed to be made of stone.

‘It’s no use, sir,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Don’t even try. We’re not going with you. We’re turning back. We’ve had enough.’

‘We?’ Dacre Silifant yelled. ‘Who’s “we”? What is this, a mutiny?’

Skellen leaned over in the saddle and spat on the frozen earth. Andres Vierny and Til Echrade, the fair-haired elf, had stopped behind Kenna.

‘Miss Selborne,’ said Tawny Owl scathingly, in a slow, drawling voice, ‘It isn’t the point that you are squandering a very promising career, that you’re permanently throwing away the chance of a lifetime. You’ll be handed over to the hangman. Along with these fools who’ve listened to you.’

‘Whoever’s meant to hang won’t drown,’ Kenna replied philosophically. ‘And don’t threaten us with the hangman, sir. For who knows who’s closer to the scaffold; you or us.’

‘Is that what you think?’ Tawny Owl’s eyes flashed. ‘You’re convinced of that after slyly eavesdropping on somebody’s thoughts? I thought you were cleverer than that. But you’re stupid, woman. Whoever’s with me wins, whoever’s against me always loses! Remember that, girl. Even though you think I’m incriminated now, I’ll still manage to send you to hang. Do you hear, you mutineers? I’ll have your flesh torn from your bones with red hooks.’

‘We have but one life, sir,’ Til Echrade said softly. ‘You’ve chosen your way, and we’ve chosen ours. Both are uncertain and risky. And no one knows what fate will befall any of us.’

‘You won’t set us on the girl like dogs, Mr Skellen, sir.’ Kenna raised her head proudly. ‘And we won’t let ourselves be killed like dogs, like Neratin Ceka. Oh, enough talking. We’re turning back! Boreas! Come with us.’

‘No.’ The tracker shook his head, wiping his forehead with his fur hat. ‘Farewell. I don’t wish you ill. But I’m staying. It’s my service. I took the oath.’

‘To whom?’ Kenna frowned. ‘The Emperor or Tawny Owl? Or a sorcerer talking from a box?’

‘I’m a soldier. I serve.’

‘Wait,’ called Dufficey Kriel, riding out from behind Dacre Silifant. ‘I’m with you. I’ve had enough of this too! Last night I dreamed of my own death. I don’t want to croak for this lousy, suspicious affair!’

‘Traitors!’ yelled Dacre, flushing like a cherry. It seemed as though dark blood would spurt from his face. ‘Turncoats! Miserable curs!’

‘Shut your trap.’ Tawny Owl was still looking at Kenna, and his eyes were just as hideous as the bird from which he took his name. ‘They’ve chosen their way; you heard. There’s no point shouting or wasting spit. But we’ll meet again one day. I promise you.’

‘Perhaps even on the same scaffold,’ Kenna said without spitefulness. ‘For they won’t put you to death alongside noble princes, will they Skellen? But with us churls. But you’re right, there’s no point wasting spit. Let’s be going. Farewell, Boreas. Farewell, Mr Silifant.’

Dacre spat over his horse’s ears.

*

‘And beyond what I’ve said here –’ Joanna Selborne proudly raised her head, brushing a dark lock from her forehead ‘– I have nothing to add, Illustrious Tribunal.’

The convenor of the tribunal looked down on her. His face was inscrutable. His eyes grey. And decent.

Anyway, what do I care? thought Kenna. I’ll try. You can only die once; sink or swim. I’m not going to rot in the citadel and wait for death. Tawny Owl didn’t make wild promises, he’s liable to take revenge even from beyond the grave . . .

What do I care? Perhaps they won’t notice. Sink or swim!

She pressed her hand to her nose, seemingly wiping it. She looked straight into the grey eyes of the tribunal convener.

‘Guard!’ said the convener. ‘Please take the witness Joanna Selborne back to . . .’

He broke off and started coughing. Sweat suddenly broke out on his forehead.

‘To the tribunal chancellery,’ he finished, sniffing loudly. ‘Write out the appropriate documents. And release her. The witness Selborne is of no further use to the court.’

Kenna surreptitiously wiped away the drop of blood that was trickling from her nose. She smiled charmingly and thanked him with a delicate bow.

*

‘They’ve deserted?’ Bonhart repeated in disbelief. ‘More of them have deserted? And just rode away, like that? Skellen? You permitted it?’

‘If they inform on us . . .’ Rience began, but Tawny Owl interrupted him at once.

‘They won’t inform, because they don’t want to lose their own heads! And besides, what could I have done? When Kriel joined them, only Bert and Mun were left with me and there were four of them . . .’

‘Four,’ said Bonhart malevolently, ‘isn’t many at all. As soon as we’ve caught up with the girl I’ll go after them. And I’ll feed them to the crows. In the name of—’

‘Let’s catch her up first,’ Tawny Owl cut him off, urging on his grey with his knout. ‘Boreas! Keep your eyes on the trail!’

The valley was filling up with a dense blanket of fog, but they knew that down below was a lake, because there was a lake in every valley in Mil Trachta. The one, meanwhile, to which the black mare’s hoof prints were leading, was undoubtedly the one they were looking for, the one Vilgefortz had ordered them to look for. Which he had described to them precisely. And whose name he had given them.

Tarn Mira.

The lake was narrow, no wider than an arrow shot, crowded into a slightly bent crescent between high, steep hillsides covered in black spruce, beautifully sprinkled with a white, snowy powder. The hillsides were swathed in such a silence that there was a ringing in their ears. Even the crows – whose portentous cawing had accompanied them on the trail for the last fortnight or so – had fallen silent.

‘This is the southern end,’ stated Bonhart. ‘If the mage hasn’t made a hash of everything and landed us in it, the magical tower is on the northern shore. Keep your eyes on the trail, Boreas! If we pick up the wrong one, the lake will separate us from her!’

‘The trail is clear!’ Boreas Mun called from below. ‘And fresh! It’s leading towards the lake!’

‘Ride!’ Skellen brought his grey, skittering on the steep slope, under control. ‘Downhill!’

They rode down the slope, cautiously, reining back the snorting horses. They struggled through the bare, black, ice-covered thicket blocking the way to the bank.

Bonhart’s horse stepped gingerly onto the ice, crunching through the dry reeds sticking up from the glazed surface. The ice creaked and long arrows of cracks diverged like a star from under the horse’s hooves.

‘About face!’ Bonhart pulled in the reins and turned his snorting horse back towards the bank. ‘Dismount! The ice is thin.’

‘Only by the bank, in the reeds,’ Dacre Silifant judged, striking a heel onto the icy crust. ‘But even here it’s at least an inch and a half. It’ll hold a horse sure as anything, no need to wo—’

His words were drowned out by cursing and neighing. Skellen’s grey slipped, sat down on its haunches, and its legs spread apart under it. Skellen struck it with his spurs, swore again, and this time the curse was accompanied by the harsh crunch of ice breaking. The grey pounded with its fore hooves. Its hind ones, imprisoned, thrashed about in the tangle, breaking up the ice and churning the dark water spurting from under it. Tawny Owl dismounted, tugged on the reins, but slipped and went sprawling, miraculously not falling under the hooves of his own horse. The two Gemmerians, now also on their feet, helped him up. Ola Harsheim and Bert Brigden hauled the whinnying grey out onto the bank.

‘Dismount,’ Bonhart repeated, his eyes fixed on the fog covering the lake. ‘There’s no sense risking it. We’ll catch up with the maid on foot. She also dismounted, she’s also moving on foot.’

‘How very true,’ confirmed Boreas Mun, pointing at the lake. ‘It’s plain to see.’

Only at the very edge, beneath overhanging branches, was the crust of ice smooth and translucent, like the dark glass of a bottle. Under it reeds and water plants turned brown were visible. Further from the bank, the ice was covered in a very thin layer of wet snow. And on it, as far as the fog permitted them to see, were dark footprints.

‘We have her!’ Rience cried heatedly, throwing his reins on a broken bough. ‘So she’s not as cunning as she seems! She set off on the ice, straight across the middle of the lake. Had she chosen one of the banks or the forest, it wouldn’t have been easy to pursue her!’

‘Straight across the middle of the lake . . .’ Bonhart repeated, giving the impression of being lost in thought. ‘The shortest and straightest way to the alleged magical tower Vilgefortz talked about leads across the middle of the lake. She knows that. Mun? How far ahead of us is she?’

Boreas Mun, who was already on the lake, knelt down over a boot print, leaned over low and examined it.

‘A half-hour,’ he estimated. ‘Not more. It’s getting warmer, but the print isn’t fuzzy, you can see every hobnail in the sole.’

‘The lake,’ mumbled Bonhart, vainly trying to look through the fog, ‘stretches north for more than five miles. So said Vilgefortz. If the maid has half an hour’s start, she’s about a mile ahead of us.’

‘On slippery ice?’ Mun shook his head. ‘Not even that. Six, seven furlongs, at most.’

‘Even better! March!’

‘March,’ Tawny Owl repeated. ‘Onto the ice and quick march!’

They walked swiftly, puffing. The quarry’s closeness excited them, filled them with euphoria like a narcotic.

‘She won’t escape us!’

‘As long as we don’t lose the trail . . .’

‘And as long as she isn’t leading us up the garden path in this fog . . . It’s white as milk . . . You can’t see twenty paces ahead, dammit . . .’

‘Move your arses,’ Rience snarled. ‘Quick, quick! As long as there’s snow on the ice, we’re following her trail . . .’

‘The trail is fresh,’ Boreas Mun suddenly muttered, stopping and stooping down. ‘Very fresh . . . You can see the print of every hobnail . . . She’s just in front of us . . . Just in front of us . . . Why can’t we see her?’

‘And why can’t we hear her?’ Ola Harsheim wondered. ‘Our footsteps boom on the ice, the snow creaks. So why don’t we hear her?’

‘Because you’re yakking!’ Rience cut them off abruptly. ‘Keep marching!’

Boreas Mun took off his hat to wipe his sweat-covered forehead.

‘She’s there, in the fog,’ he said softly. ‘Somewhere there, in the fog . . . But the devil knows where. The devil knows whence she’ll strike . . . Like back there . . . In Dun Dare . . . On Samhain Eve . . .’

He began to draw his sword from its scabbard with a trembling hand. Tawny Owl leaped at him, seized him by the arm and tugged him forcefully.

‘Shut your trap, you old fool,’ he hissed.

But it was too late. The terror had spread to the others. They also drew their swords, involuntarily positioning themselves to have one of their companions behind them.

‘She’s not a spectre!’ Rience snapped loudly. ‘She isn’t even a witch! And there are ten of us! In Dun Dare there were only four and they were all drunk!’

‘Spread out,’ said Bonhart suddenly, ‘to the left and right, in a line. And move forward together! Don’t lose sight of each other.’

‘You too?’ Rience grimaced. ‘Has it infected you too, Bonhart? I thought you were less superstitious than that.’ The bounty hunter looked at him with eyes that were colder than ice.

‘Spread out into a line,’ he repeated, ignoring the sorcerer. ‘Keep your distance. I’m going back for my horse.’

‘What?’

Bonhart didn’t grace Rience with an answer again. Rience swore, but Tawny Owl quickly placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘Leave it,’ he snapped, ‘let him go. And let’s not waste time! In a line! Bert and Stigward, left! Ola, right . . .’

‘What for, Skellen?’

‘The ice will break more easily under men walking in a group,’ Boreas Mun muttered, ‘than spread out in a line. Furthermore, if we walk in a line abreast, there’s less of a risk the wench will outflank us.’

‘Outflank us?’ Rience snorted. ‘How could she? The tracks in front of us are as plain as a pikestaff. The maid is going straight ahead. Were she to try to turn, the trail would betray it—’

‘Enough chatter.’ Tawny Owl cut them off, looking back into the fog into which Bonhart had vanished as he left them. ‘Forward!’ They went on.

‘It’s getting warmer,’ Boreas Mun panted. ‘The ice on top is melting, it’ll form overflow ice . . .’

‘The fog’s getting thicker . . .’

‘But the footprints can still be seen,’ said Dacre Silifant. ‘Moreover, it seems the girl has slowed down. Her strength is waning.’

‘As is ours,’ Rience tore off his hat and fanned himself with it.

‘Quiet,’ Silifant suddenly stopped. ‘Did you hear that? What was it?’

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

‘But I did . . . Like a scraping . . . A scraping on the ice . . . But not from there,’ Boreas Mun pointed at the fog, into which the trail was fading. ‘It seems to be over on the left, to the side . . .’

‘I heard it too,’ Tawny Owl confirmed, looking anxiously around. ‘But now it’s gone quiet. Dammit, I don’t like it. I don’t like it!’

‘The footprints!’ Rience said with wearied emphasis. ‘We can still see her footprints! Don’t you have eyes? She’s walking straight ahead! If she took even a single step to one side we’d know it from the trail! Quick march, we’ll have her soon! I give my word, we’ll see her in a moment—’

He broke off. Boreas Mun sighed so hard his lungs groaned. Tawny Owl cursed.

Ten paces in front of them, just before the limit of visibility bordered by the dense fog, the tracks ended. They vanished.

‘A pox on it!’

‘What is it?’

‘Has she taken flight or what?’

‘No.’ Boreas Mun shook his head. ‘She hasn’t. It’s worse.’

Rience swore crudely, pointing at scratches in the icy crust.

‘Skates,’ he growled, involuntarily clenching his fists. ‘She has skates . . . Now she’s darting across the ice like the wind . . . We won’t catch her! What, damn his eyes, has become of Bonhart? We won’t catch the maid without horses!’

Boreas Mun hawked loudly and sighed. Skellen slowly unbuttoned his sheepskin coat, uncovering a bandolier with a row of orions slung across his chest.

‘We won’t have to hunt her,’ he said coldly. ‘She’ll be the one hunting us. I’m afraid we won’t have long to wait.’

‘Have you gone mad?’

‘Bonhart anticipated this. That’s why he went back for his horse. He knew the girl would lure us into a trap. Beware! Listen for the grating of skates on ice!’

Dacre Silifant paled visibly despite his cheeks being flushed from the cold.

‘Fellows!’ he yelled. ‘Beware! Take heed! And gather together! Don’t get lost in the fog!’

‘Shut up!’ Tawny Owl roared. ‘Keep quiet! Absolute silence or we won’t hear . . .’

They heard. A short, strangled cry reached their ears from the fog to the left, from the furthest end of the line. And the sharp, rough grating of skates, making the hair stand on end like iron scoring glass. ‘Bert!’ Tawny Owl yelled. ‘Bert! What’s happening over there?’

They heard an unintelligible cry, and a moment later Bert Brigden emerged from the fog, fleeing pell-mell. As soon as he was near he slipped, fell over and slid across the ice on his stomach.

‘She got . . . Stigward,’ he panted out, struggling to get up. ‘She cut him down . . . as she flashed past . . . So swiftly . . . I barely saw her . . . She’s a witch . . .’

Skellen swore. Silifant and Mun, both with swords in hand, whirled around, staring goggle-eyed into the fog. Grating. Grating. Grating. Quick. Rhythmic. And more and more clearly. More and more clearly.

‘Where’s it coming from?’ roared Boreas Mun, spinning around, flourishing the blade of his sword two-handed. ‘Where’s it coming from?’

‘Quiet!’ screamed Tawny Owl with an orion in his raised hand. ‘I think it’s from the right! Yes! From the right! She’s coming up on the right! Look out!’

The Gemmerian walking on the right wing suddenly cursed, turned around and ran blindly into the fog, sloshing through the melting layer of ice. He didn’t get far, not even out of sight. They heard the sharp grating of skates gliding and made out a blurred, flickering shadow. And the flash of a sword. The Gemmerian howled. They saw him fall, saw a broad spray of blood on the ice. The wounded man thrashed about, curled up, screamed and moaned. Then he fell silent and stopped moving.

But while he was still moaning he drowned out the sound of the skates. They didn’t expect the girl to be able to turn back so swiftly.

She fell among them, right in their midst. She cleaved Ola Harsheim as she flashed past, low, beneath the knee, folding him up like a penknife. She spun in a pirouette, covering Boreas Mun in a stinging hail of icy shards. Skellen leaped aside, slipped and caught Rience by a sleeve. They both fell over. The skates grated just beside them and cold, sharp fragments stung their faces. One of the Gemmerians yelled and his cry broke off in a savage croak. Tawny Owl knew what had happened. He’d heard many people having their throats cut.

Ola Harsheim shouted, rolling around on the ice.

Grating. Grating. Grating.

Silence.

‘Mr Stefan,’ Dacre Silifant gibbered. ‘Mr Stefan . . . You’re my only hope . . . Save me . . . Don’t let me—’

‘She’s fucking crippled meeeee!’ Ola Harsheim bellowed. ‘Help me, for fuck’s sake! Help me get up!’

‘Bonhart!’ Skellen yelled into the fog. ‘Bonhaaaart! Heeeelp us! Where are you, you whoreson? Bonhaaaart!’

‘She’s got us surrounded,’ Boreas Mun gasped, spinning around and straining to hear. ‘She’s skating around us in the fog . . . She’ll strike at will . . . Death! That wench is death! We’ll breathe our last here! It’ll be a massacre, like it was on Samhain Eve in Dun Dare . . .’

‘Stick together,’ Skellen groaned. ‘Stick together, she’s picking us off one by one . . . When you see her looming up, don’t lose your heads . . . Trip her up with swords, saddlebags, belts . . . Use anything to stop her—’

He broke off. This time, they didn’t even hear the scraping of skates. Dacre Silifant and Rience saved their lives by dropping flat onto the ice. Boreas Mun managed to jump aside, slipped, fell over and upended Bert Brigden. As the girl flashed by, Skellen swung and threw an orion. It found a target. But not the right one. Ola Harsheim, who had managed to get up, tumbled over in convulsions onto the blood-spattered ice; his staring eyes seemed to cross on the steel star sticking out of the bridge of his nose.

The last of the Gemmerians threw down his sword and began to sob in short, choking spasms. Skellen sprang at him and struck him hard in the face.

‘Pull yourself together!’ he roared. ‘Get a grip on yourself! It’s just one girl! Just one girl!’

‘Like in Dun Dare on Samhain Eve,’ said Boreas Mun softly. ‘We shall never get off this ice, off this lake. Listen out, listen out! And you’ll hear death gliding towards you.’

Skellen picked up the Gemmerian’s sword and tried to shove it into the sobbing man’s hand, but unsuccessfully. The Gemmerian, racked by spasms, turned his dull gaze onto him. Tawny Owl threw down the sword and jumped at Rience.

‘Do something, sorcerer!’ he roared, tugging at his arm. Terror redoubled his strength, and although Rience was taller, heavier and more powerful, he flopped around in Tawny Owl’s grasp like a rag doll. ‘Do something! Summon that high and mighty Vilgefortz of yours! Work some magic yourself! Work magic, perform witchcraft, invoke spirits, conjure up demons! Do something – anything – you little turd! Do something, before that she-phantom kills us all!’

The echo of his cry boomed across the forested hillsides. Before it died away, the skates grated again. The sobbing Gemmerian fell to his knees and covered his face in his hands. Bert Brigden howled, flung his sword away and bolted. He slipped, fell over and scampered for a few paces on all fours, like a dog.

‘Rience!’

The sorcerer swore and raised a hand. As he chanted the spell, his hand was trembling, his voice too. But he was successful. Though not, admittedly, completely successful.

The threadlike, fiery lightning bolt spurting from his fingers carved up the ice, fracturing the surface. But not crossways, as it should have, to bar the way of the approaching girl. It broke lengthways. The crust of ice cleaved open with a loud cracking sound, black water gushed and rumbled, and the rapidly widening rift shot towards Dacre Silifant, who was looking on in stupefaction.

‘Jump aside!’ Skellen yelled. ‘Ruuuuuun!’

It was too late. The crack sped between Silifant’s legs and split open, the ice shattering like glass and breaking into huge slabs. Dacre lost his balance, and the water stifled his howl. Boreas Mun fell into the breach, the kneeling Gemmerian vanished under the water, and Ola Harsheim’s body disappeared. Rience plopped after them into the black depths, followed by Skellen, who managed to catch hold of the edge at the last moment. Meanwhile, the girl pushed off powerfully and flew over the breach, landing so hard the melting ice splashed, and darted after the fleeing Brigden. A moment later a hair-raising scream reached the ears of Tawny Owl, who was hanging onto the edge of the ice floe.

She’d caught up with him.

‘Sir . . .’ moaned Boreas Mun, who by some miracle had managed to crawl out onto the ice. ‘Give me your hand . . . My lord coroner . . .’

After being hauled out, Skellen turned blue and began to shiver violently. The edge of the ice was breaking under Silifant, who was struggling to drag himself out. Dacre vanished beneath the water again. But he surfaced at once, choking and spitting, and dragged himself onto the ice with superhuman effort. He crawled out and collapsed, exhausted to the limits. A puddle spread out beside him. Boreas moaned and closed his eyes. Skellen was trembling.

‘Save me . . . Mun . . . Help . . .’

Rience hung onto the edge of the ice, submerged up to his armpits. His wet hair was plastered smoothly to his skull. His teeth were chattering like castanets, sounding like a ghoulish overture to some infernal danse macabre. The skates grated. Boreas didn’t move. He waited. Skellen was trembling.

She approached. Slowly. Blood trickled from her sword, marking the ice with a trail of drops. Boreas swallowed. Although he was soaked to the skin with icy water, he suddenly felt unbearably hot.

But the girl wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Rience, who was vainly struggling to get out onto the ice.

‘Help me . . .’ Rience overcame the chattering of his teeth. ‘Save me . . .’

The girl braked, whirling on the skates with the grace of a dancer. She stood with legs slightly apart, holding her sword in both hands, low, across her thighs.

‘Help me . . .’ Rience howled, digging his numbing fingers into the ice. ‘Save me . . . And I’ll tell you . . . where Yennefer is . . . I swear . . .’

The girl slowly pulled the scarf from her face and smiled. Boreas Mun saw the hideous scar and fought to stifle a shout.

‘Rience,’ said Ciri, still smiling. ‘You were going to teach me pain, weren’t you? Do you remember? With those hands. With those fingers. Those ones? Those, the ones you’re holding the ice with?’

Rience answered, but Boreas didn’t understand what he said, for the sorcerer’s teeth were chattering and rattling so much they made articulated speech impossible. Ciri spun around on her skates and lifted the sword. Boreas clenched his teeth, convinced she would slash Rience, but the girl was picking up momentum to set off. To the tracker’s astonishment she skated away, quickly, gathering speed with powerful thrusts. She vanished into the fog, and a moment later the rhythmic scraping of the skates also died away.

‘Mun . . . Puuull . . . me . . . out . . .’ Rience barked out, chin on the edge of the ice floe. He flung both hands on the ice, trying to hang on with his fingernails, which had largely been torn away. He spread his fingers, trying to cling to the blood-stained ice with his hands and wrists. Boreas Mun looked at him and was certain, terrifyingly certain . . .

They heard the grinding of the skates at the last moment. The girl approached at extraordinary speed, literally a blur. She skated up at the very edge of the floe, speeding along right beside the brink.

Rience screamed. And choked on the viscous, leaden water. And vanished.

There was blood on the ice, on the perfectly even tracks left by the skates. And fingers. Eight fingers.

Boreas Mun vomited on the ice.

*

Bonhart galloped along the edge of the lake, hurtling along, heedless that any moment the horse might break its legs on the snow-covered clefts. Frosted over spruce branches lashed his face, and whipped his arms, and icy powder poured down his collar.

He couldn’t see the lake. The entire valley was filled with fog, like a bubbling witch’s cauldron.

But Bonhart knew the girl was there.

He sensed it.

*

Deep under the ice, a school of striped perch curiously followed the silver, fascinatingly glimmering casket which had slipped out of the pocket of a corpse floating in the water. Before the casket had sunk to the bottom, raising a cloud of silt, the boldest of the perch even tried to nudge it with their snouts. But they suddenly took flight in terror.

The casket was emitting strange, alarming vibrations.

‘Rience? Can you hear me? What’s been going on? Why haven’t you responded for two days? Give me your report! What about the maid? You can’t let her enter the tower! Do you hear? You can’t let her enter the Tower of the Swallow . . . Rience! Answer, dammit! Rience!’

Rience, naturally, could not answer.

*

The embankment came to an end, the shore flattened out. It’s the end of the lake, thought Bonhart, I’ve done it. I’ve trapped the maid. Where is she? And where’s that sodding tower?

The curtain of fog suddenly ruptured and lifted. And then he saw her. She was right in front of him, sitting on her black mare. She’s a witch, he thought, she communicates with that beast. She sent it to the end of the lake and ordered it to wait for her.

But that won’t help her.

I have to kill her. The devil take Vilgefortz. I have to kill her. First I’ll make her beg for her life . . . And then I’ll kill her.

He yelled, pricked his horse with his spurs and launched into a breakneck gallop.

And suddenly realised he had lost. That she’d deceived him.

Not more than a furlong separated him from her – but over thin ice. She was on the other side of the lake. What’s more, the crescent of open water now curved around the opposite way – the girl, riding along the ‘bowstring’, was much closer to the end of the lake than he was.

Bonhart swore, tugged on the reins and steered his horse onto the ice.

*

‘Ride, Kelpie!’

Frozen earth shot from under the black mare’s hooves.

Ciri clung to the horse’s neck. The sight of Bonhart pursuing her filled her with dread . . . She was afraid of him. An invisible fist tightened on her stomach at the thought of facing him in combat.

No, she couldn’t fight him. Not yet.

The Tower. Only the tower could save her. And the portal. As on Thanedd, when the sorcerer Vilgefortz was upon her, was already reaching for her . . .

The only hope was the Tower of the Swallow.

The fog lifted.

Ciri reined in her horse, suddenly feeling a dreadful heat. Unable to believe what she saw. What was in front of her.

*

Bonhart saw it too. And yelled triumphantly.

There was no tower at the end of the lake. There weren’t even the ruins of a tower; there was nothing. Just a barely visible, barely outlined hillock, just a mound of boulders covered in frozen, leafless stalks.

‘That’s your tower!’ he roared. ‘That’s your magical tower! That’s your salvation! A heap of stones!’

The girl seemed not to hear or see. She urged the mare nearer the hillock, onto the stony mound. She raised both hands towards the sky, as though cursing the heavens for what had befallen her.

‘I told you that you were mine!’ roared Bonhart, spurring on his bay. ‘That I’ll do what I want with you! That no one will stop me from doing it! Not people, not gods, not devils, nor demons! Or enchanted towers! You’re mine, witcher girl!’

The bay’s shoes jangled on the icy surface of the lake.

The fog suddenly swirled, boiled under the impact of a strong wind appearing as if from nowhere. The bay whinnied and danced, baring its teeth on the bit. Bonhart leaned back in the saddle, and tugged on the reins with all his might, because the horse was frantic, tossing its head, stamping and slipping on the ice.

In front of him – between him and the shore where Ciri was standing – a snowy-white unicorn was dancing on the ice, rearing up, as if on a heraldic shield.

‘Don’t try tricks like that on me!’ roared the bounty hunter, fighting to get control of his horse. ‘You won’t frighten me with sorcery! I’ll catch you, Ciri! I’ll kill you this time, witcher girl! You’re mine!’

The fog swirled again, and seethed, forming bizarre shapes. The shapes became clearer and clearer. They were horsemen. Nightmarish silhouettes of eerie horsemen.

Bonhart stared goggle-eyed.

Skeleton riders rode skeleton horses, dressed in rust-riddled armour and chainmail, ragged cloaks, dented and corroded helmets decorated with buffalo horns and the remains of ostrich and peacock plumes. The spectres’ eyes shined with a bluish light from under their visors. Ragged pennants swished.

An armed man with a crown on his helmet and a necklace bumping against the rusty cuirass on his chest, galloped at the head of the demonic cavalcade.

Begone, rumbled a voice in Bonhart’s head. Begone, mortal. She is not yours. She is ours. Begone! There was no denying Bonhart had one thing: courage. He did not take fright at the apparitions. He overcame his terror, and did not give in to panic.

But his horse turned out to be less resolute.

The bay reared, danced ballet-like on its hind legs, whinnied frantically, kicked and pranced. The ice broke with a horrifying crunching sound under the impact of its hooves, the sheets of ice stood up vertically and water gushed out. The horse squealed and struck the edge with its forehooves, fracturing it. Bonhart yanked his feet from the stirrups and jumped. Too late.

The water closed over his head. There was a drumming and a ringing as though in a belfry. His lungs were full to bursting.

He was lucky. His feet – kicking out in the water – struck something, probably his horse as it sank to the bottom. He pushed off, bursting from the water, spitting and gasping. He seized hold of the edge of the ice hole. Without yielding to panic, he drew a knife, drove it into the ice and hauled himself out. He lay, panting heavily, the water trickling from him and splashing down.

The lake, the ice, the snowbound hillsides, the black and frost-encrusted spruce forest – all of a sudden everything was flooded with an unnatural, pallid light.

Bonhart struggled to his knees with immense effort.

Above the horizon, the deep blue was lit by a crown of brightness, a luminous dome, from which fiery pillars and spirals suddenly rose and scintillating columns and vortices of light burst forth. Shimmering, flickering, rapidly-changing shapes, ribbons and curtains hung on the horizon.

Bonhart croaked. It was as though he had an iron garrotte around his throat.

A tower had risen up where a moment before had been only a barren hillock and a pile of stones. Majestic, soaring and slender, black, glassy and gleaming, as though carved from a single piece of basalt. Fire flickered in the few windows and the aurora borealis glowed in the serrated battlements.

He saw the girl, looking towards him from the saddle. He saw her bright eyes and the cheek slashed by the line of an ugly scar. He saw the girl spur her black mare and unhurriedly ride into the black gloom, under the arched stone entrance.

And disappear.

The aurora borealis exploded in dazzling swirls of fire.

When Bonhart regained his sight, the tower was gone. There was the snow-topped hillock, the pile of stones, the withered black stalks.

Kneeling on the ice, in the puddle of water trickling from him, the bounty hunter screamed savagely, horribly. On his knees, arms raised towards the sky, he screamed, howled, swore and railed against people, gods and demons.

The echo of his cries rolled over the spruce-forested hillsides, drifted over the frozen surface of Tarn Mira lake.

*

At first, the inside of the tower reminded her of Kaer Morhen – the same long, black corridor behind a colonnade, the same unending abyss in the perspective of columns or statues. It was beyond comprehension how that abyss could fit into the slender obelisk of the tower. But she knew, of course, that there was no point analysing it – not in the case of a tower that had risen up from nothingness, appearing where it had not been before. There could be anything in such a tower and one ought not to be surprised by anything.

She looked back. She didn’t believe Bonhart had dared – or managed – to enter after her. But she wanted to make certain. The colonnade she had ridden into blazed with an unnatural brilliance.

Kelpie’s hooves rang on the floor; something crunched under them. Bones. Skulls, shinbones, ribcages, thighbones, hipbones. She was riding through a gigantic ossuarium. Kaer Morhen, she thought, recalling. The dead should be buried in the ground . . . How long ago that was . . . I still believed in something like that then . . . In the majesty of death, in respect for the dead . . . But death is simply death. And a dead person is just a cold corpse. It’s not important where it’s lying, where its bones decay.

She rode into the gloom, under the colonnade, among the columns and statues. The darkness undulated like smoke. Her ears were filled with intrusive whispers, sighs, and soft incantations. Suddenly brightness flamed before her, as a gigantic door opened. One door opened after another. Doors. An infinite number of heavy doors opened before her without a murmur.

Kelpie went on, horseshoes resounding on the floor.

The geometry of the walls, arcades and columns surrounding her was suddenly disrupted; so confusingly that Ciri felt dizzy. She felt as though she were inside an impossible, multifaceted solid, some gigantic polyhedron.

The doors kept opening. But now they weren’t delineating a single direction. They were pointing to infinite directions and possibilities.

And Ciri began to see.

A black-haired woman leading an ashen-haired girl by the hand. The girl is afraid, afraid of the dark, fears the whispers growing in the gloom, is terrified by the ringing of horseshoes. The black-haired woman with a star sparkling with diamonds around her neck is also afraid. But does not let it show. She leads the girl on. Towards her destiny.

Kelpie walks on. More doors.

Iola the Second and Eurneid, in sheepskin coats, with their bundles, marching along a frozen, snowy road. The sky is deep blue.

More doors.

Iola the First kneeling before an altar. Beside her is Mother Nenneke. They are both looking at something, their faces contorted in a grimace of dread. What do they see? The past or the future? Truth or untruth?

Above Nenneke and Iola – hands. The hands of a woman with golden eyes held out in a gesture of blessing. In the woman’s necklace – a diamond, shining like the morning star. On the woman’s shoulder – a cat. Over her head – a falcon.

More doors.

Triss Merigold holds back her glorious chestnut hair, buffeted and tugged by gusts of wind. There is no escape from the wind, nothing can shelter from the wind.

Not here. Not on the brow of the hill.

A long, unending row of shadows encroaches on the hill. Forms. They are walking slowly. Some turn their faces towards her. Familiar faces. Vesemir. Eskel. Lambert. Coen. Yarpen Zigrin and Paulie Dahlberg. Fabio Sachs . . . Jarre . . . Tissaia de Vries.

Mistle . . .

Geralt?

More doors.

Yennefer, in chains, fastened to a dungeon wall dripping with water. Her hands are a single mass of clotted blood. Her black hair is tousled and dishevelled . . . Her mouth is cut and swollen . . . But her will to fight and resistance are undamped in her violet eyes.

‘Mummy! Hold on! Don’t give up! I’m coming to help you!’

More doors. Ciri turns her head away in distress. And embarrassment.

Geralt. And a green-eyed woman with black, close-cropped hair. Both naked. Engrossed by and consumed with each other. With giving each other sensual pleasure.

Ciri fights to overcome the adrenaline tightening her throat and spurs Kelpie on. Hooves clatter. Whispers pulsate in the darkness.

More doors.

Welcome, Ciri.

‘Vysogota?’

I knew you would succeed, O courageous maiden. My brave Swallow. Did you emerge unharmed?

‘I defeated them. On the ice. I had a surprise for them. Your daughter’s skates . . .’

‘I meant psychological harm.’

‘I held back from vengeance . . . I didn’t kill them all . . . I didn’t kill Tawny Owl . . . Even though he hurt and disfigured me. I controlled myself.’

‘I knew you’d prevail, Zireael. And that you’d enter the tower. Why, I’ve read about it. Because it has already been described . . . It has all been written about. Do you know what learning gives you? The ability to make use of sources.

‘How’s it possible that we’re talking . . . O Vysogota . . . are you . . .’

Yes, Ciri. I’m dead. Oh, never mind! What I have learned is more important, what I have worked out . . . Now I know what became of the lost days, what happened in Korath desert, how you vanished from the sight of your pursuers . . .

‘And how I entered here, entered this tower, right?’

The Elder Blood that flows in your veins gives you power over time. And over space. Over the dimensions and the spheres. You are now Master of the Worlds, Ciri. You have a mighty Power. Do not let criminals or rogues take it from you and use it to their own ends . . .

‘I won’t.’

Farewell, Ciri. Farewell, Swallow.

‘Farewell, Old Raven.’

More doors. Brightness, dazzling brightness.

And the heady scent of flowers.

*

A mist lay on the lake, a haze as light as down, which the wind quickly blew away. The surface of the water was as smooth as a mirror, flowers shone white on green carpets of flat lily pads.

The banks drowned in leaves and flowers.

It was warm.

It was spring.

Ciri was not surprised. How could she be? After all, now everything was possible. November, ice, snow, frozen ground, the mound of stones on the hillock bristling with dried stalks – that was there. But here is here; here a soaring basalt tower crowned with serrated battlements, reflected in the green water of the lake, dotted with the white of waterlilies. Here it’s May, for wild roses and bird cherry bloom in May, don’t they?

Nearby, somebody was playing on a whistle or a pan flute; they were playing a jolly, lively tune.

On the lakeside, two snow-white horses were drinking, fore hooves in the water. Kelpie snorted and banged a hoof against a rock. Then the horses lifted their heads and nostrils, dripping water, and Ciri sighed.

Because they weren’t horses, but unicorns.

Ciri was not surprised. She was sighing in awe, not in astonishment.

She could hear the tune more and more clearly. It was coming from behind the shrubs of bird cherry festooned with white blossom. Kelpie moved towards the sound by herself, without any urging. Ciri swallowed. The two unicorns, as still as statues, reflected in the surface of the water as smooth as a mirror, looked at her.

A fair-haired elf with a triangular face and huge, almond-shaped eyes was sitting on a round stone beyond the bird cherry shrub. He played on, nimbly running his lips over the pipes. Although he could see Ciri and Kelpie – although he was looking at them – he didn’t stop playing.

The small flowers gave off a scent; Ciri had never before encountered bird cherry with such an intense fragrance. No wonder, she thought quite soberly. Bird cherry blossom simply smells different in the world I’ve lived in until this moment.

Because everything is different in that world.

The elf finished his tune with a long-drawn-out, high-pitched trill, took the instrument from his mouth and stood up.

‘What took you so long?’ he asked with a smile. ‘What kept you?’

The Lady of the Lake

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

The lake was enchanted. There was absolutely no doubt about it.

Firstly, it lay right beside the mouth of the enchanted Cwm Pwcca valley, permanently veiled in mist and famed for witchcraft and magical phenomena.

Secondly, it was enough to look.

The lake was deep, a vivid, pure blue, just like polished sapphire. It was as smooth as a looking glass, so smooth the peaks of the Y Wyddfa massif gazing into it seemed more stunning reflected than in reality. A cold, bracing wind blew in from the lake and nothing disturbed the dignified silence, not even the splash of a fish or the cry of a water bird.

The knight shuddered in amazement. But instead of continuing to ride along the ridge he steered his horse towards the lake, as though lured by the magical power of the witchcraft slumbering down there, at the bottom, in the depths. The horse trod timidly across broken rocks, showing by a soft snorting that it also sensed the magical aura.

After descending to the very bottom of the valley, the knight dismounted. Leading his steed by the bridle, he neared the water’s edge, where faint ripples were playing among colourful pebbles.

He kneeled down, his chain mail rustling. Scaring away fry, fish as tiny and lively as needles, he scooped up water in his cupped hands. He drank slowly and gingerly, the ice-cold water numbing his lips and tongue and stinging his teeth.

As he stooped again, a sound, carried over the surface of the water, reached his ears. He raised his head. His horse snorted, as though confirming it had also heard.

He listened. No, it was no illusion. What he had heard was singing. A woman singing. Or, more likely, a girl.

The knight, like all knights, had been raised on stories of bards and tales of chivalry. And in them – nine times out of ten – girlish airs or wailing were bait, and the knights that followed them usually fell into traps. Often fatal ones.

But his curiosity got the better of him. The knight, after all, was only nineteen years old. He was very bold and very imprudent. He was famous for the first and known for the second.

He checked that his sword slid well in the scabbard, then tugged his horse and headed along the shore in the direction of the singing. He didn’t have to go far.

On the lakeside lay great, dark boulders – worn smooth to a shine. You might have said they were the playthings of giants carelessly tossed there or forgotten after a game. Some of the boulders lay in the lake, looming black beneath the crystalline water. Some of them protruded above the surface. Washed by the wavelets, they looked like the backs of leviathans. But most of them lay on the lakeside, covering the shore all the way to the treeline. Some of them were buried in the sand, only partly sticking out, leaving their true size to the imagination.

The singing that the knight could hear came from just behind the rocks near the shore. And the girl who was doing the singing was out of sight. He led his horse, holding it by the bit and nostrils to stop it whinnying or snorting.

The girl’s garments were spread on a perfectly flat boulder lying in the lake. She, naked and waist-deep in the water, was washing and singing the while. The knight didn’t recognise the words.

And no wonder.

The girl – he would have bet his life – was not flesh-and-blood. That was evident from her slim figure, the strange colour of her hair and her voice. He was certain that were she to turn around he would see huge, almond-shaped eyes. And were she to brush aside her ashen hair he would surely see pointed ears.

She was a dweller of Faërie. A spirit. One of the Tylwyth Têg. One of those creatures the Picts and Irish called Daoine Sidhe, the Folk of the Hill. One of those creatures the Saxons called elves.

The girl stopped singing for a moment, submerged herself up to the neck, snorted and swore very coarsely. It didn’t fool the knight, though. Fairies – as was widely known – could curse like humans. Oftentimes more filthily than stablemen. And very often the oath preceded a spiteful prank, for which fairies were famous. For example, swelling someone’s nose up to the size of a cucumber or shrinking another’s manhood down to the size of a broad bean.

Neither the first nor the second possibility appealed to the knight. He was on the point of a discreet withdrawal when the noise of hooves on the pebbles suddenly betrayed him. No, not his own steed, which – being held by the nostrils – was as calm and quiet as a mouse. He had been betrayed by the fairy’s horse, a black mare, which at first the knight hadn’t noticed among the rocks. Now the pitch-black animal churned up the pebbles with a hoof and neighed a greeting. The knight’s stallion tossed its head and neighed back politely. So loudly an echo sped across the water.

The fairy burst from the water, for a moment presenting herself to the knight in all her alluring splendour. She darted towards the rock where her clothing lay. But rather than seizing a blouse and covering up modestly, the she-elf grabbed a sword and drew it from its scabbard with a hiss, whirling it with admirable dexterity. It lasted but a short moment, after which she sank down, covering herself up to her nose in the water and extending her arm with the sword above the surface.

The knight shook off his stupefaction, released the reins and genuflected, kneeling on the wet sand. For he realised at once who was before him.

‘Hail,’ he mumbled, holding out his hands. ‘Great is the honour for me . . . Great is the accolade, O Lady of the Lake. I shall accept the sword . . .’

‘Could you get up from your knees and turn away?’ The fairy stuck her mouth above the water. ‘Perhaps you’d stop staring? And let me get dressed?’

He obeyed.

He heard her splash out of the water, rustle her clothes and swear softly as she pulled them over her wet body. He examined the black mare, its coat as smooth and lustrous as moleskin. It was certainly a horse of noble blood, certainly enchanted. And undoubtedly also a dweller of Faërie, like its owner.

‘You may turn around.’

‘Lady of the Lake—’

‘And introduce yourself.’

‘I am Galahad, of Caer Benic. A knight of King Arthur, the lord of Camelot, the ruler of the Summer Land, and also of Dumnonia, Dyfneint, Powys, Dyfedd . . .’

‘And Temeria?’ she interrupted. ‘Redania, Rivia, Aedirn? Nilfgaard? Do those names mean anything to you?’

‘No. I’ve never heard them.’

She shrugged. Apart from her sword she was holding her boots and her blouse, washed and wrung out.

‘I thought so. What day of the year is it today?’

‘It is,’ he opened his mouth, utterly astonished, ‘the second full moon after Beltane . . . Lady . . .’

‘Ciri,’ she said dully, wriggling her shoulders to allow her garments to lie better on her drying skin. She spoke strangely. Her eyes were large and green.

She involuntarily brushed her wet hair aside and the knight gasped unwittingly. Not just because her ear was normal, human, and in no way elven. Her cheek was disfigured by a large, ugly scar. She had been wounded. But could a fairy be wounded?

She noticed his look, narrowed her eyes and wrinkled her nose.

‘That’s right, it’s a scar!’ she repeated in her extraordinary accent. ‘Why do you look so scared? Is a scar such a strange thing for a knight to see? Is it so ugly?’

He removed his chainmail hood with both hands and brushed aside his hair.

‘Indeed it isn’t,’ he said, not without youthful pride, displaying a barely healed scar of his own, running from temple to jaw. ‘And only blemishes on one’s honour are ugly. I am Galahad, son of Lancelot du Lac and Elaine, daughter of King Pelles, lord of Caer Benic. That wound was dealt me by Breunis the Merciless, a base oppressor of maidens, before I felled him in a fair duel. In sooth, I am worthy of receiving that sword from your hands, O Lady of the Lake.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The sword. I’m ready to receive it.’

‘It’s my sword. I don’t let anyone touch it.’

‘But . . .’

‘But what?’

‘The Lady of the Lake always . . . always emerges from the waters and bestows a sword, doesn’t she?’

She said nothing for some time.

‘I get it,’ she finally said. ‘Well, every country has its own customs. I’m sorry, Galahad, or whatever your name is, but I’m clearly not the Lady I’m meant to be. I’m not giving away anything. And I won’t let anyone take anything from me. Just to make things clear.’

‘But,’ he ventured, ‘you must come from Faërie, don’t you, m’lady?’

‘I come . . .’ she said a moment later, and her green eyes seemed to be looking into an abyss of space and time. ‘I come from Rivia, from the city of the same name. From Loch Eskalott. I sailed here by boat. It was foggy. I couldn’t see the shore. I only heard the neighing. Of Kelpie . . . My mare, who followed me.

She spread out her wet blouse on a stone, and the knight gasped again. The blouse had been washed, but perfunctorily. Patches of blood were still visible.

‘The current brought me here,’ the girl began again, either not seeing what he had noticed or pretending not to. ‘The current and the spell of a unicorn . . . What’s this lake called?’

‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘There are so many lakes in Gwynedd—’

‘In Gwynedd?’

‘Naturally. Those mountains are Y Wyddfa. If you keep them on your left hand and ride through the forests, after two days you’ll reach Dinas Dinlleu, and then on to Caer Dathal. And the river . . . The nearest river is . . .’

‘Never mind what the nearest river’s called. Do you have anything to eat, Galahad? I’m simply dying of hunger.’

*

‘Why are you watching me like that? Afraid I’ll disappear? That I’ll fly off with your hard tack and smoked sausage? Don’t worry. I got up to some mischief in my own world and confused destiny, so I shouldn’t show my face there for the moment. I’ll stay a while in yours. In a world where one searches the sky in vain for the Dragon or the Seven Goats. Where right now it’s the second full moon after Belleteyn, and Belleteyn is pronounced ‘Beltane’. Why are you staring at me like that, pray?’

‘I didn’t know fairies could eat.’

‘Fairies, sorceresses and she-elves. They all eat. And drink. And so on.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Never mind.’

The more intently he observed her, the more she lost her enchanting aura, and the more human and ordinary – common, even – she became. Though he knew she wasn’t, couldn’t be that. One didn’t encounter common wenches at the foot of Y Wyddfa, in the region of Cwm Pwcca, bathing naked in mountain lakes and washing bloodstained blouses. Never mind what the girl looked like, she couldn’t be an earthly being. In spite of that, Galahad was now gazing quite freely and without fear at her ashen hair, which, now it was dry, to his amazement gleamed grey. At her slender hands, petite nose and pale lips, at her masculine outfit of somewhat outlandish cut, sewn from delicate stuff of extremely dense weave. At her sword, of curious construction and ornamentation, but by no means resembling a ceremonial accoutrement. At her bare feet caked with the dried sand of the beach.

‘Just for clarity,’ she began, rubbing one foot against the other, ‘I’m not a she-elf. And as for being an enchantress, I mean a fairy . . . I’m a little unusual. I don’t think I’m one at all.’

‘I’m sorry, I really am.’

‘Why exactly?’

‘They say . . .’ he blushed and stammered. ‘They say that when fairies meet young men, they lead them to Elfland and there . . . Beneath a filbert bush, on a carpet of moss, they order them to render—’

‘I understand.’ She glanced at him quickly, then bit down hard on a sausage. ‘Regarding the land of Elves,’ she said, swallowing, ‘I fled from there some time ago and am in no hurry to return. Regarding, however, the rendering of services on mossy carpets . . . Truly, Galahad, you’ve happened upon the wrong Lady. All the same, I thank you kindly for your good intentions.’

‘M’lady! I did not wish to offend—’

‘You don’t have to apologise.’

‘Only because,’ he mumbled, ‘you’re enchantingly comely.’

‘Thank you, once again. But still, nothing’s going to happen.’

They were silent for a time. It was warm. The sun, standing at its zenith, warmed the stones pleasantly. A faint breeze ruffled the surface of the lake.

‘What does . . .’ Galahad began suddenly in a strangely enraptured voice. ‘What does the spear with the bloody blade mean? Why does the King with the lanced thigh suffer and what does it mean? What is the meaning of the maiden in white carrying a grail, a silver bowl—?’

‘And besides that,’ she interrupted him. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘I merely ask.’

‘And I merely don’t understand your question. Is it some previously agreed password? Some signal by which the initiated recognise each other? Kindly explain.’

‘But I cannot.’

‘Why then, did you ask?’

‘Because . . .’ he stammered. ‘Well, to put it briefly . . . One of our number failed to ask when he had the chance. He grew tongue-tied or was embarrassed . . . He didn’t ask and because of that there was great unpleasantness. So now we always ask. Just in case.’

*

‘Are there sorcerers in this world? You know, people who practise the magical arts. Mages. Knowing Ones.’

‘There’s Merlin. And Morgana. But Morgana is evil.’

‘And Merlin?’

‘Average.’

‘Do you know where to find him?’

‘I’ll say! In Camelot. At the court of King Arthur. I am presently headed there.’

‘Is it far?’

‘From here to Powys, to the River Hafren, then downstream to Glevum, to the Sea of Sabina, and from there to the flatlands of the Summer Land. All in all, some ten days’ ride . . .’

‘Too far.’

‘One may,’ he stammered, ‘take a short-cut by riding through Cwm Pwcca. But it is an enchanted valley. It is dreadful there. One hears of Y Dynan Bach Têgdwell there, evil little men—’

‘What, do you only carry a sword for decoration?’

‘And what would a sword achieve against witchcraft?’

‘Much, much, don’t worry. I’m a witcher. Ever heard of one? Pshaw, naturally you haven’t. And I’m not afraid of your little men. I have plenty of dwarf friends.’

Of course you do, he thought.

*

‘Lady of the Lake?’

‘My name’s Ciri. Don’t call me Lady of the Lake. Brings up bad, unpleasant, nasty associations. That’s what they called me in the Land of . . . What did you call that place?’

‘Faërie. Or, as the druids say: Annwn. And the Saxons say Elfland.’

‘Elfland . . .’ She wrapped a tartan Pictish rug he had given her around her shoulders. ‘I’ve been there, you know? I entered the Tower of the Swallow and bang! I was among the elves. And that’s exactly what they called me. The Lady of the Lake. I even liked it at the start. It was flattering. Until the moment I understood I was no Lady in that land, in that tower by the lake – but a prisoner.’

‘Was it there,’ he blurted out, ‘that you stained your blouse with blood?’

She was silent for a long while.

‘No,’ she said finally, and her voice, it seemed to him, trembled a little. ‘Not there. You have sharp eyes. Oh well, you can’t flee from the truth, can’t bury your head in the sand . . . Yes, Galahad. I’ve often become stained lately. With the blood of the foes I’ve killed. And the blood of the friends I tried hard to rescue . . . And who died in my arms . . . Why do you stare at me so?’

‘I know not if you be a deity or a mortal . . . Or one of the goddesses . . . But if you are a dweller on this earth of ours . . .’

‘Get to the point, if you would.’

‘I would listen to your story,’ Galahad’s eyes glowed. ‘Would you tell it, O Lady?’

‘It is long.’

‘We have time.’

‘And it doesn’t end so well.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Why?’

‘You were singing when you were bathing in the lake.’

‘You’re observant.’ She turned her head away, pursed her lips and her face suddenly contorted and became ugly. ‘Yes, you’re observant. But very naive.’

‘Tell me your story. Please.’

‘Very well,’ she sighed. ‘Very well, if you wish . . . I shall.’

She made herself comfortable. As did he. The horses walked by the edge of the forest, nibbling grass and herbs.

‘From the beginning,’ asked Galahad. ‘From the very beginning . . .’

‘This story,’ she said a moment later, wrapping herself more tightly in the Pictish rug, ‘seems more and more like one without a beginning. Neither am I certain if it has finished yet, either. The past – you have to know – has become awfully tangled up with the future. An elf even told me it’s like that snake that catches its own tail in its teeth. That snake, you ought to know, is called Ouroboros. And the fact it bites its own tail means the circle is closed. The past, present and future lurk in every moment of time. Eternity is hidden in every moment of time. Do you understand?’

‘No.’

‘Never mind.’

Verily do I tell you that whoever believes in dreams is as one trying to catch the wind or seize a shadow. He is deluded by a beguiling picture, a warped looking glass, which lies or utters absurdities in the manner of a woman in labour. Foolish indeed is he who lends credence to dreams and treads the path of delusion.

Nonetheless, whoever disdains and does not believe them at all also acts unwisely. For if dreams had no import whatsoever why, then, would the Gods, in creating us, give us the ability to dream?

The Wisdom of the Prophet Lebioda, 34:1

CHAPTER TWO

A light wind ruffled the surface of the lake, which was steaming like a cauldron, and drove ragged wisps of mist over it. Rowlocks creaked and thudded rhythmically, the emerging oar-blades scattering a hail of shining drops.

Condwiramurs put a hand over the side. The boat was moving at such a snail’s pace the water barely foamed or climbed up her hand.

‘Oh, my,’ she said, packing as much sarcasm into her voice as she could. ‘What speed! We’re hurtling over the waves. It’s making my head spin!’

The rower, a short, stocky, compact man, growled back angrily and indistinctly, not even raising his head, which was covered in a grizzly mop of hair as curly as a caracul lamb’s. The novice had put up with quite enough of the growling, hawking and grunting with which the boor had dismissed her questions since she had boarded.

‘Have a care,’ she drawled, struggling to keep calm. ‘You might do yourself a mischief from such hard rowing.’

This time the man raised his face, which was as swarthy and weather-beaten as tanned leather. He grunted, hawked, and pointed his bristly, grey chin at the wooden reel attached to the side of the boat and the line disappearing into the water stretched tight by their movement. Clearly convinced the explanation was exhaustive, he resumed his rowing. With the same rhythm as previously. Oars up. A pause. Blades halfway into the water. A long pause. The pull. An even longer pause.

‘Aha,’ Condwiramurs said nonchalantly, looking heavenwards. ‘I understand. What’s important is the lure being pulled behind the boat, which has to move at the right speed and the right depth. Fishing is important. Everything else is unimportant.’

What she said was so obvious the man didn’t even take the trouble to grunt or wheeze.

‘Who could it bother,’ Condwiramurs continued her monologue, ‘that I’ve been travelling all night? That I’m hungry? That my backside hurts and itches from the hard, wet bench? That I need a pee? No, only trolling for fish matters. Which is pointless in any case. Nothing will take a lure pulled down the middle of the current at a depth of a score of fathoms.’

The man raised his head, looked at her foully and grumbled very – very – grumblingly. Condwiramurs flashed her little teeth, pleased with herself. The boor went on rowing slowly. He was furious.

She lounged back on the stern bench and crossed her legs, letting her dress ride up.

The man grunted, tightened his gnarled hands on the oars, and pretended only to be looking at the fishing line. He had no intention of rowing any faster, naturally. The novice sighed in resignation and turned her attention to the sky.

The rowlocks creaked and the glistening drops fell from the oar blades.

The outline of an island loomed up in the quickly dispersing mist. As did the dark, tapering obelisk of the tower rising above it. The boor, though he was facing forwards and not looking back, knew in some mysterious way that they had almost arrived. Without hurrying, he laid the oars on the gunwales, stood up and began to slowly wind in the line on the reel. Condwiramurs, legs still crossed, whistled, looking up at the sky.

The man finished reeling in the line and examined the lure: a large, brass spoon, armed with a triple hook and a tassel of red wool.

‘Oh my, oh my,’ said Condwiramurs sweetly. ‘Haven’t caught anything? Oh dear, what a pity. I wonder why we’ve had such bad luck? Perhaps the boat was going too fast?’

The man cast her a look which expressed many foul things. He sat down, hawked, spat over the side, grasped the oars in his great knotty hands and bent his back powerfully. The oars splashed, rattled in the rowlocks, and the boat darted across the lake like an arrow, the water foaming with a swoosh against the prow, eddies seething astern. He covered the quarter arrow shot that separated them from the island in less than a grunt, and the boat came up onto the pebbles with such force that Condwiramurs lurched from the bench.

The man grunted, hawked and spat. The novice knew that meant – translated into the speech of civilised people – get out of my boat, you brash witch. She also knew she could forget about being carried ashore. She took off her slippers, lifted her dress provocatively high, and disembarked. She fought back a curse as mussel shells pricked her feet.

‘Thanks,’ she said through clenched teeth, ‘for the ride.’

Neither waiting for the answering grunt nor looking back, she walked barefoot towards the stone steps. All of her discomforts and problems vanished and evaporated without a trace, expunged by her growing excitement. She was there, on the island of Inis Vitre, on Loch Blest. She was in an almost legendary place, where only a select few had ever been.

The morning mist had lifted completely and the red orb of the sun had begun to show more brightly through the dull sky. Squawking gulls circled around the tower’s battlements and swifts flashed by.

At the top of the steps leading from the beach to the terrace, leaning against a statue of a crouching, grinning chimera, was Nimue.

The Lady of the Lake.

*

She was dainty and short, measuring not much more than five feet. Condwiramurs had heard that when she was young she’d been called ‘Squirt’, and now she knew the nickname had been apt. But she was certain no one had dared call the little sorceress that for at least half a century.

‘I am Condwiramurs Tilly.’ She introduced herself with a bow, a little embarrassed as she was still holding her slippers. ‘I’m glad to be visiting your island, Lady of the Lake.’

‘Nimue,’ the diminutive sorceress corrected her. ‘Nimue, nothing more. We can skip titles and honorifics, Miss Tilly.’

‘In that case I’m Condwiramurs. Condwiramurs, nothing more.’

‘Come with me then, Condwiramurs. We shall talk over breakfast. I imagine you’re hungry.’

‘I don’t deny it.’

*

There was white curd cheese, chives, eggs, milk and wholemeal bread for breakfast, served by two very young, very quiet serving girls, who smelt of starch. Condwiramurs ate, feeling the gaze of the diminutive sorceress on her.

‘The tower,’ Nimue said slowly, observing her every movement and almost every morsel she raised to her mouth, ‘has six storeys, one of which is below ground. Your room is on the second floor above ground. You’ll find every convenience needed for living. The ground floor, as you see, is the service area. The servants’ quarters are also located here. The subterranean, first and third floors house the laboratory, library and gallery. You may enter and have unfettered access to all the floors I’ve mentioned and the rooms there. You may take advantage of them and of what they contain, when you wish and however you wish.’

‘I understand. Thank you.’

‘The uppermost two storeys contain my private chambers and my private study. Those rooms are absolutely private. In order to avoid misunderstandings: I am extremely sensitive about such things.’

‘I shall respect that.’

Nimue turned her head towards the window, through which the grunting Ferryman could be seen. He had already dealt with Condwiramurs’ luggage, and was now loading rods, reels, landing nets, scoop nets and other fishing tackle into his boat.

‘I’m a little old-fashioned,’ she continued. ‘But I’ve become accustomed to having the exclusive use of certain things. Like a toothbrush, let’s say. My private chambers, library and toilet. And the Fisher King. Do not try, please, to avail yourself of the Fisher King.’

Condwiramurs almost choked on her milk. Nimue’s face didn’t express anything.

‘And if . . .’ she continued, before the girl had regained her speech, ‘if he tries to avail himself of you, decline him.’

Condwiramurs finally swallowed and nodded quickly, refraining from any comment whatsoever. Though it was on the tip of her tongue to say she didn’t care for anglers, particularly boorish ones. With heads of dishevelled hair as white as curds.

‘Good,’ Nimue drawled. ‘That’s the introductions over and done with. Time to get down to business. Doesn’t it interest you why I chose precisely you from among all the candidates?’

If Condwiramurs pondered the answer at all, it was only so as not to appear too cocksure. She quickly concluded, though, that with Nimue, even the slightest false modesty would offend by its insincerity.

‘I’m the best dream-reader in the academy,’ she replied coolly, matter-of-factly and without boastfulness. ‘And in the third year I was second among the oneiromancers.’

‘I could have taken the number one.’ Nimue was brutal, frank. ‘Incidentally, they suggested that high-flyer somewhat insistently, as it happens, because she was apparently the important daughter of someone important. And where dream-reading and oneiromancy are concerned, you know yourself, my dear Condwiramurs, that it’s a pretty fickle gift. Fiascos can befall even the best dream-reader.’

Condwiramurs kept to herself the riposte that she could count her fiascos on the fingers of one hand. After all, she was talking to a master. Know your limits, my good sir, as one of her professors at the academy, a polymath, used to say.

Nimue praised her silence with a slight nod of her head.

‘I made some enquiries at the academy,’ she said a moment later. ‘Hence, I know that you do not boost your divination with hallucinogens. I’m pleased about that, for I don’t tolerate narcotics.’

‘I divine without any drugs,’ confirmed Condwiramurs with some pride. ‘All I need for oneiroscopy is a hook.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You know, a hook,’ the novice coughed, ‘I mean an object in some way connected to what I’m supposed to dream about. Some kind of thing or picture . . .’

‘A picture?’

‘Uh-huh. I divine pretty well from a picture.’

‘Oh,’ smiled Nimue. ‘Oh, since a painting will help, there won’t be any problem. If you’ve satisfactorily broken your fast, O first dream-reader and second-among-oneiromancers. I ought to explain to you without delay the other reasons why it was you I chose as my assistant.’

Cold emanated from the stone walls, alleviated neither by the heavy tapestries nor the darkened wood panelling. The stone floor chilled her feet through the soles of her slippers.

‘Beyond that door,’ she indicated carelessly, ‘is the laboratory. As has been said before, you may make free use of it. Caution, naturally, is advised. Moderation is particularly recommended during attempts to make brooms carry buckets of water.’

Condwiramurs giggled politely, although the joke was ancient. All the lecturers regaled their charges with jokes referring to the mythical hardships of the mythical sorcerer’s apprentice.

The stairs wound upwards like a sea serpent. And they were precipitous. Before they arrived at their destination Condwiramurs was sweating and panting hard. Nimue showed no signs of effort at all.

‘This way please.’ She opened the oak door. ‘Mind the step.’

Condwiramurs entered and gasped.

The chamber was a picture gallery. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with paintings. Hanging there were large, old, peeling and cracked oils, miniatures, yellowed prints and engravings, faded watercolours and sepias. There were also vividly coloured gouaches and temperas, clean-of-line aquatints and etchings, lithographs and contrasting mezzotints, drawing the gaze with distinctive dots of black.

Nimue stopped before the picture hanging nearest the door, portraying a group gathered beneath a great tree. She looked at the canvas, then at Condwiramurs, and her mute gaze was unusually eloquent.

‘Dandelion.’ The novice, realising at once what was expected, didn’t make her wait. ‘Singing a ballad beneath the oak Bleobheris.’

Nimue smiled and nodded, and took a step, stopping before the next painting. A watercolour. Symbolism. The silhouettes of two women on a hill. Gulls circling above them, and below a procession of shadows on the hillside.

‘Ciri and Triss Merigold, the prophetic vision in Kaer Morhen.’

A smile, a nod, a step, the next painting. A rider at gallop on a horse down an avenue of misshapen alders extending the arms of their boughs towards him. Condwiramurs felt a shudder running through her.

‘Ciri . . . Hmm . . . It’s probably her ride to meet Geralt on the farm of the halfling Hofmeier.’

The next painting, a darkened oil. A battle scene.

‘Geralt and Cahir defending the bridge on the Yaruga.’

Then things went more quickly.

‘Yennefer and Ciri, their first meeting in the Temple of Melitele. Dandelion and the dryad Eithne, in Brokilon Forest. Geralt’s company in a blizzard on the Malheur pass—’

‘Bravo, splendid,’ interrupted Nimue. ‘Excellent knowledge of the legend. Now you know the other reason it’s you that’s here and not anybody else.’

*

A large canvas portraying the Battle of Brenna overlooked the small ebony table they sat down at. It showed a key moment of the battle; that is, somebody’s vulgarly heroic death. The painting was beyond a doubt the work of Nikolai Certosa, which could be ascertained by the atmosphere, the perfect attention to detail and the lighting effects typical for that artist.

‘Indeed, I know the legend of the Witcher and the witcher girl,’ replied Condwiramurs. ‘I know it, I have no hesitation in saying, thoroughly. I loved that story when I was a young girl. I became engrossed in it. I even dreamed of being Yennefer. I’ll be frank, though, even if it was love at first sight, even if it was explosively torrid . . . my love wasn’t everlasting.’

Nimue raised her eyebrows.

‘I first became acquainted with the story,’ continued Condwiramurs, ‘in popular abridgements and versions for young people, précis cut and cleaned up ad usum delphini. Later, naturally, I studied the so-called serious and complete versions. Extensive to the point of superfluity, and at times also beyond. Then passion

was replaced by cool reflection and wild desire by something like marital duty. If you know what I mean.’

Nimue confirmed she did with a barely perceptible nod.

‘Summing up, I prefer legends that cleave more strongly to legendary convention, do not mix fables with reality, and don’t try to integrate the simple, elegant morality of the story with deeply immoral historical truth. I prefer legends to which encyclopaedists, archaeologists and historians don’t add epilogues. I prefer it when a prince climbs to the top of the Glass Mountain, kisses the sleeping princess, she wakes up and they both live happily ever after. A legend should end like that and no other way . . . Who painted that portrait of Ciri? That full-length one?’

‘There isn’t a single portrait of Ciri.’ The voice of the little sorceress was so matter-of-fact it was almost cold. ‘Not here, nor anywhere in the world. Not a single portrait has survived, not a single miniature painted by anybody who could have seen, known or even remembered Ciri. That full-length portrait shows Pavetta, Ciri’s mother, and it was painted by Ruiz Dorrit, court artist to the Cintran monarchs. It is known that Dorrit painted Ciri’s portrait at the age of nine, also full-length, but the canvas, called Infanta with a Greyhound, was lost, regrettably. Let us, though, return to the legend and your attitude to it. And to how, in your opinion, a legend ought to end.’

‘It ought to end happily,’ said Condwiramurs with conviction. ‘Good and righteousness should triumph, evil should be punished exemplarily, and love should unite the lovers until the end of their days. And none of the heroes should bloody die! And the legend of Ciri? How does that end?’

‘Precisely. How?’

Condwiramurs was struck dumb for a moment. She hadn’t expected a question like that; she sensed a test, an exam, a trap. She said nothing, not wanting to be caught out.

How does the legend of Ciri end? But everybody knows that.

She looked at a dark-hued watercolour which depicted an amorphous barge gliding over the surface of a mist-shrouded lake, a barge being plied with a long pole by a woman visible only as a black shape.

That’s exactly how the legend ends. Just like that.

Nimue read her thoughts.

‘It isn’t so certain, Condwiramurs. By no means is it certain.’

*

‘I heard the legend,’ began Nimue, ‘from the lips of a wandering storyteller. I’m a country child, the fourth daughter of the village wheelwright. The times the storyteller Pogwizd, a wandering beggar, dwelled in our village were the most beautiful moments of my childhood. One could take a break from the daily toil, see those fabulous wonders, see that far-distant world with the eyes of the soul. A beautiful and marvellous world . . . More distant and marvellous even than the market in the town nine miles away from us . . .

‘I was about six or seven then. My oldest sister was fourteen and was already twisted from stooping over her labours. A peasant woman’s lot! In our village, girls were prepared for that from childhood! To stoop! Endlessly to stoop, to stoop and bend over our work, over a child, under the weight of a swollen belly, forced on you by your man the moment you’d risen from childbed.

‘Those beggar’s tales made me begin to wish for something more than a stoop and the daily grind, to dream for something more than the harvest, a husband and children. The first book I bought from the takings of selling brambles gathered in the forest was the legend of Ciri. The cleaned-up version, as you nicely described it, for children, the précis ad ursum delphini. That version was just right for me. I was a poor reader. But already by then I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be like Philippa Eilhart, like Sheala de Tancarville, like Assire var Anahid . . .’

They both looked at a gouache depicting a castle chamber, a table and some women sitting around it, in subtle chiaroscuro. Legendary women.

‘In the academy where I was admitted – at the second attempt, actually,’ Nimue continued, ‘I only studied the myth with respect to the Great Lodge during lessons on the history of magic. At first I simply didn’t have time to read for pleasure. I had to focus, in order to . . . keep up with the darling daughters of counts and bankers to whom everything came easily, who laughed at lasses from the country . . .’

She fell silent and cracked her knuckles.

‘I finally found time for reading,’ she continued, ‘but then I realised that the vicissitudes of Geralt and Ciri entertained me much less than they had during my childhood. A similar syndrome to yours occurred. What did you call it? Marital duties? It was like that until . . .’

She fell silent and rubbed her face. Condwiramurs noticed in amazement that the hand of the Lady of the Lake was trembling.

‘I suppose I was eighteen, when . . . when something happened. Something that made the legend of Ciri live in me again. That made me begin to involve myself with it seriously, as a scholar. Made me begin to devote my life to it.’

The novice remained silent, although curiosity was raging inside her.

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ Nimue said tartly. ‘Everyone knows that the Lady of the Lake is possessed by a literally pathological obsession about the legend of Ciri. Everybody gossips about how an initially harmless fad transformed into something like an addiction to narcotics, or simply a mania. There is a good deal of truth to those rumours, my dear Condwiramurs, a good deal! And you, since I chose you as my assistant, will also descend into mania and dependency. For I shall demand it. At least for the time of your apprenticeship. Do you understand?’

The novice nodded.

‘You think you understand.’ Nimue regained control of herself and calmed down. ‘But I shall explain it to you. Gradually. And when the time comes I shall explain everything to you. For the time being—’

She broke off and looked through the window, at the lake, at the black line of the Fisher King’s boat clearly standing out from the shimmering golden surface of the water.

‘For the time being, rest. Look at the gallery. You will find in the cupboards and display cases albums and boxes of engravings, all thematically linked to the tale. In the library are all the legend’s versions and adaptations, and also most of the scholarly treatises. Devote some time to them. Have a good look, read and concentrate. I want you to have some material for your dreams. A hook, as you called it.’

‘I will. Madame Nimue?’

‘Yes.’

‘Those two portraits . . . Hanging beside each other . . . Aren’t they of Ciri either?’

‘Not a single portrait of Ciri exists,’ Nimue repeated patiently. ‘Later artists only painted her in scenes, each according to their own imagination. As far as those portraits are concerned, the one on the left is more likely a free variation on the subject, since it depicts the she-elf, Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, a person the artist couldn’t have known. For the artist is Lydia van Bredevoort, who’s certainly familiar to you from the legend. One of her surviving oils still hangs in the academy.’

‘I know. And the other portrait?’

Nimue looked long at the picture, at the image of a slender girl with fair hair and a sad expression wearing a white dress with green sleeves.

‘It was painted by Robin Anderida,’ she said, turning around and looking Condwiramurs straight in the eyes. ‘And who it portrays . . . You tell me, dream-reader and oneiromancer. Explain it. And tell me about your dream.’

*

Master Robin Anderida was the first to see the emperor approaching and bowed. Stella Congreve, Countess of Liddertal, stood up and curtseyed, gesturing to the girl seated on a carved armchair to do the same.

‘Greetings, Ladies.’ Emhyr var Emreis inclined his head. ‘Greetings to you, too, Master Robin. How goes the work?’

Master Robin coughed in embarrassment and bowed again, nervously wiping his fingers on his smock. Emhyr knew that the artist suffered from acute agoraphobia and was pathologically shy. But whose concern was that? What mattered was how well he painted.

The emperor, as was customary when he was travelling, was wearing an officer’s uniform of the Impera guards’ brigade: black armour and a cloak with an embroidered silver salamander. He walked over and looked at the portrait. First at the portrait and only afterwards at the model: a slender girl with fair hair and a wistful gaze. She was wearing a white dress with green sleeves, with a slight décolletage decorated with a peridot necklace.

‘Excellent,’ he said intentionally into space, so they wouldn’t know who he was praising. ‘Excellent, Master. Please continue, without paying attention to me. A word, if you would, Countess.’

He walked away, towards the window, making her follow him.

‘I ride,’ he said quietly. ‘State affairs. Thank you for your hospitality. And for her. For the princess. Good work, indeed, Stella. Truly deserving of praise. Both for you and her.’

Stella Congreve curtseyed low and gracefully.

‘Your Imperial Majesty is too good to us.’

‘Don’t speak too soon.’

‘Oh . . .’ She pursed her lips slightly. ‘Has it come to that?’

‘It has.’

‘What will become of her, Emhyr?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘In ten days I renew the offensive in the North. And it promises to be an exacting, a very exacting war. Vattier de Rideaux is monitoring plots and conspiracies aimed at me. Reasons of state may force on me very extreme acts.’

‘That child is not to blame for anything.’

‘I said reasons of state. Reasons of state have nothing in common with justice. In any case . . .’ He waved a hand. ‘I want to talk to her. Alone. Come closer, Princess. Closer, closer, look lively. Your emperor commands.’

The girl curtseyed low. Emhyr looked her up and down, returning in his memory to that momentous audience in Loc Grim. He was full of appreciation, nay admiration, for Stella Congreve, who in the course of the six months that had passed since that moment had managed to transform the ugly duckling into a little noblewoman.

‘Leave us,’ he commanded. ‘Take a break, Master Robin. To clean your brushes, let’s say. While I would ask you, Countess, to wait in the antechamber. And you, Princess, follow me onto the terrace.’

The wet snow which had fallen in the night was melting in the first rays of the morning sun, and the roofs of the towers and pinnacles of Darn Rowan Castle were still wet and glistened as though on fire.

Emhyr went over to the balcony’s balustrade. The girl – in keeping with protocol – hung back three paces. He gestured impatiently for her to come closer.

The emperor said nothing for a long time, resting both hands on the balustrade, staring at the hills and the evergreen yews covering them, clearly distinct from the white limestone of the rocky faults. The river glinted, a ribbon of molten silver winding through the valley.

Spring was in the air.

‘I reside here too seldom,’ said Emhyr. The girl said nothing. ‘I come here too seldom,’ he repeated, turning around. ‘And it’s a beautiful place, exuding calm. A beautiful region . . . Do you agree with me?’

‘Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.’

‘Spring is in the air. Am I right?’

‘Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.’

From below, in the courtyard, came the sound of singing disturbed by clanking, rattling and the clattering of horseshoes. The escort, informed that the emperor had ordered his departure, was hurriedly making ready for the road. Emhyr remembered that among the guardsmen was one who sang. Often. And regardless of circumstances.

Look on me graciously

With eyes of cornflower blue

Grant me mercifully

Your fondness so true

Think on me mercifully

And at this night hour

Decline me not graciously

But receive me to your bower

‘A pretty ballad,’ he said ponderously, touching his heavy, gold, imperial necklace with his fingers.

‘It is, Your Imperial Majesty.’

Vattier assures me he is on Vilgefortz’s trail. That finding him is a question of days, at most weeks. The traitors’ heads will fall, and the real Cirilla, Queen of Cintra, will be brought to Nilfgaard.

And before the authentic Cirilla, Queen of Cintra, comes to Nilfgaard, something will have to be done with her look—alike.

‘Raise your head.’

She obeyed.

‘Do you have any wishes?’ he asked, suddenly and harshly. ‘Any complaints? Requests?’

‘No, Your Imperial Highness. I do not.’

‘Indeed? Interesting. Ah well, but I can’t exactly order you to have any. Raise your head, as befits a princess. Stella has taught you manners, I trust?’

‘Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.’

Indeed, they have taught her well, he thought. First Rience, and then Stella. They’ve taught her the roles and lines well, no doubt threatening her with torture and death for a slip or mistake. They warned her she would have to perform before a cruel audience, unforgiving of errors. Before the awe—inspiring Emhyr var Emreis, Emperor of Nilfgaard.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.’

‘Your real name.’

‘Cirilla Fiona—’

‘Do not try my patience. Your name!’

‘Cirilla . . .’ The girl’s voice broke like a twig. ‘Fiona . . .’

‘That will do, by the Great Sun,’ he said between clenched teeth. ‘That will do!’

She sniffed loudly. Contrary to protocol. Her mouth trembled, but protocol did not forbid that.

‘Calm yourself,’ he commanded, but in a soft and almost gentle voice. ‘What do you fear? Are you ashamed of your own name? Are you afraid to disclose it? If I ask, it is only because I’d like to address you by your rightful name. But I have to know what it sounds like.’

‘It sounds dull,’ she answered, and her huge eyes suddenly gleamed like emeralds lit by a flame. ‘For it is a dull name, Your Imperial Majesty. A name just right for somebody who’s a nobody. As long as I am Cirilla Fiona I mean something . . . As long as . . .’

Her voice stuck in her throat so abruptly that she involuntarily brought her hands up to her neck as though what was around it was not a necklace but a garrotte. Emhyr continued to measure her with his gaze, still full of appreciation for Stella Congreve. At the same time, he felt anger. Unjustified anger. Unjustified and therefore very infuriating.

What do I want from this child? he thought, feeling the anger rising in him, seething in him, frothing up like soup in a pot. What do I want from a child, whom . . ?

‘Know that I had nothing to do with your abduction, girl,’ he said sharply. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with your kidnapping. I didn’t issue any such orders. I was deceived . . .’

He was furious with himself, aware he was making a mistake. He ought to have ended the conversation much earlier, ended it haughtily, arrogantly, menacingly, as befitted an emperor. He ought to have forgotten about this girl with the green eyes. This girl that did not exist. She was a double. An imitation. She didn’t even have a name. She was nobody. The emperor does not ask for forgiveness, does not demean himself before someone who . . .

‘Forgive me,’ he said, and the words were unfamiliar, clung unpleasantly to his lips. ‘I committed an error. Yes, it’s true, I’m guilty of what happened to you. I was at fault. But I give you my word that you are in no danger. Nothing ill will befall you. No harm, no discredit, no woe. You needn’t be afraid.’

‘I’m not.’ She raised her head and looked him straight in the eyes, contrary to protocol. Emhyr shuddered, moved by the honesty and trust of her gaze. He immediately stood erect, imperious and repellently supercilious.

‘Ask me for whatever you wish.’

She looked at him again, and he involuntarily recalled the innumerable occasions when he had so easily bought himself ease of conscience for the harm or pain he’d caused somebody. Secretly and reprehensibly pleased that he was paying so little.

‘Ask me for whatever you wish,’ he repeated, and because he was already weary his voice suddenly gained in humanity. ‘I’ll make your every wish come true.’

If only she wouldn’t look at me, he thought. I can’t bear her gaze.

Apparently people are afraid to look at me, he thought. So what then am I afraid of?

Vattier de Rideaux can shove his ‘reasons of state’. If she asks, I’ll have her taken home, where she was snatched from. I’ll order her taken there in a golden carriage and six. All she need do is ask.

‘Ask me for whatever you wish,’ he repeated.

‘Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty,’ said the girl, lowering her eyes. ‘Your Imperial Majesty is very noble and generous. If I might make a request . . .’

‘Speak.’

‘I’d like to be able to stay here. Here, in Darn Rowan. With Lady Stella.’

He wasn’t surprised. He’d sensed something like that.

Tact restrained him from asking questions that would have been humiliating for them both.

‘I gave my word,’ he said, coldly. ‘Let your wish come true.’

‘Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty.’

‘I gave my word,’ he repeated, trying hard to avoid her gaze, ‘and I shall keep it. I think, nonetheless, that you’ve made a bad choice. You gave voice to the wrong wish. Were you to change your mind . . .’

‘I shall not,’ she said, when it became clear that the emperor was not going to complete his sentence. ‘Why should I? I’ve chosen Lady Stella, I’ve chosen things I have known so little of in my life . . . A home, warmth, goodness . . . kindness. You can’t make a mistake by choosing something like that.’

Poor, naive creature, thought Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd, the White Flame Dancing on the Barrows of his Enemies. By choosing something like that one can make the most awful mistakes.

But something – perhaps a distant memory – stopped the emperor from saying it aloud.

*

‘Interesting,’ said Nimue, after listening to the account. ‘An interesting dream, indeed. Were there any others?’

‘And some!’ Condwiramurs cut off the top of her egg with a swift, sure movement of her knife. ‘My head’s still spinning from that pageant! But that’s normal. The first night always brings deranged dreams. You know, Nimue, they say about us dream-readers that our talent isn’t about being able to dream. If you pass over visions during trances or under hypnosis, our dreams don’t differ from other people’s in intensity, richness or pro-cognitive content. Something quite different distinguishes us and determines our talent. We remember the dreams. We seldom forget what we have dreamed—’

The Lady of the Lake cut her off. ‘Because your endocrine glands function in some abnormal way. Your dreams, to trivialise them somewhat, are nothing more than endorphin released into the body. Like most native, magical gifts yours is also mundanely organic. But why am I talking about something you know perfectly well yourself? Go on, what other dreams do you remember?’

‘A young lad.’ Condwiramurs frowned. ‘Wandering among desolate fields, with a bundle over his shoulder. The fields are barren, it’s spring. Willows by the roads and on the baulks. Willows, twisted, full of hollows, spreading their branches . . . Naked, not yet in leaf. The lad is walking, looking around. Night falls. Stars appear in the sky. One of them is moving. It’s a comet. A reddish, twinkling spark, cutting slantways across the horizon.’

‘Well done,’ Nimue smiled. ‘Although I have no idea who you were dreaming about, we can at least precisely determine the date of the event. The red comet was visible for six days in the spring of the year the Cintran Peace was signed. To be more precise, in the first days of March. Did any date markers appear in the other dreams?’

‘My dreams,’ snapped Condwiramurs, salting her egg, ‘are not a farmer’s calendar. They don’t have charts with dates! But, to be precise, I dreamed a dream about the Battle of Brenna, after having a good look at the canvas of Nikolai Certosa in your gallery. And the date of the Battle of Brenna is also known. It’s the same date as the year of the comet. Am I wrong?’

‘You aren’t. Was there anything special in the dream about the battle?’

‘No. A seething mass of horses, people and weapons. Soldiers were fighting and yelling. Someone, probably a bit dim, was wailing, “Eagles! Eagles!”’

‘What else? You said it was a whole pageant of dreams.’

‘I don’t remember . . .’ Condwiramurs broke off.

Nimue smiled.

‘Oh, all right.’ The novice lifted up her nose haughtily, not letting the Lady of the Lake make a spiteful remark. ‘I occasionally forget, naturally. No one’s perfect. I repeat, my dreams are visions, not library cards—’

‘I know,’ interrupted Nimue. ‘This isn’t a test of your dream-reading abilities; it’s an analysis of a legend. Of its mysteries and gaps. We’re doing pretty well, as a matter of fact. In the first dreams you already identified the girl in the portrait, Ciri’s double, with whom Vilgefortz tried to hoodwink Emperor Emhyr.’

They stopped, because the Fisher King had entered the kitchen. After bowing and grunting he took a loaf of bread, a tureen and a small, linen bundle. He went out, not forgetting to bow and grunt.

‘He’s limping badly,’ said Nimue, seemingly offhandedly. ‘He was seriously wounded. A wild boar gashed open his leg during a hunt. That’s why he spends so much time in the boat. When he’s rowing and catching fish the wound doesn’t bother him. In the boat he forgets about his disability. He’s a very decent and good man. And I . . .’

Condwiramurs remained politely silent.

‘Need a man,’ explained the small sorceress bluntly.

Me too, thought the novice. Dammit, as soon as I get back to the academy I’ll let someone take me. Celibacy is good, but for no longer than a semester.

Nimue cleared her throat.

‘If you’ve broken your fast and finished daydreaming, let’s go to the library.’

*

‘Let’s get back to your dream.’

Nimue opened a portfolio, flicked through several sepia watercolours and took one of them out. Condwiramurs recognised it at once.

‘The audience at Loc Grim?’

‘Of course. The double is being presented at the imperial court. Emhyr pretends he’s been tricked, puts a brave face on it. Here, look, the ambassadors of the Northern Kingdoms, for whom the charade is being played out. Here, in turn, we see the Nilfgaardian dukes who have suffered an affront: the emperor spurned their daughters, disregarding their dynastic proposals. Greedy for revenge, they whisper, leaning towards each other. They’re hatching a plot and a murder. The double stands with her head bowed, and the artist, to underscore the mystery, has even decorated her with a handkerchief to hide her facial features.

‘And we know nothing more about the bogus Ciri,’ continued the sorceress a moment later. ‘None of the legend’s versions tell us what became of the double afterwards.’

‘It’s safe to guess, though,’ said Condwiramurs sadly, ‘that the girl’s fate was unenviable. When Emhyr obtained the original – and we know he did, don’t we? – he got rid of the counterfeit. When I dreamed, I didn’t sense tragedy, and actually I ought to have sensed something, if . . . On the other hand, what I see in dreams is not necessarily the real truth. Like anybody, I dream dreams. Desires. Longings . . . and fears.’

‘I know.’

*

They talked until lunchtime, looking through portfolios and fascicles of prints. The Fisher King had been lucky with his catch, because there was grilled salmon for lunch. For supper too.

Condwiramurs slept badly that night. She had overeaten.

She didn’t dream anything. She was a little downhearted and embarrassed about that, but Nimue wasn’t at all concerned. We have time, she said. There are plenty of nights ahead of us.

*

The tower of Inis Vitre had several bathrooms, truly luxurious, shining with marble and glistening with brass, heated by a hypocaust located somewhere in the cellars. Condwiramurs had no problem occupying the baths for hours, but every now and again would meet Nimue in the sweathouse, a tiny wooden hut with a jetty leading out towards the lake. They would sit on benches, wet, inhaling the steam that belched from stones sprinkled with water, swishing themselves lazily with birch twigs, as salty sweat dripped into their eyes.

‘If I understood right,’ Condwiramurs wiped her face, ‘my practice here in Inis Vitre is meant to explain all the gaps in the legend of the Witcher and the witcher girl?’

‘That’s right.’

‘During the day, by looking at the prints and discussing them, I’m meant to charge myself up before sleep, in order at night to be able to dream the real, unknown version of a given event.’

This time Nimue didn’t even consider it necessary to concur. She just beat herself a few times with the whisk, stood up and splashed water on the hot stones. The steam billowed and the heat stopped their breath for a moment.

Nimue poured the rest of the water on herself from a small wooden pail. Condwiramurs admired her figure. Although petite, the sorceress was extremely well-proportioned. A woman in her twenties would have envied her curves and firm skin. Condwiramurs, for example, was twenty-four. And was envious.

‘Even if I explain anything,’ she continued, wiping her sweaty face again, ‘how will we be certain I’m dreaming the true version? I truly didn’t know—’

‘We’ll discuss that outside,’ interrupted Nimue. ‘I’ve had enough of sitting in this heat. Let’s cool off. And then we’ll talk.’

That was also part of the ritual. They ran from the sweathouse, bare feet slapping on the planks of the jetty, and then leaped into the lake, yelling wildly. After splashing around they climbed out onto the jetty, squeezing their hair.

The Fisher King, alarmed by the splashes and squeals, looked around from his boat and glanced at them, shielding his eyes with a hand. But he turned around at once and scrutinised his fishing tackle.

Condwiramurs considered behaviour like that insulting and reprehensible. Her opinion of the Fisher King had improved greatly when she noticed that he devoted the time he wasn’t angling to reading. He even took a book with him to the privy, and it was no less than Speculum Aureum, a serious and demanding work. So, even if during the first days of her stay in Inis Vitre Condwiramurs had been somewhat surprised at Nimue keeping him around, she had stopped long since. It became clear that the Fisher King was only seemingly a lout and a boor. Or it was a mask he hid behind.

All the same, thought Condwiramurs, it was an insult and unforgivable affront to turn back towards one’s rods and spinners when two naked women with bodies like nymphs, to whom one’s eyes should have been glued, were parading on a jetty.

‘If I dream something,’ she said, going back to the subject and drying herself with a towel, ‘what guarantee is there I’ve dreamed the true version? I know all the literary versions of the legend, from Dandelion’s Half a Century of Poetry to Andrei Ravix’s The Lady of the Lake. I know the Honourable Jarre; I know all the scholarly treatments, not to mention popular editions. Reading all those texts has left a mark, had an influence. I’m unable to eliminate them from my dreams. Is there any chance of breaking through the fiction and dreaming the truth?’

‘Yes, there is.’

‘How great?’

‘The same chance the Fisher King has.’ Nimue nodded towards the boat on the lake. ‘As you can see, he keeps on casting his hooks. He catches waterweed, roots, submerged tree stumps, logs, old boots, drowned corpses and the Devil knows what else. But from time to time he catches something worthwhile.’

‘So I wish us good hunting,’ sighed Condwiramurs, dressing. ‘Let’s cast the bait and fish. Let’s search for the true versions of the legend, let’s unstitch the upholstery and lining, and let’s tap the chest for a false bottom. And what will happen if there isn’t a false bottom? With all due respect, Nimue, we aren’t the first in these fishing grounds. What chance is there that any detail or particular has escaped the attention of the hordes of scholars who fished it before us? That they’ve left us even a single fish?’

‘They have,’ stated Nimue with conviction, combing out her wet hair. ‘What they didn’t know, they plastered over with confabulation and purple prose. Or drew a veil over it.’

‘For instance?’

‘The sojourn of the Witcher in Toussaint, to give the first example that comes to mind. All the versions of the legend dismiss that episode with a curt sentence, “The protagonists wintered in Toussaint.” Even Dandelion, who devoted two chapters to his exploits in that county, is astonishingly enigmatic on the subject of the Witcher. Would it not then be worth finding out what happened that winter? After the flight from Belhaven and the meeting with the elf Avallac’h in the subterranean complex of Tir ná Béa Arainne? After the skirmish in Caed Myrkvid with the druids? What did the Witcher do in Toussaint from October to January?’

‘What did he do? He wintered!’ snorted the novice. ‘He couldn’t cross the pass before the thaw, so he wintered and got bored. No wonder later authors treated that boring fragment with a laconic “The winter passed”. Well, since I must, I’ll try to dream something. Do we have any pictures or drawings?’

Nimue smiled.

‘We even have a drawing on a drawing.’

*

The cave painting depicted a hunting scene. A large, purple bison was being pursued in wild leaps by skinny human figures with bows and spears, painted with careless brushstrokes. The bison had tiger stripes and something resembling a dragonfly was hovering above its lyre-shaped horns.

‘So this,’ Regis nodded, ‘is that wall painting. Executed by the elf Avallac’h. The elf who knew a great deal.’

‘Yes,’ Geralt confirmed dryly. ‘That’s the painting.’

‘The problem is that we’ve thoroughly explored these caves, but there are no traces of any elves, or the other creatures you mentioned.’

‘They were here. Now they’ve hidden themselves. Or decamped.’

‘That’s an indisputable fact. Don’t forget, you were only given an audience after the flaminika’s intercession. It was clearly decided that one audience would suffice. Now that the flaminika has refused cooperation quite categorically, I truly know not what else you can do. We’ve been dragging ourselves through these caves all day. I can’t help feeling it’s pointless.’

‘Me too,’ the Witcher said bitterly, ‘I can’t either. I’ve never understood elves. But at least I know why most people aren’t fond of them. Because it’s difficult not to feel that they’re mocking us. The elves mock us, deride us, in everything they do, say and think. Scoff at us.’

‘It’s your anthropomorphism talking.’

‘Perhaps a little. But the impression remains.’

‘What do we do?’

‘We return to Caed Myrkvid and Cahir. The druidesses have probably patched up his scalped pate. Then we mount our horses and take advantage of Princess Anna Henrietta’s invitation. Don’t make faces, vampire. Milva has a few broken ribs, Cahir’s nut has been split open, so a little rest in Toussaint will do both of them good. We also have to untangle Dandelion from this business, because it looks like he’s well and truly caught up.’

‘Very well,’ sighed Regis. ‘Let it be. I’ll have to steer clear of looking glasses and dogs, watch out for sorcerers and telepaths . . . and if in spite of that they unmask me, I’m counting on you.’

‘You can,’ Geralt responded gravely. ‘I won’t abandon you in need. Comrade.’

The vampire smiled, and because they were alone, showed his full set of fangs.

‘Comrade?’

‘It’s my anthropomorphism talking. On we go, let’s get out of these caverns, comrade. Because all we’ll find here is rheumatism.’

‘I agree. Unless . . . Geralt? Tir ná Béa Arainne, the elven necropolis, according to what you saw, is behind the cave painting, right behind that wall. We could get there if we . . . you know. Smashed it. Haven’t you thought about that?’

‘No. I haven’t.’

*

The Fisher King had been lucky again, because there was smoked char for supper. Fish so tasty that the lesson wasn’t learned. Condwiramurs stuffed herself again.

*

Condwiramurs burped and tasted the smoked char. Time for bed, she thought, for the second time catching herself mechanically turning a page in the book without registering the content at all. Time for bed.

She yawned and put the book aside. She rearranged the pillows, changing their positions from reading to repose. She magicked the lamp off. The chamber was immediately plunged into darkness as opaque and viscous as molasses. The heavy velour curtains were tightly drawn – the novice had long known from experience that she dreamed better in the darkness. What to choose, she thought, stretching and wriggling about on the sheets. Let it run its oneiric course or try to anchor myself?

In spite of widespread assurances, dream-readers didn’t remember even half of their prophetic dreams, a significant proportion of which remained in the oneiromancers’ memory as a muddle of images, changing colour and shape like a kaleidoscope, a child’s toy of mirrors and pieces of glass. Not so bad if the images were random and without even a semblance of meaning, then one could calmly wave them aside on the basis of I can’t remember, so it’s not worth remembering. Dreams like that were called ‘crap’ by dream-readers.

Worse and slightly shameful were ‘apparitions’ – dreams of which dream-readers only remembered fragments, only snatches of meaning, dreams after which all that remained the next morning was a vague sense of a signal having been received. If an ‘apparition’ repeated itself too often one could be certain one was dealing with a dream of significant oneiric value. Then the dream-reader – through concentration and auto-suggestion – tried hard to force herself to re-dream the specific ‘apparition’ exactly. The best results occurred by making oneself re-dream it immediately on waking – which was called ‘snagging’. If the dream couldn’t be ‘snagged’ all that remained was an attempt at evoking a given dream vision during one of the next periods of sleep, by concentrating and meditating before falling asleep. That method of programming dreams was called ‘anchoring’.

After twelve nights spent on the island Condwiramurs already had three lists, three sets of dreams. There was a list of successes worth boasting about – a list of ‘apparitions’ which the dream-reader had successfully ‘snagged’ or ‘anchored’. That included the dreams about the rebellion on the Isle of Thanedd and the journey of the Witcher and his company through the blizzard on the Malheur pass, through the spring downpours and soft roads in the Sudduth valley. There was also – the novice hadn’t admitted to Nimue – a list of failures, dreams that in spite of her efforts still remained enigmas. And there was a list of works in progress – a list of dreams that were waiting for their turn.

And there was one dream, strange, but very pleasant, which kept returning in snatches and flashes, in elusive sounds and silky touches.

A nice, tender dream.

Very well, thought Condwiramurs, closing her eyes. I’m ready.

*

‘I think I know what occupied the Witcher while he wintered in Toussaint.’

‘Well, well.’ Nimue raised her eyes from above her spectacles and the leather-bound grimoire she was leafing through. ‘Have you finally dreamed something?’

‘I’ll say!’ Condwiramurs said cockily. ‘I’ve dreamed it! The Witcher Geralt and a woman with short black hair and green eyes. I don’t know who it could have been. Perhaps that duchess Dandelion writes about in his memoirs?’

‘You must have been reading inattentively.’ The sorceress cooled her novice’s enthusiasm somewhat. ‘Dandelion describes Duchess Anarietta precisely, and other sources confirm that she had – and I quote – “hair of chestnut tones, blazing like gold itself.”’

‘And so it isn’t her,’ the novice agreed. ‘My woman had black hair. Like coal itself. And the dream was . . . Hmmm . . . interesting.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘They conversed. But it wasn’t an ordinary conversation.’

‘Was there something extraordinary about it?’

‘For most of it she had her legs slung over his shoulders.’

*

‘Tell me, Geralt, do you believe in love at first sight?’

‘Do you?’

‘I do.’

‘Now I know what brought us together. The attraction of opposites.’

‘Don’t be cynical.’

‘Why not? Cynicism is meant to be proof of intelligence.’

‘Not true. Cynicism – in spite of all its pseudo-intelligent aura – is repulsively insincere. I can’t stand insincerity of any kind. Since we’re on the subject . . . Tell me, Witcher, what do you love most about me?’

‘This.’

‘You’re descending from cynicism into triviality and banality. Try again.’

‘The thing I love most about you is your mind, your intelligence and your spiritual profundities. Your independence and freedom, your—’

‘I don’t understand where all this sarcasm in you comes from . . .’

‘It wasn’t sarcasm; it was a joke.’

‘I can’t bear jokes like that. Especially not at the wrong time. Everything, my dear, has its time and a time is set for all matters under the sun. There is a time for silence and a time for speech, a time for weeping tears and a time for laughter, a time for sowing and a time for groping, I mean reaping, a time for jokes and a time for gravity . . .’

‘A time for carnal caresses and a time for refraining from them?’

‘Hey, don’t take it so literally! Accept, rather, that there’s a time for compliments. Love-making without compliments smacks of physiology and physiology is shallow. Pay me compliments.’

‘No one, from the Yaruga to the Buina, has such a gorgeous behind as you.’

‘Blast it, now for a change you’ve compared me to some barbaric little northern rivers. Passing over the various metaphors, couldn’t you have said from the Alba to the Velda? Or from the Alba to Sansretour?’

‘I’ve never seen the Alba. I try hard to avoid judgements when they aren’t backed up by hard experience.’

‘Ooh! Truly? Then I think you’ve seen and experienced enough bums – for that’s what we’re talking about – to be able to judge. Well, White Hair? How many women have you had before me? Eh? I asked you a question, Witcher! No, no, let go, hands off, you won’t wriggle out of it like that. How many women have you had before me?’

‘None. You’re my first.’

‘At last.’

*

Nimue stared for a long time at a painting depicting ten women sitting at a round table in subtle chiaroscuro.

‘Pity,’ she finally said, ‘that we don’t know what they really looked like.’

‘The Great Sorceresses?’ snorted Condwiramurs. ‘There are dozens of portraits of them! In Aretuza alone—’

‘I said really,’ interrupted Nimue. ‘I didn’t mean flattering likenesses painted on the basis of other flattering likenesses. Don’t forget there was a time when the reputations of sorceresses were maligned. As were the sorceresses themselves. And later there was the time of propaganda when the Great Sorceresses must have aroused respect, admiration and reverential fear by their very appearance. The Meetings of the Lodge, The Conspiracies and The Convents all date from that time, canvasses and engravings showing a table and around it ten magnificent, enchantingly beautiful women. And there aren’t any real, authentic portraits. Apart from two exceptions. The portrait of Margarita Laux-Antille that hangs in Aretuza on the Isle of Thanedd and which miraculously survived the fire is authentic. And the portrait of Sheala de Tancarville in Ensenada, Lan Exeter is authentic.’

‘And the portrait of Francesca Findabair painted by elves hanging in the Vengerberg gallery?’ asked Condwiramurs.

‘A forgery. When the Door was opened and the elves departed, they took away with them or destroyed every work of art, leaving not a single painting. We don’t know if the Daisy of the Valleys was really as comely as the tales have it. We have no idea at all what Ida Emean looked like. And since in Nilfgaard images of sorceresses were destroyed very diligently and thoroughly, we don’t have any idea about the true appearances of Assire var Anahid or Fringilla Vigo.’

‘Let’s suppose and agree that they all looked exactly as they were later portrayed,’ sighed Condwiramurs. ‘Dignified, imperious, good and wise, foresighted and noble. And beautiful, captivatingly beautiful . . . Let’s suppose that. Then it’s somehow easier to live.’

*

The daily activities on Inis Vitre took on the character of a somewhat tiresome routine. The analysis of Condwiramurs’ dreams, beginning at breakfast, usually dragged on all the way to midday. The novice spent the time between noon and their next meal taking walks – which also quickly became habitual and quite boring. No wonder. In the course of an hour one could go around the island twice, feasting one’s eyes all the while on such engrossing things as granite, a dwarf pine, pebbles, freshwater mussels, water and gulls.

After lunch and a long siesta followed discussions, the inspection of tomes, scrolls and manuscripts, the study of pictures, prints and maps. And long debates about the mutual inter-relationships between legend and truth extending into the night . . .

And then the nights and dreams. Various dreams. Celibacy made itself felt. At times, instead of the mysteries of the Witcher legend, Condwiramurs dreamed of the Fisher King in all sorts of situations, from extremely non-erotic to extremely erotic. In an extremely non-erotic dream The Fisher King was dragging her behind his boat on a rope. He was rowing slowly and languidly, so she was sinking, drowning, spluttering, and on top of that a terrible fear was tormenting her – she felt that something had pushed off the lake bottom and was swimming up towards her, something awful, something that wanted to swallow the bait – her – being pulled behind the boat. That something was on the point of seizing her when the Fisher King leaned more heavily on the oars, pulling her out of range of the invisible predator’s jaws. As she was dragged along she choked on water and at that moment she awoke.

In an unambiguously erotic dream she was kneeling on the bottom of the rocking boat, hanging over the side, and The Fisher King was holding her by the shoulders and fucking her exuberantly, grunting, hawking and spitting as he did so. Apart from the physical pleasure, Condwiramurs felt gut-wrenching terror – what would happen if Nimue caught them at it? She suddenly saw the face of the little sorceress rocking in the lake. . . and she awoke, soaked in sweat.

Then she got up and opened the window, luxuriated in the night air, the light of the moon and the mist rolling off the lake.

And dreamed on.

*

The tower of Inis Vitre had a terrace supported on columns, suspended over the lake. At the beginning, Condwiramurs did not pay any attention to the matter, but finally began to wonder. The terrace was strange, because it was totally inaccessible. It was impossible to get onto the terrace from any of the rooms she knew.

Aware that the abodes of sorceresses were sure to have such secret anomalies, Condwiramurs did not ask any questions. Even when – as she took a walk along the lake shore – she saw Nimue watching her from the terrace. It was inaccessible, it turned out, only to the unauthorised and the profane.

Piqued that she was thought of as profane, she dug her heels in and pretended that nothing was the matter. But it wasn’t long before the secret of the terrace was revealed.

It was after she had been visited by a series of dreams, triggered by the watercolours of Wilma Wessely. Clearly fascinated by that fragment of the legend, the artist devoted all her works to Ciri in the Tower of the Swallow.

‘I’m having strange dreams after those paintings,’ the novice complained the next morning. ‘I’m dreaming of . . . paintings. Always the same paintings. Not situations, not scenes, but paintings. Ciri on the tower’s battlements . . . An unmoving picture.’

‘And nothing else? No sensations apart from visual ones?’

Nimue knew, of course, that a dream-reader as able as Condwiramurs dreamed with all her senses – she didn’t only experience the dream with sight, like most people, but also with her hearing, touch, smell – even taste.

‘No.’ Condwiramurs shook her head. ‘Only . . .’

‘Yes, yes?’

‘A thought. A stubborn thought. That by this lake, in this tower, I’m not the mistress at all, but a captive.’

‘Follow me.’

Just as Condwiramurs had guessed, the way to the terrace was only possible through the sorceress’s private chambers, which were utterly clean, pedantically tidy, smelling of sandalwood, myrrh, lavender and naphthalene. They had to use a tiny door and a winding staircase leading downwards.

This chamber, unlike the others, didn’t have wood panelling or tapestries. It was simply painted white and was thus very bright. It was all the brighter since there was a huge triptych window, or rather a glass door, leading straight onto the terrace perched above the lake.

The only pieces of furniture in the chamber were two armchairs, an immense looking glass in an oval, mahogany frame and a kind of rack with a horizontal bar and a tapestry draped over it. The tapestry measured about five foot by seven and its tassels rested on the floor. It showed a rocky cliff over a tarn, and a castle carved into the cliff, which seemed to be part of the rock wall. A castle Condwiramurs knew well from numerous illustrations.

‘Vilgefortz’s citadel, Yennefer’s place of imprisonment. The place where the legend ended.’

‘That is so.’ Nimue nodded, apparently indifferently. ‘The legend ended there, at least in its known versions. It’s those versions we know, so we think we know the ending. Ciri fled from the Tower of the Swallow, where, as you dreamed it, she had been a prisoner. When she realised what they wanted to do to her, she escaped. The legend gives many versions of her flight—’

‘The one I like most,’ cut in Condwiramurs, ‘is the one where she threw objects behind her. A comb, an apple and a neckerchief. But—’

‘Condwiramurs.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘As I said, there are myriad versions of the escape. But it is still none too clear how Ciri reached Vilgefortz’s castle straight from the Tower of the Swallow. You couldn’t dream the Tower of the Swallow, could you? Try dreaming the castle. Examine that tapestry carefully . . . Are you listening to me?’

‘That looking glass . . . It’s magical, isn’t it?’

‘No. I squeeze my pimples in front of it.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘It’s Hartmann’s looking glass,’ explained Nimue, seeing the novice’s wrinkled nose and sullen expression. ‘Look into it, if you wish. But please be cautious.’

‘Is it true,’ asked Condwiramurs in a voice trembling with excitement, ‘that from Hartmann’s looking glass you can pass into other—’

‘Worlds? Indeed. But not at once, not without preparation, meditation, concentration and a whole host of other things. When I recommended caution I was thinking about something else.’

‘What?’

‘It works both ways. Something may also emerge from Hartmann’s looking glass.’

*

‘Know what, Nimue . . . When I look at that tapestry—’

‘Have there been dreams?’

‘Yes. But strange ones. From a bird’s eye view. I was a bird . . . I saw the castle from the outside. I couldn’t go inside. Something barred my way.’

‘Look at the tapestry,’ commanded Nimue. ‘Look at the citadel. Look at it carefully; focus your attention on every detail. Concentrate hard; etch that image deeply into your memory. I want you to get there in your dream, to go inside. It’s important for you to go inside.’

*

A truly devilish gale must have been raging outside, beyond the castle walls. The fire was roaring in the grate, quickly consuming the logs. Yennefer was delighting in the warmth. Her current prison was, admittedly, much, much warmer than the dank dungeon where she had spent the last two months, but despite her delight her teeth still chattered. She had completely lost track of time, and no one had hurried to inform her about the date, but she was certain it was December, or perhaps even January.

‘Eat, Yennefer,’ said Vilgefortz. ‘Don’t be shy, tuck in.’

The sorceress had no intention of being shy. If, though, she was coping quite slowly and awkwardly with the chicken, it was only because her barely healed fingers were still clumsy and stiff. It was hard work to hold a knife and fork in them. And she didn’t want to eat with her fingers – she wanted to show Vilgefortz and the other diners, the sorcerer’s guests, that she was stronger than they believed. She didn’t know any of them.

‘I’m truly sorry to have to inform you,’ said Vilgefortz, caressing the stem of his wine glass, ‘that Ciri, your ward, has departed this life. You only have yourself to blame, Yennefer. You and your senseless obstinacy.’

One of the guests, a short, dark-haired man, sneezed loudly, and blew his nose on a cambric handkerchief. His nose was red and swollen, and clearly completely blocked up.

‘Bless you,’ said Yennefer, not at all bothered by Vilgefortz’s portentous words. ‘Where did you catch such an awful chill, good sir? Did you stand in a draught after bathing?’

Another guest, old, huge, thin, with hideously pale eyes, suddenly cackled. The one with the cold, although his face contorted in anger, thanked the sorceress with a bow and a brief catarrhal sentence. Not brief enough for her not to detect a Nilfgaardian accent.

Vilgefortz turned his face towards her. He was no longer wearing on his head the golden scaffolding or the crystal lens in his eye socket, but he looked even more horrible than when, during the summer, she had first seen his mutilated face. His regenerated left eyeball was now functioning, but was much smaller than his right. The sight took her breath away.

‘You, Yennefer,’ he drawled, ‘no doubt think I’m lying, think I’m trying to ensnare you, trick you. To what end would I do that? I was as distressed as you at the news of Ciri’s death. What am I saying? Even more than you. After all, I had pinned very specific hopes on the maid, had made plans which were to have determined my future. Now the girl is dead, and my plans are ruined.’

‘Good.’ Yennefer, trying hard to hold the knife in her stiff fingers, was slicing a pork cutlet stuffed with plums.

‘You, though,’ continued the wizard, paying no attention to her remark, ‘are merely connected to Ciri by sentimental attachment, which consists in equal measure of regret caused by your own barrenness and a sense of guilt. Yes, yes, Yennefer, guilt! For, after all, you participated in the cross-breeding, in the animal husbandry that resulted in little Ciri’s birth. And then transferred your affection onto the fruit of a genetic experiment, an unsuccessful one, which failed anyway. Because the experimenters lacked in knowledge.’

Yennefer raised her glass to him in silence, praying it wouldn’t fall from her fingers. She was slowly coming to the conclusion that at least two of them would be stiff for a long time. Possibly permanently.

Vilgefortz snorted at her gesture.

‘Now it’s too late, it’s happened,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘But know this, Yennefer, that I possess knowledge. If I’d had the girl as well I would have made use of that knowledge. Indeed, it was bad luck for you, for I would have given you a reason for your crippled excuse of a maternal instinct. Although you’re as dry and sterile as a stone, you’d not only have had a daughter, but a granddaughter too. Or, at least, an excuse for a granddaughter.’

Yennefer snorted contemptuously, although inside she was seething with fury.

‘With the greatest regret I’m compelled to further spoil your splendid mood, my dear,’ the sorcerer said coldly. ‘Because I imagine you’ll be saddened to hear that the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, is also dead. Yes, yes, the same Witcher Geralt, with whom, as with Ciri, you were bound by an ersatz emotion, a ridiculous, foolish and sickly sweet fondness. Know, Yennefer, that our dear Witcher departed from this world in a truly ardent and spectacular fashion. In this case you don’t have to reproach yourself. You’re not to blame in the slightest for the Witcher’s death. I’m responsible for the entire fracas. Try the marinated pears, they are simply delicious.’

Cold hatred lit up Yennefer’s violet eyes. Vilgefortz burst out laughing.

‘I prefer you like this,’ he said. ‘Indeed, were it not for the dimeritium bracelet you’d reduce me to ashes. But the dimeritium is working, so you can only scorch me with your gaze.’

The man with the cold sneezed, blew his nose and coughed until tears trickled from his eyes. The tall man scrutinised the sorceress with his unpleasant, fishy gaze.

‘And where is Mr Rience?’ asked Yennefer, drawing out her words. ‘Mr Rience, who promised me so much, told me so much about what he’d do to me? Where is Mr Shirrú, who never passed up a chance to shove or kick me? Why have the guards, until quite recently boorish and brutal, begun to behave with timid respect? No, Vilgefortz, you don’t have to answer. I know. What you’ve been talking about is one big lie. Ciri escaped you and Geralt escaped you, taking the time, I expect, to give your thugs a bloody good hiding. And what now? Your plans have fallen through, turned to dust. You admitted it yourself, your dreams of power have vanished like smoke. And the sorcerers and Dijkstra are fixing your position, oh yes. Not without reason and not from mercy have you stopped torturing me and forcing me to scan for information you need. And Emperor Emhyr is tightening his net, and is no doubt very, very angry. Ess a tearth, me tiarn? A’pleine a cales, ellea?’

‘I use the Common Speech,’ said the one with the runny nose, holding her gaze. ‘And my name is Stefan Skellen. And by no means, by no means at all, have I filled my britches. Why, I still have the impression that I’m in a much better situation than you, Madam Yennefer.’

The speech tired him, he coughed hard again and blew his nose into the sodden cambric handkerchief.

Vilgefortz struck the table with his hand.

‘Enough of this game,’ he said, grotesquely swivelling his miniature eye. ‘Know this, Yennefer. You are no longer of use to me. In principle I ought to have you shoved in a sack and drowned in the lake, but I use that kind of method with the utmost reluctance. Until the time circumstances permit or compel me to make another decision, you shall remain in isolation. I warn you, however, that I shan’t allow you to cause me problems. If you decide to go on hunger strike again, know this, that I shall not – as I did in October – waste time feeding you through a straw. I shall simply let you starve to death. And in the case of escape attempts the guards’ orders are explicit. And now, farewell. If, naturally, you have satisfied your—’

‘No.’ Yennefer stood up and hurled her napkin down onto the table. ‘Perhaps I would’ve eaten something more, but the company spoils my appetite. Farewell, gentlemen.’

Stefan Skellen sneezed and coughed hard. The pale-eyed man measured her with an evil look and smiled hideously. Vilgefortz looked to one side.

As usual when she was led to or from the prison, Yennefer tried to work out where she was, obtain even a scrap of information that might help her to plan her escape. And each time she met with disappointment. The castle didn’t have any windows through which she could see the surrounding terrain, or even the sun to try to orient herself. Telepathy was impossible, and the two heavy dimeritium bracelets on her arms and the collar around her neck effectively prevented all attempts at magic.

The chamber in which she was being held was as cold and austere as a hermit’s cell. Nonetheless, Yennefer recalled the joyous day when she was transferred there from the dungeon. From the dungeon, on whose floor stood a permanent puddle of stinking water and on whose walls efflorescence and salting erupted. From the dungeon where she’d been fed on scraps that the rats easily tore from her lacerated fingers. When after around two months she had been unshackled and dragged out of there, allowed to bathe and change, Yennefer had been beside herself with happiness. The small room to which she had been transferred seemed like a royal boudoir to her, and the thin gruel they brought her like bird’s nest soup, fit for the imperial table. Naturally, after some time, however, the gruel turned out to be dishwater, her hard pallet a hard pallet and the prison a prison. A cold, cramped prison, where after four paces you reached the wall.

Yennefer swore, sighed, and sat down on the scissor chair which was the only furniture she could use apart from the pallet. He entered so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

‘The name’s Bonhart,’ he said. ‘I’d advise you to remember that name, witch. Imprint it deeply in your memory.’

‘Go fuck yourself, you swine.’

‘I’m a man hunter.’ He ground his teeth. ‘Yes, yes, listen carefully, witch. In September, three months ago, I hunted down your little brat in Ebbing. That Ciri of yours, about whom so much is said.’

Yennefer listened attentively. September. Ebbing. Caught her. But she isn’t here. Perhaps he’s lying?

‘An ashen-haired witcher girl, schooled at Kaer Morhen. I ordered her to fight in the arena, to kill people to the screams of the public. Slowly, slowly, I transformed her into a beast. I prepared her for that role with whip, fist and boot heel. The training process was lengthy. But she escaped from me, the green-eyed viper.’

Yennefer gasped imperceptibly.

‘She escaped into the beyond. But we shall meet again. I’m certain that we shall meet again one day. Yes, witch. And if I regret anything it’s only that they roasted your witcher lover, Geralt, in the fire. I’d have loved to let him taste my blade, the accursed freak.’

Yennefer snorted.

‘Well, listen, Bonhart, or whatever your name is. Don’t make me laugh. You’re no match for the Witcher. You can’t compare yourself to him. In any way. You are, as you admitted, a dogcatcher. But only good for little curs. For very little curs.’

‘Look here then, witch.’

He tore open his jerkin and shirt and took out three silver medallions, tangling up their chains. One was shaped like a cat’s head, the next an eagle or a gryphon. She couldn’t see the third one well, but it was probably a wolf.

‘Country fairs,’ she snorted again, feigning indifference, ‘are full of stuff like that.’

‘They aren’t from a fair.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘Once upon a time,’ Bonhart hissed, ‘decent people feared witchers more than monsters. Monsters, after all, hid in forests and the undergrowth, while witchers had the audacity to hang around temples, chanceries, schools and playgrounds. Decent people rightly considered that a scandal. So they looked for somebody to bring the impudent witchers to order. And they found someone. Not easily, not quickly, not nearby, but they did. As you can see I’ve bagged three. No more freaks have appeared in the area or annoyed decent citizens by their presence. And were one to appear, I’d do away with him just like I did with the previous ones.’

‘In your dreams?’ Yennefer’s face became contorted. ‘With a crossbow, from hiding? Or perhaps with a draught of poison?’

Bonhart put the medallions back under his shirt and took two paces towards her.

‘You vex me, witch.’

‘That was my intention.’

‘Oh, yes? I’ll soon show you, bitch, that I can compete with your witcher lover in any way. Why, that I’m even better than him.’

*

The guards standing outside the door started at the thudding, banging, crashing, howling and wailing. And if the guards had ever happened to hear before the yelling of a panther caught in a trap, they would have sworn there was a panther in the cell.

Then a dreadful roar reached their ears. It was the exact sound of a wounded lion. Although the guards actually hadn’t ever heard that, either, only seen one on coats of arms. They looked at each other. They nodded to each other. Then they rushed inside.

Yennefer was sitting in the corner of the chamber among the remains of her pallet. Her hair was dishevelled, her dress and blouse were torn from top to bottom, and her small breasts were rising in the rhythm of heavy breathing. Blood dripped from her nose, her face was quickly swelling, and welts from fingernails were also growing on her right arm.

Bonhart was sitting on the other side of the chamber amongst pieces of a stool, holding his crotch in both hands. Blood was dripping from his nose too, staining his grey whiskers a deep carmine. His face was criss-crossed with bloody scratch marks. Yennefer’s barely healed fingers were a poor weapon, but the padlocks on the dimeritium bracelets had splendidly sharp edges.

Both tines of the fork that Yennefer had swiped from the table during supper were rammed deep and evenly into the bone of Bonhart’s swelling cheek.

‘Only little curs, you dogcatcher,’ gasped the sorceress, trying to cover up her breasts with the remains of her dress. ‘And stay away from bitches. You’re too weak for them, pipsqueak.’

She couldn’t forgive herself for not striking where she had aimed –his eye. But why, the target was moving, and besides, nobody’s perfect.

Bonhart roared, stood up, pulled out the fork, howled and staggered from the pain. He swore hideously.

Meanwhile, two more guards looked inside the cell.

‘Hey, you!’ roared Bonhart, wiping blood from his face. ‘In here! Drag that harlot into the middle of the floor, spread-eagle her and hold her down.’

The guards looked at each other. Then at the floor. And then at the ceiling.

‘You’d better be going, sir,’ said one. ‘There won’t be any spread-eaglin’ or holdin’ here. It’s not among our duties.’

‘And apart on that,’ muttered the other, ‘we don’t mean to end up like Rience or Schirrú.’

*

Condwiramurs put aside the painted board, which depicted a prison cell. And, in the cell, a woman sitting with head bowed, manacled to the stone wall.

‘They imprisoned her,’ she murmured. ‘And the Witcher was taking his pleasure in Toussaint with some brunette.’

‘Do you condemn him?’ Nimue asked severely. ‘Knowing practically nothing?’

‘No. I don’t condemn him, but—’

‘There are no “buts”. Be quiet, please.’

They sat in silence for some time, leafing through engravings and watercolours.

‘All the versions of the legend—’ Condwiramurs pointed to one of the engravings ‘—give Rhys-Rhun castle as the place of the ending, the finale, the conclusive battle between Good and Evil. Armageddon. All of the versions. Aside from one.’

‘Aside from one,’ nodded Nimue. ‘Aside from an anonymous, not very popular version, known as the Black Book of Ellander.’

‘The Black Book states that the ending of the legend played out in Stygga citadel.’

‘Indeed. And the Book of Ellander presents matters that describe the legend in a way that differs significantly from the canon.’

‘I wonder—’ Condwiramurs raised her head ‘—which of those castles is portrayed in the illustrations? Which one is shown on your tapestry? Which likeness is true?’

‘We shall never know. The castle that witnessed the ending of the legend doesn’t exist. It was destroyed. Not a trace of it remains. All the versions agree on that, even the one given by the Book of Ellander. None of the locations given in the sources is convincing. We do not know and shall not know what that castle looked like and where it stood.’

‘But the truth—’

‘But the truth means nothing whatsoever,’ Nimue interrupted sharply. ‘Don’t forget, we don’t know what Ciri really looked like. But look at this figure here, on this piece of parchment drawn on by Wilma Wessely, in a heated conversation with the elf, Avallac’h, against a background of figurines of macabre children. It’s her. Ciri. There isn’t any doubt about it.’

‘But,’ Condwiramurs soldiered on pugnaciously, ‘your tapestry—’

‘Depicts the castle where the legend’s climax was played out.’

There was a long silence. The sheets of parchment rustled as they were turned over.

‘I don’t like the version of the legend from the Black Book,’ Condwiramurs began again. ‘It’s . . . It’s—’

‘Brutally authentic.’ Nimue finished her novice’s sentence, nodding.

*

Condwiramurs yawned, put down an edition of Half a Century of Poetry with an afterword by Professor Everett Denhoff Jr. She plumped up her pillow, changing the arrangement for reading to one suitable for sleeping. She yawned, stretched and blew out the lamp. The chamber was plunged into darkness, lit only by needles of moonlight squeezing through chinks in the curtains. What should I choose tonight? wondered the novice, wriggling on the sheets. Take pot luck? Or anchor myself?

After a brief moment she decided on the latter.

It was a vague, repeating dream that she couldn’t see through to the end. It evaporated, vanished among other dreams, like a thread of the weft vanishes and gets lost among the pattern of a coloured fabric. A dream that vanished from her memory, but which in spite of that stubbornly remained in it.

She fell asleep immediately, the dream engulfing her at once. As soon as she closed her eyes.

A night sky, cloudless, bright from the moon and the stars. Hills, and on their slopes vineyards dusted with snow. The black, angular outline of a building: a wall with battlements, a keep, a lonely corner watchtower.

Two horsemen. The two of them ride beyond the outer wall, they dismount, they both enter the portal. But only one of them enters the opening to a dungeon gaping in the floor.

The one with utterly white hair.

Condwiramurs moaned in her sleep, tossing around on her bed.

The white-haired man descends the stairs, deep, deep into the cellar. He walks along dark corridors, from time to time illuminating them by lighting brands held in cast-iron cressets. The glow from the torches casts ghastly shadows on the walls and vaulting.

Corridors, stairs, and again corridors. A dungeon, a huge crypt, barrels by the walls. Piles of rubble, heaps of bricks. Then a corridor which forks into two. Darkness both ways. The white-haired man lights another torch. He unsheathes the sword on his back. He hesitates, not knowing which fork to take. He finally decides on the one to the right. It’s very dark, winding and full of rubble. Condwiramurs groans in her sleep. Fear grips her. She knows that the way chosen by the white-haired man leads towards danger.

She knows at the same time that the white-haired man seeks danger.

For it is his profession.

The novice thrashes around in the sheets, moaning. She’s a dream-reader, she’s dreaming, she’s in an oneiric trance, she suddenly knows what is about to happen. Beware! She wants to scream, though she knows she’s unable to. Look out, behind you!

Beware, Witcher!

The monster attacked from the darkness, from an ambush, silently and horrendously. It suddenly materialised in the darkness like a flame flaring up. Like a tongue of flame.

No matter how much he hurried, urged, fumed and stormed, the Witcher remained in Toussaint almost the whole winter. What were the reasons? I shall not write about them. It is all over. There is no point dwelling on it. Anyone who would condemn the Witcher I would remind that love has many names and not to judge less they themselves are judged.

Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

CHAPTER THREE

The monster attacked from the darkness, from an ambush, silently and horrendously. It suddenly materialised in the darkness like an exploding flame flaring up. Like a tongue of flame.

Geralt, though taken by surprise, reacted instinctively. He dodged, brushing the dungeon wall. The beast flew past, rebounded off the dirt floor like a ball, flailed its wings and leaped again, hissing and opening its awful beak. But this time the Witcher was ready.

He jabbed from the elbow, aiming at the crop beneath the crimson dewlap, which was large, twice as big as a turkey’s. He found the target, and felt his blade slice the body open. The blow’s force knocked the beast to the ground, against the wall. The skoffin screamed, and it was almost a human scream. It thrashed around among broken bricks, writhed and fluttered its wings, splashing blood and lashing its whip-like tail around. The Witcher was certain the battle was over, but the monster surprised him unpleasantly. It unexpectedly lunged for his throat, croaking horribly, talons outstretched and beak snapping. Geralt dodged, pushed off from the wall with his shoulder and smote with great force from below, taking advantage of the momentum he’d generated. The wounded skoffin tumbled among the bricks again, and stinking gore splashed on the dungeon wall, describing fanciful patterns. Wounded, the monster stopped thrashing around and was only trembling, croaking, extending its long neck, swelling its crop and shaking its dewlap. Blood flowed swiftly between the bricks it lay on.

Geralt could easily have finished it off, but didn’t want to damage its hide too much. He waited calmly for the skoffin to bleed to death. He moved a few steps away, turned around to the wall, undid his trousers and pissed, whistling a sad song. The skoffin stopped croaking, lay still and went quiet. The Witcher moved closer and poked it gently with the point of his sword. Seeing it was done, he seized the monster by the tail and picked it up. He held it by the base of its tail at hip height. The skoffin’s vulture-like beak reached the floor and its wingspan measured more than four feet.

‘You’re light, kurolishek.’ Geralt shook the beast, which indeed didn’t weigh much more than a well-fattened turkey. ‘You’re light. Luckily they’re paying me by the piece, not the pound.’

*

‘It’s the first time,’ Reynart de Bois-Fresnes whistled softly through his teeth, which, as Geralt knew, he did to express the highest admiration. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it. An absolute oddity, by my troth, an oddity to end all oddities. Does that mean it’s the infamous basilisk?’

‘No.’ Geralt raised the monster higher so the knight could examine it better. ‘It isn’t a basilisk. It’s a kurolishek.’

‘Is there a difference?’

‘A crucial one. A basilisk, also known as a regulus, is a reptile; but a kurolishek, also known as a skoffin or cockatrice, is neither a reptile nor a bird. It’s the only member of an order that scholars called ornithoreptiles, for after lengthy debate they found—’

‘And which one,’ interrupted Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, clearly uninterested in the scholars’ motives, ‘can kill or petrify with a look?’

‘Neither of them. That’s fiction.’

‘Why do people fear them both so much then? This one here isn’t all that big. Can it really be dangerous?’

‘This one here—’ the Witcher shook his quarry ‘—usually attacks from the rear and aims unerringly between the vertebrae or below the left kidney, at the aorta. One blow of its beak usually suffices. And as regards the basilisk it doesn’t matter where it strikes. Its venom is the most powerful known neurotoxin. It kills in a few seconds.’

‘Ugh . . . And which one, do tell, can be despatched with the help of a looking glass?’

‘Either of them. If you whack it over the head.’

Reynart de Bois-Fresnes chortled. Geralt didn’t laugh. The joke about the basilisk and the looking glass had stopped amusing him in Kaer Morhen, for the teachers had flogged it to death. The jokes about virgins and unicorns were just as unamusing. The record for idiocy and primitivism was achieved in Kaer Morhen by the numerous versions of the joke about the she-dragon the young witcher shook hands with for a bet.

He smiled. At the memories.

‘I prefer you when you smile,’ said Reynart, scrutinising him very closely. ‘I prefer you much more, a hundredfold more like you are now. Compared to how you were back then in October, after that scrap in the Druids’ Forest when we were riding to Beauclair. Back then, let me tell you, you were sullen, embittered and as sour as a usurer who’s been swindled, and as irritable as a man who hasn’t had any luck the whole night. Or even in the morning.’

‘Was I really like that?’

‘Really. Don’t be surprised that I prefer you the way you are now. Changed.’

‘Occupational therapy.’ Geralt shook the kurolishek he was holding by the tail. ‘The salutary influence of professional activity on the psyche. And so, to continue my cure, let’s get down to business. There’s a chance of making a little more money on the skoffin than the fee agreed for its killing. It’s almost undamaged. If you have a customer for a whole one, to be stuffed or prepared, don’t take less than two hundred. If you have to flog it in portions, remember that the most valuable feathers are from just above the rump, specifically, those ones, the central tail feathers. You can sharpen them much thinner than goose feathers, they write more prettily and cleanly, and are harder-wearing. A scribe who knows his stuff won’t hesitate to give five apiece.’

‘I have customers wanting to stuff a corpse,’ smiled the knight. ‘The coopers’ guild. They saw that vile creature stuffed in Castel Ravello. You know, that giant water flea, or whatever it’s called . . . You know the one. The one they clubbed to death in the dungeons under the ruins of the old castle the day after Samhain . . .’

‘I remember.’

‘Well, so the coopers saw the stuffed beast and asked me for something equally rarefied to decorate their guild chambers. The kurolishek will be just right. The coopers in Toussaint, as you can guess, are a guild who can’t complain of a shortage of orders and thanks to that are wealthy. They’re bound to give two hundred and twenty. Perhaps even more, I’ll try to haggle. And as far as the feathers are concerned . . . The barrel bodgers won’t notice if we pull a few pieces from the kurolishek’s arse and sell them to the ducal chancery. The chancery doesn’t pay out of its own pocket, but from the ducal coffers, so they’ll pay not five but ten for a feather without a quibble.’

‘I take my hat off to your shrewdness.’

‘Nomen est omen.’ Reynart de Bois-Fresnes grinned more broadly. ‘Mamma must have sensed something, christening me with the name of the sly fox from the well-known cycle of fables.’

‘You ought to have been a merchant, not a knight.’

‘I ought,’ agreed the knight. ‘But, well, if you’re born the son of a noble lord, you’ll live a noble lord and die a noble lord, having first begat further, ho, ho, noble lords. You won’t change anything, no matter what. Anyway, you reckon up pretty decently, Geralt, but you don’t make a living from merchandising.’

‘I don’t. For similar reasons to you. But with the single difference that I won’t begat anything. Let’s get out of these dungeons.’

Outside, at the foot of the castle walls, they were enfolded by the cold and wind from the hills. The night was bright, the sky cloudless and starry. The moonlight sparkled on the swathes of fresh, white snow lying on the vineyards.

Their tethered horses greeted them with snorts.

‘We ought to meet the customer at once and collect the money,’ said Reynart, looking meaningfully at the Witcher. ‘But you are surely hurrying back to Beauclair, what? To a certain bedchamber?’

Geralt did not reply, as he didn’t answer questions like that on principle. He hauled the kurolishek’s remains onto the pack horse and then mounted Roach.

‘Let’s meet the customer,’ he decided, turning back in the saddle. ‘The night is young, and I’m hungry. And I fancy a drink. Let’s ride to town. To The Pheasantry.’

Reynart de Bois-Fresnes laughed, adjusted a shield with a red and gold chequerboard pattern hanging from the pommel, and climbed up into the high saddle.

‘As you wish, my good fellow. The Pheasantry it is. Yah, Bucephalus!’

They went at a walk down the snow-covered hillside towards the highway, which was clearly marked by a sparse avenue of poplars.

‘You know what, Reynart,’ Geralt suddenly said. ‘I also prefer you as you are now. Talking normally. Back in October you were using infuriating, moronic mannerisms.’

‘’Pon my word, Witcher, I’m a knight errant,’ chortled Reynart de Bois-Fresnes. ‘Have you forgotten? Knights always talk like morons. It’s a kind of sign, like this shield here. You can recognise the fraternity, like by the arms on the shield.’

*

‘’Pon my word,’ said the Chequered Knight, ‘you needlessly bother yourself, Sir Geralt. Your beloved is surely hale, for she has doubtless utterly forgotten about her infirmity. The duchess retains excellent court medics, fully capable of curing any malaise. ’Pon my word, there’s no need to distress yourself.’

‘I’m of the same opinion,’ said Regis. ‘Cheer up, Geralt. After all the druidesses treated Milva too—’

‘And druidesses are expert healers,’ interjected Cahir, ‘the best proof of which is my very own noggin which was cut open by a miner’s axe, and which is now, take a look, almost good as new. Milva is sure to be well too. There’s no need to worry.’

‘Let’s hope.’

‘She’s hale, your Milva, and hearty,’ repeated the knight. ‘I’ll wager she’s already cavorting at wedding balls! Cutting a caper. Feasting! In Beauclair, at the court of Duchess Anarietta, balls alternate with banquets. Ha, ’pon my word, now that I’ve fulfilled my vows, I also—’

‘You’ve fulfilled your vows?’

‘Fortune shone on me! For you ought to know that I made my vows, and not just any vows, but on a flying crane. In the spring. I vowed to fell fifteen marauders before Yule. I was lucky; I’m now free of my vows. Now I can drink and eat beef. Aha, I don’t have to conceal my name. I am, if you will, Reynart de Bois-Fresnes.’

‘It’s our pleasure.’

‘Regarding those balls,’ said Angoulême, urging her horse on to catch up with them. ‘I hope platter and goblet won’t pass us by either? And I’d also love to shake a leg!’

‘’Pon my word, there’ll be everything at Beauclair,’ Reynart de Bois-Fresnes assured them. ‘Balls, feasts, banquets, revels and poetry evenings. You’re friends of Dandelion’s, for heaven’s sake . . . Of Viscount Julian’s, I meant to say. And the Lady Duchess is most fond of the latter.’

‘I’ll say! He was bragging about it,’ said Angoulême. ‘What was the truth about that love? Do you know the story, sir knight? Do tell!’

‘Angoulême,’ said the Witcher, ‘do you have to know?’

‘I don’t. But I want to! Don’t whinge, Geralt. And stop being sullen, for at the sight of your mush, roadside mushrooms pickle. And you, sir knight, say on.’

Other knights errant riding at the head of the procession were singing a knightly refrain with a repeating chorus. The words of the song were quite unbelievably foolish.

‘It occurred these six summers past,’ began the knight. ‘The poet tarried with us all winter and spring, he played his lute, sang romances and declaimed poetry. Duke Raymund was actually staying in Cintra, at a council. He didn’t hurry home, it was no secret he had a paramour in Cintra. And the Duchess and Lord Dandelion . . . Ha, Beauclair is strange indeed and spellbinding, full of amatory enchantment . . . You shall see for yourselves. As the Duchess and Lord Dandelion learned then. They noticed not, from verse to verse, from word to word, from compliment to compliment, posies, glances, sighs . . . To put it briefly: both came to an intimate understanding.’

‘How intimate?’ chortled Angoulême.

‘One was not an eye witness,’ said the knight coolly. ‘And it is not seemly to repeat rumours. Besides, as my good lady undoubtedly knows, love has many faces, and it is a most relative thing how intimate was the understanding.’

Cahir snorted softly. Angoulême had nothing to add.

‘The Duchess and Lord Dandelion,’ continued Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, ‘trysted in secret some two months from Belleteyn to the summer Solstice. But they disregarded caution. News got out, evil rumours began to spread. Lord Dandelion, without hesitating, mounted his horse and rode away. He acted prudently, as it turned out. For as soon as Duke Raymund returned from Cintra, an accommodating serving lad informed him of everything. As soon as the duke found out what an insult he had suffered and how he had been cuckolded, he was seized by yellow bile, as you may imagine. He overturned a tureen of broth on the table, cleft the informer lad with a hatchet, and uttered scabrous words. He then punched the marshal’s face and smashed a great Koviran looking glass before witnesses. Then he imprisoned the duchess in her chambers and, having threatened her with torture, extracted everything from her. At which point he sent after Lord Dandelion, ordered him put to death without clemency and his heart torn from his breast. For, having read something similar in an ancient ballad, he meant to fry his heart and force Duchess Anarietta to eat it in front of the entire court. Uurgh, what an abomination! Luckily, Lord Dandelion managed to flee.’

‘Indeed. And the duke died?’

‘He did. The incident, as I said, caused him great ill humour. His blood became so heated from it that apoplexy and palsy seized him. He lay like a plank for nigh on a year. But recovered. Even began to walk. Only he winked one eye, ceaselessly, like this.’

The knight turned around in the saddle, squinted his eye and screwed up his face like a monkey.

‘Although the duke had always been an incurable fornicator and stallion,’ he continued a moment later, ‘that winking made him even more pericolosus in love-making, for every dame thought he was winking at her out of fondness and giving her amorous signs. And dames are most covetous of such homage. I in no way impute that they are all wanton and dissolute, by no means, but the duke, as I said, winked much, almost endlessly, so on the whole he got what was coming to him. His cup ran over in his frolics and one night he was struck again by the apoplexy. He gave up the ghost. In his bedchamber.’

‘Atop a dame?’ guffawed Angoulême.

‘In truth . . .’ The knight, until then deadly serious, smiled under his whiskers. ‘In truth beneath one. The details are unimportant.’

‘Verily,’ nodded Cahir seriously. ‘Duke Raymund wasn’t greatly mourned, was he? During the tale I had the impression—’

‘That you were fonder of the inconstant wife than the betrayed husband,’ the vampire interrupted in mid-sentence. ‘Perhaps for the reason that she now reigns?’

‘That is one reason,’ replied Reynart de Bois-Fresnes disarmingly frankly. ‘But not the only one. For Duke Raymund, may the earth lie lightly on him, was such a good-for-nothing rogue and, excuse my language, whoreson, that he would have given the very Devil stomach ulcers in half a year. And he reigned for seven years in Toussaint. While everyone adored and adores Duchess Anarietta.’

‘May I then venture,’ said the Witcher tartly, ‘that Duke Raymund didn’t leave many inconsolable friends who were ready to waylay Dandelion with daggers?’

‘You may.’ The knight glanced at him and his eyes were quick and intelligent. ‘And, ’pon my word, you won’t be wide of the mark. I said, did I not? Lady Anarietta dotes on the poet and everyone here would walk through fire for Lady Anarietta.’

The good knight returned

To find he’d been spurned

His love had not tarried

But swiftly been married

A chevalier’s woe!

With a hey, nonny, no!

Crows, disturbed by the knights’ singing, took flight, cawing, from the roadside thicket.

They soon rode out of the trees straight into a valley among hills on which the white towers of small castles were framed strikingly against the sky, which was coloured with dark blue streaks. Wherever they looked the gentle hillsides were covered with neat avenues of evenly trimmed bushes like columns of soldiers. The ground was carpeted with red and gold leaves.

‘What is it?’ asked Angoulême. ‘Vines?’

‘Grapevines, yes,’ said Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, ‘They’re the famed valleys of Sansretour. The finest wines of the world are pressed from the grapes that mellow here.’

‘’Tis true,’ agreed Regis, who as usual was an expert on everything. ‘The crux is the volcanic earth and the microclimate here which ensures every year a simply ideal combination of sunny and rainy days. If we add traditions, expertise and the utmost care of the vinedressers, it yields a result in the form of a product of the highest class and distinction.’

‘Well said,’ the knight smiled. ‘Distinction indeed. Look over there, say, at the hillside below that castle. Here the castle gives the distinction to the vineyard and the cellars deep beneath it. That one is called Castel Ravello, and from its vineyards come such wines as Erveluce, Fiorano, Pomino and the celebrated Est Est. You must have heard of it. One pays the same for a keg of Est Est as for ten kegs of wine from Cidaris or the Nilfgaardian vineyards by the Alba. And there, look, as far as the eyes can see, other castles and other vineyards, and the names are surely no strangers to you either. Vermentino, Toricella, Casteldaccia, Tufo, Sancerre, Nuragus, Coronata, and finally Corvo Bianco – Gwyn Cerbin in the elven tongue. I trust the names are familiar to you?’

‘They are, ugh.’ Angoulême contorted her face. ‘Particularly by learning the hard way to check if some rascal of an innkeeper hadn’t poured us one of those famous wines by chance instead of the usual cider, because then you might have to leave your horse with him, so costly Castel or Est Est. Yuck. I don’t understand, it might be quality gear to those great lords, but we, ordinary folk, can get plastered just as well on the cheap stuff. And I’ll tell you this, because I’ve experienced it: you puke after Est Est just the same as you do after scrumpy.’

*

‘Caring not for Angoulême’s vulgar October jests,’ Reynart leaned back from the table, his belt loosened, ‘today we drink a fine label and a fine vintage, Witcher. We can afford it, we’ve made some money. We can revel.’

‘That’s right,’ Geralt beckoned to the innkeeper. ‘After all, as Dandelion says, perhaps there are other motivations for earning money, but I just don’t know any. So let’s eat whatever’s behind those appetising smells wafting from the kitchen. Incidentally, it’s extremely crowded in The Pheasantry today, though the hour’s quite late.’

‘Why, it’s Yuletide Eve,’ explained the innkeeper, overhearing him. ‘Folk are wassailing. Making merry. Telling fortunes. As tradition demands, and tradition here—’

‘I know,’ interrupted the Witcher. ‘And what did tradition demand from the kitchen today?’

‘Cold tongue with horseradish. Capon broth with brain meatballs. Beef roulade served with dumplings and cabbage . . .’

‘Keep it coming, good fellow. And to accompany it . . . What should we drink with it, Reynart?’

‘If it’s beef,’ said the knight after a moment’s thought, ‘then red Côte-de-Blessure. And the vintage? It was the year old Duchess Caroberta turned up her toes.’

‘That’s the year,’ the innkeeper nodded. ‘At your service, sire.’

A mistletoe wreath, clumsily thrown behind her by a wench from the next table, almost fell into Geralt’s lap. The wench’s companions whooped with laughter. And she blushed prettily.

‘You’re out of luck!’ The knight picked up the wreath and threw it back. ‘He won’t be your future husband. He’s spoken for, noble maiden. He’s already been ensnared by a pair of green orbs—‘

‘Be quiet, Reynart.’

The innkeeper brought the order. They ate and drank in silence, listening to the revellers’ merriment.

‘Yule,’ said Geralt, putting down his cup. ‘Midinvaerne. The winter solstice. I’ve been hanging around here for two months. Two wasted months!’

‘One month,’ Reynart corrected him coolly and soberly. ‘If you’ve lost anything, it’s but a month. Then the snows covered up the mountain passes and you couldn’t have left Toussaint, no matter what. You’ve waited until Yule, so you’ll surely wait till spring too. It’s force majeure, thus your grief and sorrow are in vain. While as far as your sorrow goes, don’t overdo the pretence. For I don’t believe you regret it that much.’

‘Oh, what do you know, Reynart? What do you know?’

‘Not much,’ agreed the knight, pouring the wine. ‘Not much more than what I see. And I saw your first encounter; yours and hers. In Beauclair. Do you remember the Feast of the Vat? The white knickers?’

Geralt did not reply. He remembered.

‘A charming place, Beauclair Palace, full of amatory enchantment,’ muttered Reynart, savouring the wine’s bouquet. ‘The very sight is bewitching. I recall how you were all dumbstruck when you saw it in October. What was the expression Cahir used then? Let me think.’

*

‘An elegant little castle,’ Cahir said in admiration. ‘Well I’ll be, an elegant and pleasing little castle, indeed.’

‘The duchess lives well,’ said the vampire. ‘You have to admit it.’

‘Fucking nice gaff,’ added Angoulême.

‘Beauclair Palace,’ repeated Reynart de Bois-Fresnes proudly. ‘An elven edifice, only slightly modified. Allegedly by Faramond himself.’

‘Not allegedly,’ objected Regis. ‘Beyond any doubt. Faramond’s style is apparent at first glance. It suffices to look at those small towers.’

The slender white obelisks of the red-roofed towers referred to by the vampire soared into the sky, rising up from the castle’s delicate construction which grew wider towards the ground. The sight evoked the image of candles with festoons of wax flowing over the intricately carved base of a candlestick.

‘The town spreads out at the foot of Beauclair,’ explained Sir Reynart. ‘The walls, naturally, were added later. After all, as you know, elves don’t wall their towns. Spur on your horses, noble comrades. We have a long road ahead of us. Beauclair only seems close, but the mountains distort perspective.’

‘Let us ride on.’

They rode swiftly, overtaking wanderers and goliards, wagons and carts loaded with dark, seemingly mouldy grapes. Then there were the town’s busy narrow streets, smelling of fermenting grape juice, then a gloomy park full of poplars, yews, barberries and boxwood. Then there were rose beds, mainly containing multiflora and centifolia. And further still there were the carved columns, portals and archivolts of the palace, liveried servants and flunkeys.

The man who greeted them was Dandelion, coiffured and arrayed like a prince.

*

‘Where’s Milva?’

‘She’s well, don’t worry. You’ll find her in the chambers that have been prepared for you. She doesn’t want to leave them.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’ll find out later. Now follow me. The duchess awaits.’

‘In our travelling things?’

‘Such were her wishes.’

The hall they entered was full of people, dressed as colourfully as birds of paradise. Geralt did not have time to look around. Dandelion shoved him towards a marble staircase, beside which were two women who stood out from the crowd, being assisted by pages and courtiers.

It was quiet, but it became even quieter.

The first woman had a pointed, turned-up nose, and her blue eyes were piercing and seemed a little feverish. Her chestnut hair was pinned up into an elaborately, truly artistic coiffure, supported by velvet ribbons, complete down to the tiniest nuances, including an unerringly geometric, sickle-shaped curl on her forehead. The upper part of her dress had a plunging neckline shimmering with a thousand blue and lilac stripes on a black background. The skirt was black, densely strewn with tiny, gold chrysanthemums in a regular pattern. The neckline and décolletage – something like a complicated scaffolding or cage – held captive in its intricate coils a necklace of lacquer, obsidian, emeralds and lapis lazuli ending in a jade cross which almost plunged between her small breasts, which were supported by a close-fitting bodice. The diamond-shaped neckline was large and plunging, baring the woman’s delicate shoulders, and seemed not to offer adequate support – Geralt was expecting the dress to slide from her bust at any moment. But it didn’t and was held in its proper place by the mysterious arcana of dressmaking and the buffers of puffed sleeves.

The second woman equalled the first in height. She was wearing the same lipstick. And there the similarities ended. This woman wore a net cap on her short, black hair, which metamorphosed at the front into a veil extending to the tip of her petite nose. The veil’s floral motif didn’t mask her beautiful, sparkling eyes set off by green eye-shadow. An identical floral veil covered the modest décolletage of her long-sleeved black dress, which in several places was scattered with an apparently random pattern of sapphires, aquamarines, rock crystals and gold openwork stars.

‘Her Enlightened Ladyship Duchess Anna Henrietta,’ someone whispered behind Geralt’s back. ‘Kneel, sire.’

I wonder which of the two, thought Geralt, bending his painful knee clumsily into a ceremonial bow. Both look just as bloody highborn. Not to say regal.

‘Arise, Sir Geralt,’ said the one with the intricate chestnut coiffure and pointed nose, dispelling his doubts. ‘We welcome you and your friends to Beauclair Palace in the Duchy of Toussaint. We are delighted to be able to offer lodging to people on such a noble mission. People, furthermore, being bonded in friendship with Viscount Julian, who is so dear to our heart.’

Dandelion bowed deeply and vigorously.

‘The viscount,’ continued the duchess, ‘has disclosed your names to us, revealed the nature of your expedition, and said what brings you to Toussaint. The tale touched our heart. We shall be glad to converse with you at a private audience, Sir Geralt. That matter must, however, be somewhat postponed, since state duties make their demands upon us. The grape harvest is over and tradition demands our participation in the Festival of the Vat.’

The other woman, the one in the veil, leaned over towards the duchess and quickly whispered something. Anna Henrietta looked at the Witcher, smiled, and licked her lips.

‘It is our will,’ she raised her voice, ‘that Geralt of Rivia shall serve us in the Vat alongside Viscount Julian.’

A murmur ran through the group of courtiers and knights like the whisper of pines struck by the wind. Duchess Anarietta shot the Witcher another smouldering glance and left the hall with her companion and a retinue of pages.

‘By thunder,’ whispered the Chequered Knight. ‘I’ll be damned! Quite some honour has befallen you, Witcher, sir.’

‘I don’t quite understand what this is about,’ Geralt admitted. ‘In what way am I to serve Her Highness?’

‘Her Grace,’ broke in a portly gentleman with the appearance of a confectioner, approaching. ‘Forgive me, sire, for correcting you, but in the given circumstances I must do so. We greatly respect tradition and protocol here in Toussaint. I am Sebastian Le Goff, Chamberlain and Marshal of the Court.’

‘My pleasure.’

‘Lady Anna Henrietta’s official and protocolary title—’ the chamberlain not only looked like a confectioner but even smelt of icing ‘—is “Her Enlightened Ladyship”. Her unofficial one is “Her Grace”. Her familiar one, beyond the court, is “Lady Duchess”. But one should always address her as “Your Grace”.’

‘Thank you, I shall remember. And the other woman? How should I entitle her?’

‘Her official title is: “The Honourable”,’ the chamberlain informed him gravely. ‘But addressing her as “Ma’am” is permissible. She is kin to the duchess and is called Fringilla Vigo. In accordance with Her Grace’s will, you are to serve her, Madam Fringilla, in the Vat.’

‘And what does this service consist of?’

‘Nothing difficult. I shall explain soon. As you see, we’ve used mechanical presses for years, but nonetheless tradition . . .’

*

The courtyard resounded with a hubbub and frenetic squealing of pipes, the wild music of recorders and the demented jingling of tambourines. Tumblers and buffoons dressed in garlands cavorted and somersaulted around a vat placed on a platform. The courtyard and cloisters were full of people – knights, ladies, courtiers and richly attired burghers.

Chamberlain Sebastian Le Goff raised up a staff twisted around with green vines, and struck it three times against the podium.

‘Hear ye, hear ye!’ he cried. ‘Noble ladies, lords and knights!’

‘Yea, yea!’ replied the crowd.

‘Yea, yea! Welcome to our ancient custom! May the grape prosper! Yea, yea! May it mellow in the sun!’

‘Yea, yea! May it mellow!’

‘Yea, yea! May the trod grape ferment! May it gather strength and taste in the barrel! May it flow tastily to goblets and thence to heads, to the glory of majesty, comely ladies, noble knights and vinedressers!’

‘Yea, yea! May it ferment!’

‘Let the Beauties step forward!’

Two women – Duchess Anna Henrietta and her black-haired companion – emerged from damask tents on opposite sides of the courtyard. They were both wrapped tightly in scarlet capes.

‘Yea, yea!’ the chamberlain struck his cane on the ground. ‘Let the Youths step forward!’

The “Youths” had been instructed and knew what to do. Dandelion approached the duchess, and Geralt, the black-haired woman. Who, he now knew, was called the Honourable Fringilla Vigo.

The two women cast off their capes as one, and the crowd greeted them with thunderous applause. Geralt swallowed.

The women were wearing tiny, white, gossamer-thin blouses with shoulder straps, revealing their midriffs. And clinging frilly knickers. And nothing else. Not even jewellery.

They were also barefoot.

Geralt picked Fringilla up and she quite eagerly put an arm around his neck. She smelled faintly of ambergris and roses. And femininity. She was warm and her warmth penetrated him like an arrowhead. She was soft and her softness scalded and nettled his fingers.

They carried them to the vat – Geralt, Fringilla, and Dandelion, the Duchess – and helped them alight on the grapes, which burst and spurted forth juice. The crowd roared.

‘Yea, yea!’

The duchess and Fringilla placed their hands on each other’s shoulders, and by supporting one another more easily kept their balance on the grapes into which they had sunk up to their knees. The must squirted and sprayed around. The women, turning, trod the grapes, giggling like schoolgirls. Fringilla winked at the Witcher, quite against protocol.

‘Yea, yea!’ shouted the crowd. ‘Yea, yea! May it ferment!’

The crushed grapes splashed juice, the cloudy must bubbled and foamed copiously around the treaders’ knees.

The chamberlain struck his cane against the planks of the platform. Geralt and Dandelion moved closer, helping the women out of the vat. Geralt saw Anarietta pinch Dandelion’s ear as he carried her, and her eyes shone dangerously. It seemed to him that Fringilla’s lips brushed his cheek, but he couldn’t be certain whether intentionally or not. The smell of the must was heady and intoxicating.

He stood Fringilla on the podium and wrapped her in the scarlet cape. Fringilla squeezed his hand quickly and powerfully.

‘These ancient traditions,’ she whispered, ‘can be arousing, can’t they?’

‘They can.’

‘Thank you, Witcher.’

‘The pleasure’s all mine.’

‘Not all yours. I assure you, not all yours.’

*

‘Pour the wine, Reynart.’

More Yuletide prophecies were being carried out at the next table. A strip of apple peel cut into a long spiral was thrown down and the initial letter of one’s future partner’s name was divined from the shape it arranged itself into. Each time, the peel formed itself into a letter ‘S’. In spite of that there was no end to the mirth.

The knight poured.

‘It turned out that Milva was well,’ said the Witcher pensively, ‘although she still had a bandage around her ribs. She remained in her chamber, though, and refused to leave, not wanting at any cost to put on the dress she’d been presented with. It looked as though there would be a protocolary scandal, but the omniscient Regis pacified the situation. After quoting a good dozen precedents he made the chamberlain bring a male outfit to the archer. Angoulême, for a change, joyfully discarded her trousers, riding boots and footwraps, and soap, a dress and a comb turned her into quite a pretty lass. All of us, let’s face it, were cheered up by the bathhouse and the clean clothes. Even me. We set off for the audience in a very decent mood—’

‘Stop for a moment,’ Reynart gestured with his head. ‘Business is heading towards us. Ho, ho, and not one, but two vineyards! Malatesta, our customer, is bringing a comrade . . . and a rival. Wonders will never cease!’

‘Who’s the other one?’

‘Pomerol vineyard. We’re drinking their wine, Côte-de-Blessure, right now.’

Malatesta, the steward of the Vermentino vineyard, had noticed them, waved, and approached, leading his companion, an individual with a black moustache and a bushy, black beard, who resembled a brigand more than an official.

‘Gentlemen,’ Malatesta introduced the bearded man, ‘Mr Alcides Fierabras, steward of Pomerol vineyard.’

‘Sit you down.’

‘We’re here for but a moment. To talk to Master Witcher regarding a beast in our cellars. I conclude from seeing your good selves here that the monster is killed?’

‘Dead.’

‘The agreed sum,’ Malatesta assured them, ‘will be transferred to your account at the Cianfanellis’ bank tomorrow at the latest. Oh, thanking you, Master Witcher. Thanks a hundredfold. Such a gorgeous cellar, vaulted, north-pointing, not too dry, not too damp, just what’s needed for wine, and owing to that vile brute it couldn’t be used. You saw yourselves, we needs must brick up all that part of the cellar, but the beast managed to find a way through . . . Where it came from is anyone’s guess . . . Probably from hell itself . . .’

He spat on the floor.

‘Caves hollowed out in volcanic tuff always abound in monsters,’ instructed Reynart de Bois-Fresnes wisely. He had been accompanying the Witcher for over a month, and being a good listener, had managed to learn a great deal. ‘It goes without saying. Where there’s tuff, there’s sure to be a monster.’

‘Very well, perhaps it was Tuff.’ Malatesta glared at him. ‘Whoever that Tuff happens to be. But folk are saying it’s because our cellars are connected to deep caverns that are said to lead to the very centre of the earth. There are many similar dungeons and caves like that around here . . .’

‘Like under our cellars, to give the first example that springs to mind,’ said the black-bearded Pomerol vineyard. ‘Those dungeons go on for miles, but no one knows to where. The men who wanted to unravel the matter didn’t return. And a dreadful monster was also seen there. They say. I’d therefore like to suggest—’

‘I can guess what you want to propose,’ said the Witcher, dryly, ‘and I consent to the proposition. I will explore your cellars. We shall set the fee depending on what I find there.’

‘You won’t do badly,’ the bearded man assured him. ‘Hem, hem . . . One more thing . . .’

‘Pray speak . . .’

‘That succubus that haunts men at night and torments them . . . Which Her Enlightened Ladyship the Duchess has ordered killed . . . I believe there’s no need. For the ghoul doesn’t bother anyone, in truth . . . Yes, it occasionally haunts . . . Bedevils a little—’

‘But nobbut adults,’ Malatesta quickly interrupted.

‘You took the words out of my mouth, friend. All in all, the succubus doesn’t harm anyone. And recently there’s been no word about it at all. Doubtless, it would be scared of you, Master Witcher. What, then, is the point of tormenting it? Why, you aren’t lacking ready cash, sire. And were you to be short . . .’

‘Something could be transferred to my account at Cianfanellis’ bank,’ Geralt said with stony countenance. ‘To the witcher’s pension fund.’

‘So be it.’

‘Then not a single blond hair on the succubus’ head will be harmed.’

‘Farewell, then.’ The two vineyards stood up. ‘Feast in peace, we shan’t disturb. It’s a holiday today. A tradition. Here, in Toussaint, tradition—’

‘Is sacred,’ said Geralt. ‘I know.’

*

The party at the next table were making another noisy Yuletide prophecy, carried out with the help of balls fashioned from the soft inside of cakes and bones left over from a carp. The wine was flowing as they did so. The innkeeper and his serving girls were rushed off their feet, hurrying to and fro with jugs.

‘The famous succubus,’ remarked Reynart, serving himself more cabbage, ‘began the memorable series of witcher contracts that you took on in Toussaint. Then things speeded up and you couldn’t keep the customers away. Funny, I don’t remember which vineyard gave you the first contract . . .’

‘You weren’t present. It happened the day after the audience with the duchess. Which you didn’t attend either, as a matter of fact.’

‘No wonder. It was a private audience.’

‘Private, huh,’ snorted Geralt. ‘It was attended by some twenty people, not counting the motionless lackeys, youthful pages and a bored jester. Among that number was Le Goff, the chamberlain with the appearance and smell of a confectioner, and several magnates bowing under the weight of their golden chains. There were several coves in black: councillors, or perhaps judges. There was the baron with the Bull’s Head coat of arms I met in Caed Myrkvid. There was, naturally, Fringilla Vigo, a person evidently close to the duchess.

‘And there were we, our entire gang, including Milva in male costume. Ha, I was wrong to speak of the entire company. Dandelion was not with us. Dandelion, or rather Viscount What’s-His-Name, sat sprawled in a curule seat on Her Pointy-Nosed Highness Anarietta’s right hand and postured like a peacock. Like a real pet.

‘Anarietta, Fringilla and Dandelion were the only people seated. No one else was permitted to sit down. And anyway I was glad they didn’t make me kneel.

‘The duchess listened to my tale, seldom interrupting, fortunately. When, however, I briefly related the results of the conversations with the druidesses, she wrung her hands, in a gesture suggesting worry as sincere as it was exaggerated. I know that sounds like some sort of bloody oxymoron, but believe me, Reynart, in her case that’s how it was.’

*

‘Oh, oh,’ said Duchess Anna Henrietta, wringing her hands. ‘You have sorely worried us, Master Geralt. Truly do we tell you that sorrow fills our heart.’

She sniffed through her pointed nose, held out her hand, and Dandelion at once pressed a monogrammed cambric handkerchief into it. The duchess brushed both her cheeks with the handkerchief so as not to wipe the powder off.

‘Oh, oh,’ she repeated. ‘So the druidesses knew nothing about Ciri? They were unable to help you? Was all your effort then wasted and your journey in vain?’

‘Certainly not in vain,’ Geralt answered with conviction. ‘I confess I’d counted on obtaining some concrete information or hints from the druids that would at least explain in the most general way why Ciri is the object of such a relentless pursuit. The druids, though, couldn’t or didn’t want to help me, and in this respect I indeed gained nothing. But . . .’

He paused for a moment. Not for dramatic effect. He was wondering how frank he could be in front of the entire auditorium.

‘I know that Ciri’s alive,’ he finally said dryly. ‘She was probably wounded. She’s still in danger. But she’s alive.’

Anna Henrietta gasped, applied the handkerchief again and squeezed Dandelion’s arm.

‘We pledge you our help and support,’ she said. ‘Stay in Toussaint as long as you wish. You ought to know that we have resided in Cintra, and we knew and were fond of Pavetta, we knew and liked little Ciri. We are with you with all our heart, Master Geralt. If needs be you shall have the assistance of our scholars and astrologers. Our libraries and book collections stand open before you. You are certain, we deeply trust, to find some track, sign or spoor that will indicate the right way. Do not act hastily. You need not hurry. You may stay here as you like; you are a most welcome guest.’

‘Thank you, Your Grace.’ Geralt bowed. ‘Thank you for your kindness and favour. We must, nonetheless, set off as soon as we have rested a little. Ciri is still in danger. When we stay in one place too long the threat not only grows, but begins to endanger the people who show us kindness. And unrelated strangers. I wouldn’t want to allow that to happen for anything.’

The duchess was silent for some time, stroking Dandelion’s forearm with measured movements, as you would a cat.

‘Your words are noble and virtuous,’ she said at last. ‘But you have nothing to fear. Our knights routed the ne’er-do-wells pursuing you so that none escaped with his life. Viscount Julian told us about it. Anyone who dares to trouble you will meet the same fate. You are under our care and protection.’

‘I value that.’ Geralt bowed again, under his breath cursing his knee – but not only his knee. ‘Nonetheless I cannot omit to mention something Viscount Dandelion forgot to tell Your Enlightened Ladyship. The ne’er-do-wells from the mine who pursued me to Belhaven, and whom your valiant knighthood vanquished in Caed Myrkvid, were indeed ne’er-do-wells of the first water, but they bore Nilfgaardian livery.’

‘And what of it?’

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that if the Nilfgaardians had captured Aedirn in twenty days, they would need just twenty minutes to capture her little duchy.

‘There is a war on,’ he said instead. ‘What happened in Belhaven and Caed Myrkvid may be regarded as a diversion at the rear. That usually results in repression. In wartime—’

‘The war,’ the duchess interrupted him, raising her pointy nose, ‘is definitely over. We wrote to our cousin, Emhyr var Emreis, regarding this matter. We sent a memorandum to him, in which we demanded that he put an end forthwith to the senseless bloodletting. The war is sure to be over, peace is sure to have been concluded.’

‘Not exactly,’ replied Geralt coldly. ‘Fire and sword are wreaking havoc on the far side of the Yaruga, blood is flowing. There’s nothing to indicate that it’s about to end. Quite the contrary, I’d say.’

He immediately regretted what he’d said.

‘What?’ The duchess’s nose, it appeared, became even pointier, and a nasty, grindingly snarling note sounded in her voice. ‘Did I hear right? The war is still raging? Why wasn’t I informed of this? Minister Tremblay?’

‘Your Grace, I . . .’ mumbled one of the golden chains, genuflecting. ‘I didn’t want to . . . concern . . . worry . . . Your Grace . . .’

‘Guard!’ Her Majesty howled. ‘To the tower with him! You are in disfavour, Lord Tremblay! In disfavour! Lord Chamberlain! Mister Secretary!’

‘At your service, Your Enlightened Ladyship . . .’

‘Have the chancellery immediately issue a severe note to our cousin, the Emperor of Nilfgaard. We demand that he immediately, and I mean immediately, stops warring and makes peace. For war and discord are evil things! Discord ruins and accord builds!’

‘Your Grace,’ mumbled the chamberlain-confectioner, as white as castor sugar, ‘is absolutely right.’

‘What are you still doing here, gentlemen? We have issued our orders! Be off with you, this instant!’

Geralt looked around discreetly. The courtiers had stony expressions, from which he concluded that similar incidents were nothing new at the court. He made a firm resolution only to say ‘yes’ to the Lady Duchess in future.

Anarietta brushed the tip of her nose with her handkerchief and then smiled at Geralt.

‘As you see,’ she said, ‘your anxieties were unfounded. You have nothing to fear and may rest here as long as you like.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

In the silence, the tapping of a death watch beetle in one of the pieces of antique furniture could be heard distinctly. As could the curses being hurled by a groom in a distant courtyard.

‘We also have a request for you, Master Geralt,’ Anarietta interrupted the silence. ‘In your capacity as a witcher.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘It is the request of many noble ladies of Toussaint, and ours at the same time. A nocturnal monster is plaguing local homesteads. This devil, this phantom, this succubus in female form, so lewd that we daren’t describe it, torments our virtuous and faithful husbands. She haunts bedchambers at night, committing lewd acts and disgusting perversions, which modesty forbids us to speak of. You, as an expert, surely know what the matter is.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘The ladies of Toussaint ask you to put an end to this abomination. And we add our voice to this request. And assure you of our generosity.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

*

Angoulême found the Witcher and the vampire in the palace grounds, where they were enjoying a walk and a discreet conversation.

‘You won’t believe me,’ she panted. ‘You won’t believe me when I tell you . . . But it’s the honest truth . . .’

‘Spit it out.’

‘Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, the Chequered Knight errant, is standing in a queue before the ducal treasurer with the other knights errant. And do you know for what? For his monthly salary! The queue, I’m telling you, is half an arrow-shot long, and it’s sparkling with coats of arms. I asked Reynart what it’s all about and he said errant knights also get hungry.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘You must be joking! It’s a knight errant’s noble vocation to wander. Not for a monthly salary!’

‘The one does not preclude the other,’ said the vampire Regis very gravely. ‘Truly. Believe me, Angoulême.’

‘Believe him, Angoulême,’ said Geralt dryly. ‘Stop running around the palace looking for scandal and go and keep Milva company. She’s in a dreadful state, she oughtn’t to be alone.’

‘True. I think auntie’s got her period, because she’s as angry as a wasp. I think—’

‘Angoulême!’

‘I’m going, I’m going.’

Geralt and Regis stopped beside a bed of slightly wilted centifolia roses. But they were unable to talk any longer. A very thin man in an elegant cloak the colour of umber emerged from behind the orangery.

‘Good day,’ he bowed, brushing his knees with a marten kalpak. ‘May I ask which of you gentlemen is the witcher, known as Geralt, and renowned for his craft?’

‘I am he.’

‘I am Jean Catillon, steward of the Castel Toricella vineyards. The fact is that a witcher would serve us very well in the vineyard. I wished to find out if you would not consider . . .’

‘What is it about?’

‘It is thus,’ began steward Catillon. ‘Owing to this damned war, merchants visit more seldom, our reserves are growing, and there is less and less space for the barrels. We thought it was a small problem, for beneath the castles the cellars go on for miles, ever deeper. I think the cellars extend to the centre of the earth. We also found a little cellar under Toricella, beautiful, if you please, vaulted, not too dry, not too damp, just right for the wine to mature—’

‘What of it?’ the Witcher interrupted.

‘It turned out that some kind of monster prowls in the cellar, if you please, which probably came from the depths of the earth. It burned two people, melted their flesh to the bone, and blinded another, because, he, I mean the monster, sire, spits and pukes some sort of caustic lye—’

‘A solpuga,’ Geralt stated bluntly. ‘Also called a venomer.’

‘Well, well,’ smiled Regis. ‘You can see for yourself, Lord Catillon, that you’re dealing with an expert. This expert, one might say, is a godsend. And have you turned to the renowned local knights errant in this matter? The duchess has an entire regiment of them, and missions like these are, let’s face it, their speciality, their raison d’être.’

‘Not at all.’ Steward Catillon shook his head. ‘Their raison d’être is to protect the roads and passes, for if the merchants couldn’t get here, we’d all be reduced to beggary. What’s more, the knights are bold and valiant, but only on horseback. None of them would venture under the ground. What’s more, they’re expen—’

He broke off and fell silent. He had the expression of a person who, if he could, would kick himself. And greatly regretted it.

‘They’re expensive,’ Geralt finished off the sentence, without excessive spitefulness. ‘So you ought to know, good sir, that I’m more expensive. It’s a free market. And there’s free competition. If we sign a contract, I’ll dismount and head underground. Think it through, but don’t ponder too long, for I’m not staying long in Toussaint.’

‘You astonish me,’ said Regis, as soon as the steward had gone. ‘Has the witcher in you suddenly revived? Are you accepting contracts? Going after monsters?’

‘I’m astonished myself,’ replied Geralt frankly. ‘I reacted instinctively, prompted by an inexplicable impulse. I’ll weasel out of it. I’ll treat every quote they offer as too low. Always. Let’s get back to our conversation . . .’

‘Hold on.’ The vampire gestured with his eyes. ‘Something tells me you have more clients.’

Geralt swore under his breath. Two knights were walking towards him down the cypress-lined avenue.

He recognised the first at once; the huge bull’s head on a snow-white tabard couldn’t have been confused with any other crest. The other knight – tall, grey-haired, with nobly angular physiognomy, as though carved from granite – had five gold demi fleurs-de-lis on his blue tunic.

Having stopped at the regulation distance of two paces, the knights bowed. Geralt and Regis returned the bows, after which the four of them observed a silence of ten heartbeats as decreed by chivalric custom.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Bull’s Head, ‘may I introduce Baron Palmerin de Launfal. My name is, as you may recall—’

‘Baron de Peyrac-Peyran. How could we not?’

‘We have an urgent matter for Master Witcher.’ Peyrac-Peyran got down to business. ‘Regarding, so to speak, a professional undertaking.’

‘Yes.’

‘In private.’

‘I have no secrets from Master Regis.’

‘But the noble gentlemen undoubtedly do,’ the vampire smiled. ‘For which reason, with your permission, I shall go to look at that charming little pavilion, probably a temple of quiet and private contemplation. Lord de Peyrac-Peyran . . . Lord de Launfal . . .’

They exchanged bows.

‘I’m all ears.’ Geralt interrupted the silence, having no intention of waiting for the tenth heartbeat to die away.

‘The matter,’ Peyrac-Peyran lowered his voice and looked around timidly, ‘concerns this succubus . . . Well, this nocturnal phantom, the one that haunts. Which the duchess and the ladies have commissioned you to destroy. Have they promised you much for the killing of the spectre?’

‘I beg your pardon, but that’s a trade secret.’

‘But of course,’ responded Palmerin de Launfal, the knight with the fleur-de-lis cross. ‘Your conduct is commendable. Indeed, I greatly fear that I shall be insulting you with this proposal, but in spite of that I submit it. Relinquish the contract, Master Witcher. Don’t go after the succubus, leave it in peace. Saying nothing to the ladies or the duchess. And ’pon my word, we, the gentlemen of Toussaint, will outbid the ladies’ offer. Bewildering you with our generosity.’

‘A proposal,’ said the Witcher coldly, ‘that is indeed not very far from an insult.’

‘Sir Geralt,’ Palmerin de Launfal’s face was hard and grave. ‘I shall tell you what emboldened us to make the offer. It was the rumour about you that said you only kill monsters that represent a danger. A real danger. Not an imagined one, stemming from ignorance or prejudice. Permit me to say that the succubus doesn’t threaten or harm anybody. It haunts people’s dreams. From time to time . . . And bedevils a little . . .’

‘But exclusively adults,’ Peyrac-Peyran added quickly.

‘The ladies of Toussaint,’ said Geralt looking around, ‘would not be happy to learn of this conversation. The duchess likeways.’

‘We agree absolutely with you,’ mumbled Palmerin de Launfal. ‘Discretion is recommended in every respect. One should let sleeping bigots lie.’

‘Open me an account in one of the local dwarven banks,’ Geralt said slowly and softly. ‘And astonish me with your generosity. I nonetheless warn you that I’m not easily astonished.’

‘And we shall nonetheless do our best,’ promised Peyrac-Peyran proudly.

They exchanged farewell bows.

Regis, who had naturally heard everything with his vampirish hearing, returned.

‘Now,’ he said without a smile, ‘you may also naturally claim that that was an involuntary reaction and an inexplicable impulse. But you’ll be hard pressed to explain away the open bank account.’

Geralt looked somewhere high up, far away, above the tops of the cypresses.

‘Who knows,’ he said, ‘perhaps we’ll spend a few days here, after all. Bearing in mind Milva’s ribs, perhaps even more than a few days. Perhaps a few weeks? So it won’t hurt if we gain financial independence for that time.’

*

‘Hence the account at the Cianfanellis’,’ nodded Reynart de Bois-Fresnes. ‘Well, well. If the duchess learned about this there would certainly be a reshuffle, a new distribution of patents of nobility. Ha, perhaps I would be promoted? I give my word, I truly regret not having the makings of an informer. Tell me about the famous feast I was so looking forward to. I so wished to be at that banquet, to eat and drink! But they sent me abroad, to the watchtower, in the cold, foul weather. Eh, what a blight, the doom of a knight . . .’

‘The great and grandiosely heralded feast,’ began Geralt, ‘was preceded by serious preparations. We had to find Milva, who’d hidden in the stables, and convince her that the fate of Ciri and almost the entire world depended on her participation in the banquet. We almost had to force her into a dress. Then we had to make Angoulême promise she would avoid saying “fuck” and “arse”. Once we’d finally achieved everything and intended to relax with a glass of wine, Chamberlain Le Goff appeared, smelling of icing sugar and puffed up like a swine’s bladder.’

*

‘In the given circumstances, I must stress,’ began Chamberlain Le Goff nasally, ‘that there are no inferior places at Her Grace’s table. No one has the right to feel piqued by the place assigned to him or her. We in Toussaint, nonetheless, avidly observe ancient traditions and customs, and according to those customs—’

‘Get to the point, sir.’

‘The feast is tomorrow. I must execute a seating plan according to honour and rank.’

‘Naturally,’ said the Witcher gravely. ‘I’ll tell you what’s what. The most noble of us, both in rank and honour, is Dandelion.’

‘Viscount Julian,’ said the chamberlain, putting on airs, ‘is an extraordinarily honoured guest. And thus will sit at Her Grace’s right hand.’

‘Naturally,’ the Witcher repeated, as grave as death itself. ‘And regarding us, he didn’t reveal our ranks, titles and honours, did he?’

‘He only revealed—’ the chamberlain cleared his throat ‘—that my lords and ladies are incognito on a knightly mission, and he was not able to betray its details or your true names, coats of arms and titles, since they are protected by vows.’

‘Precisely. So what’s the problem?’

‘Why, I must seat you! You are guests, and moreover the viscount’s comrades, so in any case I will place you nearer the head of the table . . . among the barons. But, of course, it cannot be that you are all equal, lords and ladies, for it is never thus that everyone is equal. If by rank or birth one of you is more superior, he ought to sit at the top table, near the duchess . . .’

‘He,’ the Witcher unhesitatingly pointed at the vampire, who was standing close by, raptly admiring a tapestry that took up almost the whole wall, ‘is a count. But hush! It’s a secret.’

‘Understood,’ the chamberlain almost choked in amazement. ‘In the given circumstances . . . I shall put him on the right of Countess Notturna, nobly born aunt of the Lady Duchess.’

‘Neither you nor the aunt will regret it.’ Geralt was poker-faced. ‘He has no equal either in comportment or in the conversational arts.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. You meanwhile, Lord of Rivia, will sit beside the Esteemed Lady Fringilla. As tradition dictates. You bore her to the Vat, you are . . . hmmm . . . her champion, as ’twere . . .’

‘Understood.’

‘Very well. Ah, Your Grace . . .’

‘Yes?’ the vampire said in surprise. He had just moved away from the tapestry, which depicted a fight between giants and cyclopes.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ smiled Geralt. ‘We’re just chatting.’

‘Aha.’ Regis nodded. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, gentlemen . . . But that cyclops in the tapestry, the one with the club . . . Look at his toes. He, let’s be frank, has two left feet.’

‘Verily,’ Chamberlain Le Goff confirmed without a trace of amazement. ‘There are plenty of tapestries like that in Beauclair. The master who wove them was a true master. But he drank an awful lot. As artists do.’

*

‘It’s time we were going,’ said the Witcher, avoiding the eyes of the girls tipsy on wine who were glancing at him from the table, where they’d been amusing themselves with fortune-telling. ‘Let’s be off, Reynart. Let’s pay, mount up and ride to Beauclair.’

‘I know where you’re hurrying,’ the knight grinned. ‘Don’t worry, your green-eyed lady is waiting. It’s only just struck midnight. Tell me about the feast.’

‘I’ll tell you and we’ll ride.’

‘And we’ll ride.’

*

The sight of the table, arranged in a gigantic horseshoe, signalled emphatically that autumn was passing and winter was coming. Game in all possible forms and varieties dominated the delicacies heaped on great serving dishes and platters. There were huge quarters of boar, haunches and saddles of venison, various forcemeats, aspics and pink slices of meat, autumnally garnished with mushrooms, cranberries, plum jam and hawthorn berry sauce. There were autumn fowls – grouse, capercaillie, and pheasant, decoratively served with wings and tails, there was roast guinea fowl, quail, partridge, garganey, snipe, hazel grouse and mistle thrush. There were also genuine dainties, such as fieldfare, roasted whole, without having been drawn, since the juniper berries with which the innards of these small birds are full form a natural stuffing. There was salmon trout from mountain lakes, there was zander, there was burbot and pike’s liver. A green accent was given by raiponce, late-spring salad, which, if such a need arose, could even be dug up from under the snow.

Mistletoe took the place of flowers.

The evening’s ornament was placed on a large silver tray in the middle, forming the centrepiece of the high table at which Duchess Anarietta and the most distinguished guests were seated. Among truffles, flowers cut from carrots, quartered lemons and artichoke hearts lay a huge sturgeon, and on its back was a whole roast heron, standing on one leg, holding a gold ring in its upraised beak.

‘I vow on the heron,’ cried Peyrac-Peyran, the baron with the bull’s head in his arms whom the Witcher knew well, standing and lifting up his goblet. ‘I vow on the heron to defend knightly honour and the virtue of ladies and I vow never, ever to yield the field to anyone!’

The oath was rewarded with thunderous applause. And the eating began.

‘I vow on the heron!’ yelled another knight, with bushy whiskers pointing pugnaciously upwards. ‘I promise to defend the borders and Her Grace Anna Henrietta to the last drop of my blood! And in order to prove my loyalty, I vow to paint a heron on my shield and fight incognito for a year, concealing my name and arms, calling myself the Knight of the White Heron! I wish Her Grace good health!’

‘Good health! Happiness! Viva! Long live Her Grace!’

Anarietta thanked them with a faint nod of her head, decorated with a diamond-encrusted tiara. She had so many diamonds on her that she could have scratched glass just by passing. Beside her sat Dandelion, smiling foolishly. A little further away, between two matrons, sat Emiel Regis. He was dressed in a black, velvet jacket, looking like a vampire. He was waiting on the ladies and entertaining them with his conversation. They listened with fascination.

Geralt took the platter with the zander garnished with parsley and served Fringilla Vigo, who sat on his left, and was dressed in a gown of mauve satin and a gorgeous amethyst necklace, which sat prettily on her breast. Fringilla, watching him from beneath her black eyelashes, raised her goblet and smiled enigmatically.

‘Your good health, Geralt. I’m glad they put us together.’

‘Don’t count your chickens,’ he replied with a smile, for he was actually in decent humour. ‘The feast has only just begun.’

‘On the contrary. It has lasted long enough for you to have complimented me. How long must I wait?’

‘You are enchantingly beautiful.’

‘Slowly, slowly, with restraint!’ She laughed – he would have sworn – entirely sincerely. ‘At this rate I’m afraid to think where we might end up by the end of the banquet. Start with . . . Hmm . . . Say that I have a tasteful dress and that mauve suits me.’

‘Mauve suits you. Although I confess I like you most in white.’

He saw a challenge in her emerald eyes. He was afraid to take it up. He was in such good humour.

Cahir and Milva had been seated opposite. Cahir was sitting between two very young and ceaselessly twittering noblewomen, perhaps the barons’ daughters. The archer, meanwhile, was accompanied by an older, gloomy knight with a pockmarked face, who was as quiet as a stone.

A little further away, meanwhile, sat Angoulême, calling the tune – and making a racket – among some young knights errant.

‘What’s this?’ she yelled, picking up a silver knife with a rounded end. ‘Without a point? Are they afraid we’ll start stabbing each other or what?’

‘Such knives,’ explained Fringilla, ‘have been used in Beauclair since the times of Duchess Carolina Roberta, Anna Henrietta’s grandmamma. It infuriated Caroberta when during banquets the guests used the knives to pick their teeth. And you can’t pick your teeth with a knife with a rounded end.’

‘You cannot,’ agreed Angoulême, contorting her face roguishly. ‘Luckily they’ve also given us forks!’

She pretended to put the fork in her mouth, but stopped on seeing Geralt’s menacing look. The young knightling on her right chuckled shrilly. Geralt picked up a dish of duck in aspic and served Fringilla. He saw Cahir doing his uttermost to satisfy the barons’ daughters’ whims, while they gazed at him. He saw the young knights buzzing around Angoulême, vying with each other to pass her dishes and chuckling at her foolish jokes.

He saw Milva crumbling bread, staring at the tablecloth.

Fringilla seemed to read his thoughts.

‘She’s done poorly, your taciturn companion,’ she whispered, leaning towards him. ‘Why, it can happen when a seating plan is being drawn up. Baron de Trastamara isn’t blessed with courtliness. Or eloquence.’

‘Perhaps that’s better,’ Geralt said softly. ‘A courtier drooling graciousness would’ve been worse. I know Milva.’

‘Are you sure?’ She glanced at him swiftly. ‘You aren’t measuring her according to your own standards, are you? Which, incidentally, are quite cruel.’

He didn’t reply, but instead served her, pouring her wine. And decided it was high time to clear up a few matters.

‘You’re a sorceress, aren’t you?’

‘I am,’ she admitted, masking her surprise extremely deftly. ‘How did you know?’

‘I can sense the aura,’ he said without going into details. ‘And I’m skilled.’

‘To be quite clear,’ she said a moment later, ‘it wasn’t my intention to deceive anybody. I have no obligation to flaunt my profession or put on a pointed hat and black cloak. Why use me to frighten children? I have the right to remain incognito.’

‘Undeniably.’

‘I’m in Beauclair because the largest, best-stocked library in the known world is here. Apart from university libraries, naturally. But universities are jealous of giving access to their shelves, and here I’m a relation and good friend of Anarietta and can do as I wish.’

‘I envy you.’

‘During the audience, Anarietta hinted that the book collection may conceal a clue which may be useful to you. Don’t be put off by her theatrical gushiness. That’s just the way she is. And it really is likely that you’ll find something in the library. Why, it’s quite probable. It’s enough to know what to look for and where.’

‘Indeed. Nothing more.’

‘The enthusiasm of your answers truly lifts my spirits and encourages me to talk.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘I can guess the reason. You don’t trust me, do you?’

‘A little more grouse, perhaps?’

‘I vow on the heron!’ A young knight from the end of the horseshoe stood up and blindfolded himself with a sash given him by the lady sitting next to him. ‘I vow not to take off this sash until the marauders from the Cervantes pass are entirely wiped out.’

The duchess gave her acknowledgement with a gracious nod of her diamond-sparkling head.

Geralt hoped Fringilla wouldn’t continue on the subject. He was mistaken.

‘You don’t believe me and you don’t trust me,’ she said. ‘You’ve given me a doubly painful blow. You don’t only doubt that I sincerely want to help, but neither do you believe I can. Oh, Geralt! You’ve cut my pride and lofty ambition to the quick.’

‘Listen—’

‘No!’ She raised her knife and fork as though threatening him. ‘Don’t try to apologise. I can’t bear men who apologise.’

‘What kind of men can you bear?’

She narrowed her eyes, and continued to hold her cutlery like daggers about to strike.

‘The list is long,’ she said slowly. ‘And I don’t want to bore you with the details. I merely state that men who are ready to go to the end of the world for their beloved, dauntlessly, scorning risk and danger, occupy quite a high position. And those that don’t quit, even though there seems to be no chance of success.’

‘And the other positions on the list?’ he blurted out. ‘The other men to your taste? Also madmen?’

‘And what is true manliness—’ she tilted her head playfully ‘—if not class and recklessness blended together in the correct proportions?’

‘Lords and ladies, barons and knights!’ shouted Chamberlain Le Goff loudly, standing up and raising a gigantic cup in both hands. ‘In the given circumstances I shall take the liberty of offering a toast: to Her Enlightened Ladyship, Duchess Anna Henrietta.’

‘Health and happiness!’

‘Hurrah!’

‘Long live the duchess! Vivat!’

‘And now, lords and ladies . . . .’ The chamberlain put the cup down and nodded solemnly towards the liveried servants. ‘Now . . . The Magna Bestia!’

An enormous roast on a dish, filling the hall with its marvellous aroma, was carried in by four servants on something resembling a sedan chair.

‘The Magna Bestia!’ roared the revellers as one. ‘Hurrah! The Magna Bestia!’

‘What bloody beast is that?’ Angoulême expressed her anxiety loudly. ‘I’m not going to eat it until I find out what it is.’

‘It’s an elk,’ Geralt explained. ‘A roast elk.’

‘Not just any elk,’ said Milva, after clearing her throat. ‘That bull weighed seven hundredweight.’

‘With a fine six-point rack. Seven hundredweight and forty pounds,’ gruffly commented the tight-lipped baron sitting beside her. They were the first words he’d uttered from the start of the banquet.

Perhaps it would have been the beginning of a conversation, but the archer blushed, fixed her gaze on the tablecloth and resumed her crumbling of bread.

But Geralt had taken Fringilla’s words to heart.

‘Did you, my lord baron,’ he asked, ‘bring down that magnificent bull?’

‘Not I,’ said the tight-lipped baron. ‘My son-in-law. He’s an excellent shot. But that’s a male topic, if I may say so . . . I beg for forgiveness. One shouldn’t bore the ladies . . .’

‘With what bow?’ asked Milva, still staring at the tablecloth. ‘No doubt nothing weaker than a seventy-pounder.’

‘A laminate. Layers of yew, acacia and ash, glued together with sinews,’ the baron slowly responded, visibly surprised. ‘A double-bent zefar. Seventy-five pounds draw.’

‘And the draw length?’

‘Twenty-nine inches.’ The baron was speaking slower and slower and he seemed to be spitting out each word.

‘A veritable ballista,’ Milva said calmly. ‘You could down a stag at even a hundred paces with a bow like that. If the archer was genuinely able.’

‘Aye,’ wheezed the baron, as though somewhat piqued. ‘I can hit a pheasant from five and twenty paces, if I may say so.’

‘From a score and five,’ Milva raised her head, ‘I can hit a squirrel.’

The baron, disconcerted, gave a slight cough and quickly served the archer with food and drink.

‘A good bow,’ he muttered, ‘is half the success. But no less important as the quality, if I may say so, of the shot. So you see, my lady, according to me an arrow—’

‘Good health to Her Grace Anna Henrietta! Good health to Viscount Julian de Lettenhove!’

‘Cheers! Vivant!’

‘. . . and she fucked him!’ Angoulême finished another foolish anecdote. The young knights roared with laughter.

The barons’ daughters, called Queline and Nique, listened to Cahir’s tales open-mouthed, their eyes sparkling and their cheeks flushed. At the top table the entire upper aristocracy were listening to Regis’s disquisitions. Only isolated words reached Geralt’s ears – despite his witcher’s hearing – but he worked out that the talk was of spectres, strigas, succubuses and vampires. Regis waved a silver fork and demonstrated that the best remedy against vampires is silver, a precious metal the barest touch of which is absolutely fatal to them. And garlic, asked the ladies? Garlic is also effective, admitted Regis, but socially troublesome, since it stinks awfully.

The band on the gallery played fiddles and pipes, and the acrobats, jugglers and fire-eaters showed off their artistry. The jester tried to amuse the guests, but what chance did he have against Angoulême? Then a bear tamer appeared with a bear, which – to general delight – did a dump on the floor. Angoulême became morose and subdued – it was difficult to compete with something like that.

The pointy-nosed duchess suddenly fell into a fury, and one of the barons fell out of favour and was escorted to the tower for some imprudent word. Few – apart from those directly involved – seemed bothered by the matter.

‘You won’t be leaving here in a hurry, you doubter,’ said Fringilla Vigo, swinging her glass. ‘Although you’d leave at once if you could, nothing will come of it.’

‘Don’t read my thoughts, please.’

‘I’m sorry. They were so strong I couldn’t help it.’

‘You’ve no idea how many times I’ve heard that.’

‘You’ve no idea how much I know. Eat some artichokes, please, they’re good for you, good for the heart. The heart’s a vital organ in a man. The second most important.’

‘I thought the most important things were class and recklessness.’

‘The qualities of the spirit ought to go hand in hand with the attributes of the body. From that comes perfection.’

‘No one’s perfect.’

‘That’s not an argument. One ought to try. Do you know what? I think I’ll have those hen grouse.’

She cut the bird up on her plate so quickly and violently it made the Witcher shudder.

‘You won’t be leaving here in a hurry,’ she said. ‘Firstly, you have no reason to. Nothing’s threatening you—’

‘Nothing at all, indeed,’ he interrupted, unable to stop himself. ‘The Nilfgaardians will take fright at the stern note issued by the ducal chancellery. And even if they risked it they would be driven from here by the knights errant taking vows on the heron with their eyes blindfold.’

‘You’re not in danger,’ she repeated, paying no attention to his sarcasm. ‘Toussaint is generally regarded as an insignificant fairy-tale duchy, ridiculous and unreal, and in a state of permanent intoxication and unending bacchic joy owing to the production of wine. It isn’t really treated seriously by anybody, but enjoys privileges. After all, it supplies wine, and without wine, as everyone knows, there’s no life. For which reason no agents, spies or secret services operate in Toussaint. And there’s no need for an army, it’s enough to have blindfolded knights errant. No one will attack Toussaint. I can see from your face I haven’t thoroughly convinced you?’

‘Not thoroughly.’

‘Pity,’ Fringilla squinted. ‘I like doing things thoroughly. I don’t like anything that’s incomplete, and neither do I like half measures. Or anything left unsaid. Thus I will add: Fulko Artevelde, the Prefect of Riedburne, thinks you’re dead. He was informed by fugitives that the druidesses burned you all alive. Fulko is doing what he can to cover up the issue, which bears the hallmarks of a scandal. It’s in his interest to do so; he has his career in mind. Even when he finds out you’re alive it’ll be too late. The version he gave in his reports will be binding.’

‘You know a great deal.’

‘I’ve never concealed that. So the argument about being pursued by Nilfgaard can be eliminated. And there aren’t any other arguments in favour of a rapid departure.’

‘Interesting . . .’

‘But true. One can leave Toussaint via four mountain passes, leading towards the four points of the compass. Which pass will you choose? The druidesses told you nothing and refused to cooperate. The elf from the mountains has vanished . . .’

‘You really do know a great deal.’

‘We’ve already established that.’

‘And you wish to help me.’

‘But you reject that help. You don’t believe in the sincerity of my intentions. You don’t trust me.’

‘Listen, I—’

‘Don’t explain yourself. And eat some more artichokes.’

Someone else had made a vow on the heron. Cahir was paying the barons’ daughters compliments.

Angoulême, now tipsy, could be heard throughout the entire hall. The tight-lipped baron, excited by the discourse on bows and arrows, had begun to dance attendance on Milva.

‘Please, won’t you try some wild boar, miss. Oh, if I may say so . . . There are fields of crops on my estates dug up by whole herds of them, if I may say so.’

‘Oh.’

‘You can come across some fine animals, three-hundredweight specimens . . . Height of the season . . . If, miss, you’d express a desire . . . We could, so to speak, go hunting together . . .’

‘We shan’t be staying here so long.’ Milva looked strangely enquiringly at Geralt. ‘For we have more serious tasks than hunting, if you excuse me, sir.

‘Although,’ she added quickly, seeing that the baron was looking gloomy, ‘I would most eagerly go hunting game with Your Lordship if there is time.’

The baron’s face lit up at once.

‘If not the chase,’ he declared enthusiastically, ‘then at least I must invite you to my residence. I will show you my antler, trophy, pipe and sabre collections, so to speak . . .’

Milva fixed her eyes on the tablecloth.

The baron seized a tray of fieldfares, served her and then filled her wine glass.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I am no courtier. I don’t know how to entertain. I’m pretty wretched at courtly discourse.’

‘I was raised in the forest.’ Milva cleared her throat. ‘I esteem silence.’

Fringilla found Geralt’s hand under the table and squeezed it hard. Geralt looked her in the eyes. He couldn’t guess what was hidden in them.

‘I trust you,’ he said. ‘I believe in the sincerity of your intentions.’

‘You aren’t lying?’

‘I swear on the heron.’

*

The town sentry must have had a few too many Yuletide tipples, for he was swaying. He banged his halberd against a signboard and loudly, though incoherently, announced it was ten of the clock, although it was actually well after midnight.

‘Go to Beauclair by yourself,’ Reynart de Bois-Fresnes said unexpectedly as soon as they’d left the tavern. ‘I’m staying in town. Until tomorrow. Farewell, Witcher.’

Geralt knew the knight had a lady-friend in town whose husband travelled a lot on business. They’d never talked about it, for men don’t talk about such matters.

‘Farewell, Reynart. Deal with the skoffin. Don’t let it go off.’

‘There’s a frost.’

There was a frost. The narrow streets were empty and tenebrous. The moonlight shone on the roofs, gleamed brilliantly on the icicles hanging from the eaves, but didn’t reach the streets. Roach’s horseshoes rang on the cobblestones.

Roach, thought the Witcher, heading towards Beauclair Palace. A shapely chestnut mare, a present from Anna Henrietta. And Dandelion.

He spurred his horse on. He was in a hurry.

*

After the feast everybody met for breakfast, which they had become accustomed to taking in the servants’ hall. They were always welcome there, God only knew why. Something hot was always found for them, straight from the saucepan, skillet or spit, and there was always bread, dripping, bacon, cheese and pickled mushrooms. A jug or two of some white or red produce of the famous local vineyards was never lacking.

They always went there. Since they had arrived at Beauclair two weeks before. Geralt, Regis, Angoulême and Milva. Only Dandelion broke his fast elsewhere.

‘They serve him his dripping and scratchings in bed!’ commented Angoulême. ‘And they pay obeisance to him!’

Geralt was inclined to believe it was like that. And that day he decided to investigate.

*

He found Dandelion in the knights’ hall. The poet was wearing a crimson beret, as big as a loaf of sourdough rye bread, and a matching doublet richly embroidered with golden thread. He was sitting on a curule seat with his lute in his lap and reacting with careless nods to the compliments of the ladies and courtiers surrounding him.

Anna Henrietta, fortunately, wasn’t in sight. So Geralt without hesitation broke protocol and went boldly into action. Dandelion saw him at once.

‘Lords and ladies,’ he said pompously, waving a hand just like a real king, ‘if you could leave us alone? The servants may also absent themselves!’

He clapped and before the echo had died away they were alone in the knights’ hall with suits of armour, paintings, panoplies and the intense, lingering smell of the ladies’ powder.

‘What fun,’ Geralt remarked without excessive malice. ‘You shoo them away like that, do you? It must feel nice to issue orders with one lordly gesture, one clap, one regal frown. Watch as they scuttle backwards like crayfish, bending over towards you in a bow. What fun. Eh? My Lord Favourite?’

Dandelion grimaced.

‘Is it about anything particular?’ he asked sourly. ‘Or just to talk for the sake of it?’

‘Something particular. So particular, it couldn’t be more so.’

‘Say on, if you please.’

‘We need three horses. That’s for me, Cahir and Angoulême. And two unmounted packhorses. Together, three good steeds and two hacks. Hacks, well, as a last resort, mules, laden with vittles and feed. Your duchess must consider you worth that much, what? You’ve earned at least that, I trust?’

‘There won’t be a problem with it.’ Dandelion, not looking at Geralt, got down to tuning his lute. ‘I’m only surprised by your haste. I’d say it surprises me to the same degree as your foolish sarcasm does.’

‘My haste surprises you?’

‘You’d better believe it. October is ending, and the weather is visibly worsening. Snow will fall in the passes any day now.’

‘And you’re surprised by my haste.’ the Witcher nodded. ‘But I’m glad you reminded me. Sort out some warm clothing. Some furs.’

‘I thought,’ Dandelion said slowly, ‘that we’d sit out the winter here. That we’d stay here—’

‘If you want to stay,’ Geralt blurted out, ‘then stay.’

‘I do.’ Dandelion stood up suddenly and put down his lute. ‘And I will.’

The Witcher audibly sucked in air and said nothing. He looked at a tapestry depicting a fight between a titan and a dragon. The titan, standing solidly on two left legs, was trying hard to break the dragon’s jaw, and the dragon looked none too pleased about it.

‘I’m staying,’ Dandelion repeated. ‘I love Anarietta. And she loves me.’

Geralt still said nothing.

‘You’ll have your horses,’ continued the poet. ‘I’ll order them to prepare you a thoroughbred mare called Roach, naturally. You’ll be equipped, well-stocked with food and warmly dressed. But I sincerely advise you to wait till the spring. Anarietta—’

‘Am I hearing right?’ The Witcher finally regained his voice. ‘Or do my ears deceive me?’

‘Your intellect,’ snapped the troubadour, ‘is certainly blunt. I can’t speak for your other senses. I repeat: we love one another, Anarietta and I. I’m staying in Toussaint. With her.’

‘In what role? Lover? Favourite? Or perhaps ducal consort?’

‘I’m indifferent in principle to our formal and legal status,’ Dandelion admitted frankly. ‘But one cannot rule anything out. Including marriage.’

Geralt was silent again, contemplating the titan fighting the dragon.

‘Dandelion,’ he said finally. ‘If you’ve been drinking, sober up. If you haven’t taken a drink, do so. Then we’ll talk.’

‘I don’t quite understand why you’re talking like this.’ Dandelion frowned.

‘Then have a little think.’

‘What about? Does my relationship with Anarietta shock you so much? Perhaps you’d like to appeal to my good sense. Skip it. I’ve thought the matter through. Anarietta loves me—’

‘And do you know the saying “the favours of duchesses are uncertain”?’ Geralt interrupted, ‘Even if your Anarietta isn’t flighty, and if you’ll excuse the frankness she looks that way to me, then—’

‘Then what?’

‘Duchesses only marry musicians in fairy tales.’

‘Firstly—’ Dandelion puffed himself up ‘—even a boor like you must have heard of morganatic marriages. Must I give you examples from ancient and modern history? Secondly, it’ll probably surprise you, but I’m not from the hoi-polloi. My people, the de Lettenhoves, come from—’

‘I’m listening to you and I’m amazed,’ Geralt interrupted again, losing his temper. ‘Is my friend Dandelion really spouting such balderdash? Has my friend Dandelion really gone completely mad? Is Dandelion, whom I know as a realist, now beginning all of a sudden to live in the sphere of illusion? Open your bloody eyes, you dolt.’

‘Aha,’ Dandelion said slowly, tightening his lips. ‘What a curious reversal of roles. I’m a blind man, and you meanwhile have suddenly become an attentive and astute observer. It was usually the other way around. And, out of interest, what don’t I notice that you can see? Eh? What, according to you, should I open my eyes to?’

‘For instance,’ drawled the Witcher, ‘the fact that your duchess is a spoiled child that has grown up into a spoiled and arrogant turkey cock. That fact she – fascinated by the novelty – has graced you with her charms, and will dump you immediately when a new busker with a newer and more beguiling repertoire comes along.’

‘What you’re saying is very base and vulgar. You’re aware of that, I hope?’

‘I’m aware of your lack of awareness. You’re a lunatic, Dandelion.’

The poet said nothing and stroked the neck of his lute. Some time passed before he spoke.

‘We set off from Brokilon on a deranged mission,’ he began slowly. ‘Taking a lunatic risk, we launched ourselves on an insane quest for a mirage without the slightest chance of success. A quest for a phantom, a daydream, an absolutely impossible ideal. We set off in pursuit like idiots, like madmen. But I didn’t utter a word of complaint, Geralt. I didn’t call you a madman. I didn’t ridicule you. For you had hope and love in you. You were being guided by them on this reckless mission. I was too, as a matter of fact. But I’ve caught up with the mirage, and I was lucky enough that the dream came true. My mission is over. I’ve found what is so difficult to find. And I intend to keep it. Is that insanity? It would be insanity to give it up and let it slip through my fingers.’

Geralt was silent for as long as Dandelion had been earlier.

‘Pure poetry,’ he finally said. ‘And it’s difficult to rival you at that. I won’t say another word. You’ve destroyed my arguments. Helped, I admit, by your quite apposite ones. Farewell, Dandelion.’

‘Farewell, Geralt.’

*

The palace library really was immense. Its dimensions were at least twice those of the knights’ hall. And it had a glass roof. Owing to which it was light. Although Geralt suspected it was bloody hot during the summer.

The aisles between the bookshelves were narrow and cramped so he walked cautiously, in order not to knock any books off. He also had to step over volumes piled up on the floor.

‘I’m here.’

The centre of the library was lost among the books, which were arranged in piles and columns. Many were lying quite chaotically, individually or in picturesque heaps.

‘Here, Geralt.’

He ventured among the canyons and ravines between the books. And found her.

She was kneeling among scattered incunables, leafing through and categorising them. She had on a modest grey dress, hitched up a little for convenience. Geralt found the sight extremely seductive.

‘Don’t be horrified by the mess,’ she said, wiping her brow with her forearm, because she was wearing thin, dust-stained silk gloves. ‘The books are being inventoried and catalogued. But the work was stopped at my request so I could be alone in the library. I can’t bear strangers’ eyes on me while I’m working.’

‘I’m sorry. Shall I leave?’

‘You’re not a stranger.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘I enjoy . . . having your eyes on me. Don’t stand like that. Sit here, on the books.’

He sat down on A Description of the World published in folio.

‘This shambles—’ Fringilla indicated around her with a brisk gesture ‘—has unexpectedly made my work easier. I was able to get to books that are normally lying somewhere at the bottom of a heap that’s impossible to shift. The ducal librarians moved the mounds – a titanic effort! – thanks to which some literary treasures and rarities saw the light of day. Look. Ever seen anything like this?’

‘Speculum Aureum? Yes, I have.’

‘I apologise, I forgot. You’ve seen plenty. That was meant to be a compliment, not sarcasm. And take a glance at that. It’s Gesta Regum. We’ll start with that so you’ll understand who your Ciri really is, whose blood flows in her veins . . . Your expression’s sourer than usual, did you know? What’s the reason?’

‘Dandelion.’

‘Tell me.’

He did. Fringilla listened, sitting cross-legged on a pile of books.

‘Well,’ she sighed, after he’d finished. ‘I admit I expected something of the kind. I noticed long ago that Anarietta was betraying symptoms of lovesickness.’

‘Love?’ he snorted. ‘Or a lordly whim.’

‘You seem not to believe—’ she looked at him piercingly ‘—in sincere and pure love?’

‘My beliefs,’ he said, ‘aren’t the subject of debate and are beside the point. It’s about Dandelion and his stupid—’

He broke off, suddenly losing confidence.

‘Love,’ Fringilla said slowly, ‘is like renal colic. Until you have an attack, you can’t even imagine what it’s like. And when people tell you about it you don’t believe them.’

‘There’s something in that,’ the Witcher agreed. ‘But there are also differences. Good sense can’t protect you from renal colic. Or cure it.’

‘Love mocks good sense. That’s its charm and beauty.’

‘Stupidity, more like.’

She stood up and walked towards him, taking off her gloves. Her eyes were dark and profound beneath the curtains of her eyelashes. She smelled of ambergris, roses, library dust, decayed paper, minium and printing ink, oak gall ink, and strychnine, which was being used to poison the library mice. The smell had little in common with an aphrodisiac. So it was all the stranger that it worked on him.

‘Don’t you believe,’ she said in a changed voice, ‘in sudden impulses? In unforeseen attractions? In the impacts of fireballs flying along collision trajectories? In cataclysms?’

She held out a hand and touched his arms. He touched her arms. Their faces moved closer, still hesitantly, vigilantly, as though they were afraid of scaring away some very, very timid creature.

And then the fireballs collided and a cataclysm ensued.

They fell onto a pile of folio volumes which scattered in all directions under their weight. Geralt pushed his nose into Fringilla’s cleavage, seized her powerfully and grabbed her by the knees. Various books impeded him from pulling her dress up above her waist, including The Lives of the Prophets, which was resplendent with intricate initials and illustrations, and De Haemorrhoidibus, a fascinating but controversial medical treatise. The Witcher pushed the volumes to one side, impatiently tugging at her skirt. Fringilla raised her hips enthusiastically.

Something was chafing her shoulder. She turned her head. A Study of the Midwife’s Art. She quickly looked the other way so as not to tempt fate. On Hot, Sulphurous Waters. The temperature was rising indeed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the frontispiece of the book her head was resting on. Remarks on Inevitable Death. Even better, she thought.

The Witcher was fighting with her underwear. She lifted her hips, but this time gently, so it would look like an accidental movement and not provocative assistance. She didn’t know him and didn’t know how he reacted to women. Whether he didn’t, perhaps, prefer the kind that pretend they don’t know what they want, to those that do. And whether it would discourage him if her knickers were hard to take off.

The Witcher, however, wasn’t betraying any signs of discouragement. On the contrary, one might say. Seeing that it was high time, Fringilla spread her legs enthusiastically and vigorously, knocking over a tower of books and fascicles, which slid down on them like an avalanche. A copy of Mortgage Law bound in embossed leather came to rest against her buttock and a copy of Codex Diplomaticus decorated with brass edgings against Geralt’s wrist. Geralt assessed and exploited the situation at once, placing the bulky tome where it belonged. Fringilla squealed, because the edgings were cold. But only for a moment.

She sighed loudly, let go of the Witcher’s hair, spread her arms and seized a book in each hand, her left grabbing Descriptive Geometry, her right An Outline Study of Reptiles and Amphibians. Geralt, holding her hips, knocked over another pile of books with an unwitting kick, but was nonetheless too occupied to worry about the volumes falling on him. Fringilla, moaning spasmodically, thrashed her head from side to side over the pages of Remarks on Inevitable . . .

The books subsided with a rustle, the sharp scent of old dust making their noses tingle.

Fringilla screamed. The Witcher didn’t hear it, because her thighs were clenched against his ears. He threw off the bothersome History of Wars and The Journal of All the Arts Necessary for a Happy Life. Impatiently fighting with the buttons and fastenings of her bodice, he wandered from the south to the north, unintentionally reading the inscriptions on covers, spines, frontispieces and title pages. Under Fringilla’s waist was The Exemplary Farmer. Under her armpit, not far from her small, charming, jauntily pert breast, On Ineffective and Recalcitrant Shire Reaves. Under her elbow Economics; or, a Simple Exposition on how to Create, Divide up and Consume Wealth.

He read Remarks on Inevitable Death with his mouth on her neck and his hands near Shire Reaves . . . Fringilla emitted a difficult to classify sound; neither a scream, a moan nor a sigh.

The bookshelves shook, piles of books trembled and tumbled down, arranging themselves like rocky inselbergs during a severe earthquake. Fringilla screamed. A rare book, the first edition of De larvisscenicis et Figuriscomicis, fell from its shelf with a crash, followed by A Collection of General Horsemanship Commands, taking down with it John of Attre’s Heraldry, embellished with beautiful prints.

The Witcher groaned, kicking over more volumes as he jerked a leg straight. Fringilla screamed once again, long and loudly, knocking over Contemplations; or, Meditations for Every Day of the Year, an interesting anonymous work which had ended up on Geralt’s back for no apparent reason. Geralt trembled and read above her shoulder, learning – like it or not – that Remarks . . . had been written by Dr Albertus Rivus, had been published by the Academia Cintrensis, and had been printed by the master typographer Johann Froben Jr in the second year of the reign of HM King Corbett.

All was silent, save only the rustle of books slipping down and pages turning over.

What to do? thought Fringilla, touching Geralt’s side and the hard corner of Deliberations on the Nature of Things with lazy strokes of her hand. Should I suggest it? Or wait until he does? As long as he won’t think me flighty and immodest . . .

What will happen if he doesn’t suggest it?

‘Let’s go and find a bed somewhere,’ the Witcher suggested, a little hoarsely. ‘It doesn’t do to treat books like this.’

*

We found a bed, thought Geralt, letting Roach gallop down an avenue in the castle grounds. We found a bed in the alcove in her chambers. We made love like mad things, voraciously, greedily, ravenously, as though following years of celibacy, as though storing it up for later, as though at risk of celibacy again.

We told each other many things. We told each other very trivial truths. We told each other very beautiful lies. But those lies, although they were lies, weren’t calculated to deceive.

Excited by the gallop, he steered Roach straight at a snow-covered rose bed and made the mare jump it.

We made love. And talked. And our lies became more and more mendacious.

Two months. From October to Yule.

Two month of furious, greedy, wild love.

Roach’s horseshoes thudded on the flags of the courtyard at Beauclair Palace.

*

He passed through corridors quickly and soundlessly. No one saw or heard him. Not the guardsmen with halberds, killing time on their sentry duty by chatting and gossiping, nor the slumbering lackeys and pages. Even the candle flames didn’t flicker when he passed by the candelabras.

He was near the palace kitchen. But he didn’t go in, didn’t join the company, who were inside, disposing of a small cask and something fried. He remained in the shadows, listening.

Angoulême was speaking.

‘There’s something bewitched about this place, this fucking Toussaint. Some kind of charm hangs over the whole valley. Especially over the palace. I was surprised at Dandelion, I was surprised at the Witcher, but now I’m nauseous and I’ve got a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. Shit, I even caught myself . . . Eh, I’m not going to tell you that. Seriously, let’s get out of here. Let’s get out of here as fast as possible.’

‘Tell that to Geralt,’ said Milva. ‘It’s him you should tell.’

‘Yes, talk to him,’ said Cahir somewhat sarcastically. ‘During one of those brief moments when he’s free. Between the two activities he’s been engaging in for two months to help him forget.’

‘As for you,’ snorted Angoulême, ‘you’re mainly available in the park, playing at hoops with the barons’ daughters. Pshaw, no two ways about it, there’s something bewitched about this bloody Toussaint. Regis disappears somewhere at night, aunty has her tight-lipped baron—’

‘Shut it, you brat! And don’t call me aunty!’

‘Come, come,’ Regis interjected placatingly. ‘Girls, take it easy. Milva, Angoulême. Let there be concord. United we stand, divided we fall. As Her Grace the Duchess, lady of this country, this palace, this bread, dripping and gherkins, says: Another drop, anyone?’

Milva sighed heavily.

‘We’ve stayed here too long! Too long, I tell you, too long we’ve sat here in idleness. It’s driving us mad.’

‘Well said,’ said Cahir. ‘Very well said.’

Geralt cautiously withdrew. Soundlessly. Like a bat.

*

He passed through corridors quickly and soundlessly. No one saw or heard him. Neither the guards, nor the liveried servants nor the pages. Not even the candle flames flickered as he passed by the candelabras. The rats heard him, raised their whiskered snouts, and stood up on their hind legs. But they didn’t take fright. They knew him.

He often went that way.

In the alcove it smelled of charms and witchcraft, ambergris and roses, and woman’s sleep. But Fringilla wasn’t asleep.

She sat up in bed, threw off the eiderdown, enthralling him with the sight and taking possession of him.

‘You’re here at last,’ she said, stretching. ‘You neglect me dreadfully, Witcher. Get undressed and come here quickly. Very, very quickly.’

*

She passed quickly and soundlessly through the corridors. No one saw or heard her. Neither the guardsmen, idly gossiping at their posts, nor the slumbering liveried servants, nor the pages. Not even the candle flames flickered as she passed by the candelabras. The rats heard her, raised their whiskered snouts, stood up on their hind legs, and followed her with their black beady eyes. They didn’t take fright. They knew her.

She often went that way.

*

There was a corridor in Beauclair Palace, and at the end a chamber, the existence of which no one knew about. Neither the current lady of the castle, the Duchess Anarietta, nor the first lady of the castle, her great-grandmamma, the Duchess Ademarta. Nor the architect, the celebrated Peter Faramond, who made extensive modifications to the building, nor the master masons who worked according to Faramond’s plans and guidelines. Hell, even Chamberlain Le Goff, who was thought to know everything about Beauclair, didn’t know about the existence of that corridor.

The corridor and the chamber, disguised by a powerful illusion, were known only to the palace’s original elven builders. And later – when the elves had gone, and Toussaint became a duchy – to the small number of sorcerers linked to the ducal house. Including Artorius Vigo, a master of magical arcana and great specialist in illusions. And his young niece, Fringilla, who had a special talent for illusions.

Having passed quickly and noiselessly through the corridors of Beauclair Palace, Fringilla Vigo stopped in front of a fragment of wall between two columns decorated with acanthus leaves. A softly spoken spell and rapid gesture made the wall – which was illusory – vanish, revealing a corridor, apparently blind. At the end of the corridor, though, was a door, disguised by another illusion. And beyond the door a dark chamber.

Once inside, not wasting time, Fringilla launched a telecommunicator. The oval looking glass became cloudy and then cleared, lighting up the room, illuminating in the darkness the ancient, dust-laden tapestries on the walls. A large room plunged in subtle chiaroscuro, a round table with several women sitting around it appeared in the looking glass. Nine women.

‘Greetings, Miss Vigo,’ said Philippa Eilhart. ‘What’s new?’

‘Nothing, unfortunately,’ replied Fringilla, after clearing her throat. ‘Nothing since the last telecommunication. Not a single attempt at scanning.’

‘That’s bad,’ said Philippa. ‘Frankly speaking, we’d counted on you uncovering something. Please at least tell us . . . has the Witcher calmed down now? Are you capable of keeping him in Toussaint at least until May?’

Fringilla Vigo said nothing for some time. She didn’t have the slightest intention of mentioning to the lodge that only in the last week the Witcher had called her ‘Yennefer’ twice, and both at a moment when in every respect she was entitled to hear her own name. But the lodge, in turn, was entitled to expect the truth. Honesty. And a legitimate conclusion.

‘No,’ she answered at last. ‘Probably not until May. But I’ll do everything in my power to keep him here as long as possible.’

Korred, a monster of the large Strigiformes family (q.v.), also called by local people a corrigan, rutterkin, rumpelstiltskin, fidgeter or mesmer. One thing can be said about him; he is dreadfully beastly. He is such a devil’s spawn and scoundrel, such a bitch’s tail, that we shall not write anything about his appearance or habits, since in sooth I tell you: we shall not waste breath on the whoreson.

Physiologus

CHAPTER FOUR

An odour that was a mixture of the smells of old wooden panelling, melting candles and ten kinds of perfume hung in the columned hall of Montecalvo Castle. Ten specially selected blends of scent used by the ten women seated at a round oak table in armchairs carved in the shape of sphinxes’ heads.

Fringilla Vigo regarded Triss Merigold, was sitting opposite her in a light blue dress buttoned high up to the neck. Beside Triss, remaining in the shadows, sat Keira Metz. Her large, eye-catching earrings of many-facetted citrines sparkled every now and then with a thousand reflections.

‘Please continue, Miss Vigo,’ urged Philippa Eilhart. ‘We’re in a hurry to learn the end of the story. And to take urgent steps.’

Philippa – exceptionally – wasn’t wearing any jewellery apart from a large sardonyx cameo brooch pinned to her vermilion dress. Fringilla had already heard the rumour and knew whose present the cameo brooch had been, and whose profile it depicted.

Sheala de Tancarville, sitting beside Philippa, was all in black, diamonds twinkling subtly. Margarita Laux-Antille wore heavy gold without stones on claret-coloured satins, while Sabrina Glevissig had her favourite onyxes – matching the colour of her eyes – in her necklace, earrings and rings.

Nearest to Fringilla sat the two elves – Francesca Findabair and Ida Emean aep Sivney.

The Daisy of the Valleys was, as usual, regal, though today neither her coiffure nor her crimson dress were extraordinarily splendid and the red of her diadem and necklace was that of modest – though tasteful – garnets, not rubies. Ida Emean, meanwhile, was dressed in muslins and tulles in autumn tones, so delicate and gauzy that they swayed and undulated like anemones even in the barely perceptible drafts triggered by the movement of the centrally heated air.

As usual of late, Assire var Anahid’s modest but distinguished elegance aroused admiration. The Nilfgaardian sorceress wore a single emerald cabochon in a gold setting on a gold chain resting in the high décolletage of her close-fitting, dark-green dress. Her manicured fingernails, painted very dark green, gave the composition a flavour of truly magical extravagance.

‘We’re waiting, Miss Vigo,’ reminded Sheala de Tancarville. ‘Time’s passing.’

Fringilla cleared her throat.

‘December came,’ she began her story. ‘Yule came, then the New Year. The Witcher calmed down sufficiently to stop mentioning Ciri in every conversation. The expeditions against monsters that he regularly undertook seemed utterly to absorb him. Well, perhaps not quite utterly . . .’

She paused. It seemed to her she could detect a flash of hatred in Triss Merigold’s azure eyes. But it might just have been the gleam of flickering candle flame. Philippa snorted, playing with her brooch.

‘Don’t overdo the modesty, Miss Vigo. This is a closed circle. A circle of women who know what, apart from pleasure, sex can serve. We all use that tool when the need arises. Please go on.’

‘Even if during the day he maintained the appearance of secretiveness, superiority and pride,’ continued Fringilla, ‘at night he was completely in my power. He told me everything. He paid homage to my femininity, which considering his age was extremely generous, I must admit. And then he fell asleep. In my arms, with his mouth on my bosom. Searching for a surrogate for the maternal love he never experienced.’

This time, she was certain, it wasn’t the gleam of candlelight. Very well, I pray you, envy me, she thought. Envy me. There’s plenty to envy.

‘He was,’ she repeated, ‘completely in my power.’

*

‘Come back to bed, Geralt. The sky’s still bloody grey!’

‘I’m meeting someone. I have to ride to Pomerol.’

‘I don’t want you to ride to Pomerol.’

‘I’m meeting someone. I’ve given my word. The manager of the vineyard will be waiting for me by the gate.’

‘This monster hunting of yours is stupid and pointless. What are you trying to prove by killing another monster from the caverns? Your masculinity? I know better ways. Come on, back to bed. You aren’t going to any Pomerol. At least not so quickly. The steward can wait, and anyway, what is a steward? I want to make love with you.’

‘Forgive me. I don’t have time. I’ve given my word.’

‘I want to make love with you!’

‘If you want to join me for breakfast, start getting dressed.’

‘I don’t think you love me, Geralt. Don’t you love me anymore? Answer me!’

‘Put on that grey and pearl dress, the one with the mink trimming. It suits you very much.’

*

‘He was completely under my spell, he fulfilled my every wish,’ repeated Fringilla. ‘He did everything I demanded of him. That’s how it was.’

‘And we believe you,’ said Sheala de Tancarville, extremely dryly. ‘Please continue.’

Fringilla coughed into her fist.

‘The problem was his troop,’ she went on. ‘That strange assemblage he called a company. Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, who watched me and flushed with effort trying to remember me. But he couldn’t recall, because when I stayed at Darn Dyffra, his grandparents’ family castle, he was six or seven. Milva, an apparently swashbuckling and haughty girl, and whom I happened to catch crying twice hiding in a corner of the stable. Angoulême, a flighty whelp. And Regis Terzieff-Godefroy. A character I was unable to fathom. That entire gang had an influence on him I couldn’t eradicate.’

Very well, very well, she thought, don’t raise your eyebrows so high, don’t sneer. Wait. That’s not the end of the story yet. You’re yet to hear of my triumph.

‘Every morning,’ she continued, ‘the whole company would meet in the kitchen in the basement of Beauclair Palace. The royal chef was fond of them, God knows why. He always cooked something up for them, so ample and tasty that breakfast usually lasted two, and occasionally even three, hours. Geralt and I ate with them many times. Which is how I know what absurd conversations they used to have.’

*

Two hens, one black, the other speckled, were walking around the kitchen, stepping timidly on their clawed feet. Glancing at the company breaking their fast, the hens pecked crumbs from the floor.

The company had gathered in the palace kitchen, as they did every morning. The royal chef was fond of them, God knows why, and always had something tasty for them. Today it was scrambled eggs, sour rye soup, stewed aubergine, rabbit forcemeat, goose breasts and sausage with beetroot, with a large circle of goat’s cheese on the side. They all ate briskly and in silence. Apart from Angoulême, who was talking nonsense.

‘And I tell you we should set up a brothel here. When we’ve done what we have to do, let’s return and open a house of ill repute. I’ve looked around in town. There’s everything here. There are ten barber’s shops alone, and eight apothecaries. But there’s only one knocking shop and it’s more like a seedy shithouse than a proper cathouse, I tell you. There’s no competition. We’ll open a luxury bordello. We’ll buy a big house with a garden—’

‘Angoulême, have mercy.’

‘—just for respectable punters. I’ll be the madam. I tell you, we’ll make a fortune and live like kings. Finally they’ll elect me councillor, and then I won’t let you die for sure, because when they elect me, I’ll elect you and before you can say Jack Robinson—’

‘Angoulême, we’ve asked. There, eat some bread and forcemeat.’

It was quiet for a while.

‘What are you hunting today, Geralt? Tough job?’

‘Eyewitnesses give conflicting descriptions.’ The Witcher raised his head from his plate. ‘So it’s either a pryskirnik, i.e. a fairly hard job, or a drelichon, i.e. a fairly hard job, or a nazhempik, i.e. a fairly easy one. It might turn out the job’s extremely easy, because they last saw the monster before Lammas last year. It might have bolted from Pomerol over the hills and far away.’

‘I hope it has,’ said Fringilla, gnawing at a goose bone.

‘And how’s Dandelion doing?’ the Witcher suddenly asked. ‘I haven’t seen him for such a long time that I get all my information about him from lampoons sung in the town.’

‘We aren’t any better off,’ smiled Regis with pursed lips. ‘All we know is that our poet is on such intimate terms with Lady Duchess Anarietta that she’s allowed him, even before witnesses, to use quite a familiar cognomen. He calls her Little Weasel.’

‘That’s very apt!’ Angoulême said with her mouth full. ‘That lady duchess really does have a weaselly nose. Not to mention her teeth.’

‘No one’s perfect.’ Fringilla narrowed her eyes.

‘How very true.’

The hens, the black and the speckled one, had become audacious enough to begin pecking at Milva’s boots. The archer drove them away with a brisk kick and an oath.

Geralt had been scrutinising her for some time. Now he made up his mind.

‘Maria,’ he said gravely, almost harshly, ‘I know our conversations can’t be considered serious or our jokes sophisticated. But you don’t have to pull such sour faces. What’s the matter?’

‘Something must be the matter,’ said Angoulême. Geralt silenced her with a fierce look. Too late.

‘What do you know?’ Milva stood up suddenly, almost knocking over her chair. ‘What do you know, eh? The Devil take you! You can kiss my arse, all of you, get it?’

She grabbed her cup from the table, drained it and smashed it on the floor without a second thought. And ran out, slamming the door.

‘Things are serious—’ Angoulême began a moment later, but this time the vampire silenced her.

‘The matter is very serious,’ he confirmed. ‘I hadn’t expected such an extreme reaction from our archer. One usually reacts like that when one is jilted, not when one jilts another.’

‘What the bloody hell are you talking about?’ said Geralt, annoyed. ‘Eh? Perhaps someone will finally explain what this is all about?’

‘It’s about Baron Amadis de Trastamara.’

‘The tight-lipped hunter?’

‘The very same. He proposed to Milva. Three days ago on a hunting trip. He’d been inviting her to go hunting for a month . . .’

‘One hunt—’ Angoulême flashed her teeth impudently ‘—lasted two days. With the night spent in his hunting lodge, get it? I swear—’

‘Shut up, girl. Speak, Regis.’

‘He formally and ceremoniously asked for her hand. Milva declined, it appears, in quite a harsh way. The baron, though he looks level-headed, was upset by the rejection, sulked like a jilted stripling and immediately left Beauclair. And since then Milva has been walking around downcast.’

‘We’ve been here too long,’ muttered the Witcher. ‘Too long.’

‘Now who’s talking?’ said Cahir, who had said nothing up until then. ‘Who’s talking?’

‘Forgive me.’ The Witcher stood up. ‘We’ll talk about it when I return. The steward of Pomerol vineyard is waiting for me. And punctuality is part of the witchers’ code.’

*

After Milva’s abrupt exit and the Witcher’s departure the rest of the company ate in silence. The two hens, one black, the other speckled, walked around the kitchen, stepping timidly on their clawed feet.

‘I have a small problem . . .’ said Angoulême, raising her eyes towards Fringilla from over the plate she was wiping with a crust.

‘I understand,’ nodded the sorceress. ‘It’s nothing dreadful. When was your last period?’

‘What do you mean?’ Angoulême leaped to her feet, frightening the chickens. ‘It’s nothing of the sort. It’s something completely different!’

‘Tell me.’

‘Geralt wants to leave me here when he goes back on the road.’

‘Oh.’

‘He says,’ Angoulême snapped, ‘that he can’t put me at risk, and similar rubbish. And I want to go with him—’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t interrupt me, will you? I want to go with him, with Geralt, because it’s only when I’m with him I’m not afraid that One-Eyed Fulko will catch me. And here in Toussaint—’

‘Angoulême,’ Regis interrupted her, ‘your words are in vain. Madam Vigo is listening, but can’t hear. Only one thing horrifies her: the Witcher leaving.’

‘Oh,’ Fringilla repeated, turning her head towards him and screwing up her eyes. ‘What are you hinting at, Mr Terzieff-Godefroy? The Witcher leaving? And when might that be? If one might ask?’

‘Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,’ the vampire replied in a soft voice. ‘But one day, for certain. No offence intended.’

‘I don’t feel offended,’ responded Fringilla coldly. ‘If you had me in mind, naturally. Returning to you, Angoulême, I assure you that I shall discuss the matter of leaving Toussaint with Geralt. I guarantee you that the Witcher will hear my opinion on the subject.’

‘Why, naturally,’ snorted Cahir. ‘How did I know you’d say that, Madam Fringilla?’

The sorceress looked long and hard at him.

‘The Witcher,’ she said finally, ‘ought not to leave Toussaint. No one who wishes him well should encourage him to do that. Where will he have it so good as here? He’s living in the lap of luxury. He has his monsters to hunt, he’s earning a pretty penny from it. His friend and comrade is the favourite of the reigning duchess, and the duchess herself is also favourably disposed to him. Mainly owing to the succubus that was haunting people’s bedchambers. Yes, yes, gentlemen. Anarietta, like all the noble ladies of Toussaint, is inordinately well-disposed towards the Witcher. For the succubus has suddenly stopped haunting. The ladies of Toussaint have thus clubbed together to pay him a special bonus, which they will deposit in the Witcher’s account in the Cianfanellis’ bank any day now. Increasing the small fortune that the Witcher has already stored up there.’

‘A pretty gesture from the ladies.’ Regis didn’t lower his gaze. ‘And a well-deserved bonus. It isn’t easy to stop a succubus from haunting. You may believe me, Madam Fringilla.’

‘I do. And while we’re on the subject, one of the palace guards claims he saw it. At night, on the battlements of Caroberta’s Tower. In the company of another spectre. Some kind of vampire. The two demons were taking a stroll, the guard swore, and they looked as though they were friends. Do you perhaps know anything about this, Mr Regis? Are you able to explain it, sir?’

‘No, I’m not, madam.’ Regis didn’t even bat an eyelid. ‘There are things in heaven and earth that even philosophers have never dreamed about.’

‘Without doubt there are such things,’ said Fringilla, nodding her black hair. ‘Regarding, nonetheless, whether the Witcher is preparing to depart, do you know anything else? For you see, he hasn’t mentioned any such plan, and he usually tells me everything.’

‘Of course he does,’ Cahir grunted. Fringilla ignored him.

‘Mr Regis?’

‘No,’ the vampire said after a moment’s silence. ‘No, Madam Fringilla, please worry not. The Witcher doesn’t show us any greater affection or confidence than you. He doesn’t whisper into our ears any secrets he would keep from you.’

‘Where, then—’ Fringilla was as composed as granite ‘—do these revelations about departing come from?’

‘Well, it’s like our darling Angoulême’s catchphrase, which brims with youthful charm.’ The vampire didn’t bat an eyelid this time either. ‘There comes a time when you’ve either got to shit or free up the shithouse. In other words—’

‘Spare the other words,’ Fringilla interrupted sharply. ‘Those charming ones will suffice.’

Silence reigned for quite some time. The two hens, the black and the speckled one, walked around pecking whatever they could. Angoulême wiped her beetroot-stained nose with her sleeve. The vampire toyed pensively with the wooden peg from the sausage.

‘Thanks to me,’ Fringilla broke the silence, ‘Geralt has come to know Ciri’s lineage, the complexities and secrets of her genealogy, known only to a few. Thanks to me he knows what he had no idea about a year ago. Thanks to me he has information, and information is a weapon. Thanks to me and my magical protection he is safe from enemy scanning, and thus also from assassins. Thanks to me and my magic his knee doesn’t hurt him now and he can bend it. Around his neck is a medallion, made by my magical art, possibly not as good as his original witcher one, but powerful anyway. Thanks to me – and only me – in the spring or summer he will be able to face his enemies in combat, equipped with information, protected, fit, prepared and armed. If anyone present here has done more for Geralt, given him more, may they step forward. I’d be happy to honour them.’

No one said anything. The hens pecked Cahir’s boots, but the young Nilfgaardian paid no attention. ‘Verily,’ he said with a sneer, ‘none of us has given Geralt more than you, m’lady.’

‘How did I know you’d say that?’

‘That’s not the point, Madam Fringilla—’ began the vampire. The sorceress didn’t let him finish.

‘What is the point then?’ she asked aggressively. ‘That he’s with me? That we are joined by affection? That I don’t want him to leave now? That I don’t want a sense of guilt to destroy him? That same sense of guilt, that atonement, which drove you all onto the road?’

Regis said nothing. Cahir didn’t speak either. Angoulême watched, clearly not understanding very much.

‘If it is written in the scrolls of destiny,’ the sorceress said after a moment, ‘that Geralt will win Ciri back, then it shall happen. Irrespective of whether the Witcher goes into the mountains or whether he stays in Toussaint. Destiny catches up with people. And not the other way around. Do you understand that? Do you understand that, Lord Regis Terzieff-Godefroy?’

‘Better than you think, Madam Vigo.’ The vampire twiddled the wooden peg from the sausage. ‘But for me – please forgive me – destiny isn’t a scroll written on by a Great Demiurge, nor the will of heaven, nor the inevitable verdict of some providence or other, but the result of many apparently unconnected facts, events and occurrences. I would be inclined to agree with you that destiny catches up with people . . . and not just people. But the view that it can’t be the other way around doesn’t convince me. For such a view is facile fatalism, a paean praising torpor and indolence, a warm eiderdown and the beguiling warmth of a woman’s loins. In short, life in a dream. And life, Madam Vigo, may be a dream, may also finish as a dream . . . But it’s a dream that has to be dreamed actively. Which is why, Madam Vigo, the road awaits us.’

‘Suit yourselves.’ Fringilla stood up, almost as suddenly as Milva a moment earlier. ‘As you wish! Blizzards, frost and destiny await you in the mountain passes. And the expiation you so sorely search for. Suit yourselves! But the Witcher shall stay here. In Toussaint! With me!’

‘I think,’ the vampire said calmly, ‘that you are wrong, Madam Vigo. The dream that the Witcher is dreaming, I humbly submit with respect, is an enchanting and beautiful one. But every dream, if dreamed too long, turns into a nightmare. And we awake from such dreams screaming.’

*

The nine women sitting around the great round table in Montecalvo Castle were looking fixedly at Fringilla Vigo. At Fringilla, who suddenly began to stammer.

‘Geralt left for the Pomerol vineyard on the morning of the eighth of January. And returned . . . at eight in the evening . . . or nine in the morning . . . I don’t know . . . I’m not sure . . .’

‘Organise your thoughts,’ Sheala de Tancarville said gently. ‘Please speak more coherently, Madam Vigo. And if part of the story discomfits you, you may simply pass over it.’

*

The speckled hen, treading cautiously on its clawed feet, was walking around the kitchen. The smell of chicken broth was in the air.

The door slammed open. Geralt rushed into the kitchen. He had a bruise and a purple and red scab on his windburned face.

‘Come on, company, get packed,’ he announced without unnecessary introductions. ‘We’re riding out! In an hour, and not a moment longer, I want to see you all on the hillock outside the town, by that post. Packed, in the saddle, ready for a long ride and a difficult one.’

That was enough. It was as though they’d been waiting for this news for a long time, as though they’d been in readiness for a long time.

‘I’ll be ready in a flash!’ yelled Milva, leaping up. ‘I’ll be ready in half an hour!’

‘I will too.’ Cahir stood up, discarded a spoon and looked closely at the Witcher. ‘But I’d like to know what it is. A whim? A lovers’ tiff? Or are we really leaving?’

‘We really are. Angoulême, why are you making faces?’

‘Geralt, I—’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not leaving you. I’ve changed my mind. You need looking after, my girl, I can’t let you out of my sight. To horse, I said, get packed and fasten on your saddlebags. And singly, so as not to raise suspicion, outside the town, by the post on the hillock. We’ll meet there in an hour.’

‘Without fail, Geralt!’ yelled Angoulême. ‘At fucking last!’

In the blink of an eye all that was left in the kitchen were Geralt and the speckled hen. And the vampire, who went on calmly slurping chicken broth and dumplings.

‘Are you waiting for a special invitation?’ the Witcher asked coldly. ‘Why are you still sitting here? Rather than loading up Draakul the mule? And saying goodbye to the succubus?’

‘Geralt,’ Regis said calmly, giving himself a second helping from the tureen. ‘I need as long to say goodbye to the succubus as you do to your raven-haired beauty. Assuming you have any intention of saying goodbye to her. And just between you and I, you can send the youngsters to get packed by shouting, hastening and making a fuss. I deserve something else, if only for reasons of age. A few words of explanation, please.’

‘Regis—’

‘An explanation, Geralt. The quicker you begin the better. Yesterday morning, in accordance with your agreement, you met the steward of Pomerol vineyard at the gate . . .’

*

Alcides Fierabras, the black-bearded steward of the Pomerol vineyard he’d met in The Pheasantry on Yule Eve, was waiting for the Witcher at the gate, with a mule, and he in turn was dressed and equipped as though planning to journey far, far away, to the ends of the earth, beyond the Solveiga Gate and the Elskerdeg pass.

‘It’s close, but as a matter of fact it isn’t,’ he responded to Geralt’s sour remark. ‘You are, sire, a visitor from the wide world. Our little Toussaint may seem a backwater to you, you think you can toss a hat from one border to the other, and a dry one, to boot. Well, you’re mistaken. It’s quite a long way to Pomerol vineyard, which is where we’re headed, and if we arrive by noon it’ll be a success.’

‘So it’s a mistake,’ the Witcher said dryly, ‘for us to be setting off so tardily.’

‘Well, maybe it is.’ Alcides Fierabras glowered at him and blew into his whiskers. ‘But I knew not that you were the kind who was inclined to start at daybreak. For that’s rare among grand lords.’

‘I’m not a grand lord. Let’s be off, steward, sir, let’s not waste time on idle chatter.’

‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’

They took a shortcut through the town. At first Geralt wanted to protest, afraid of getting stuck in the familiar crowded backstreets. But Steward Fierabras, it turned out, knew better both the town and the times when the streets wouldn’t be crowded. They rode quickly and without difficulty.

They entered the town square and passed the scaffold. And the gallows, displaying a hanged man.

‘A perilous thing,’ the steward nodded, ‘to make rhymes and sing airs. Particularly in public.’

‘Judgements are harsh here,’ said Geralt, realising what it was about. ‘Elsewhere you’re pilloried at most for a lampoon.’

‘Depends who the lampoon’s about,’ commented Alcides Fierabras soberly. ‘And on the rhymes. Our Lady Duchess is good and endearing, but when she’s irritated . . .’

‘You can’t stifle a song, as a friend of mine says.’

‘Not a song. But a singer you can, sir.’

They crossed the town and left through the Coopers’ Gate straight into the valley of the Blessure, whose rapids were briskly splashing and foaming. The snow in the fields was only in furrows and hollows, but it was quite cold.

They were passed by a detachment of knights, heading no doubt towards the Pass of Cervantes, to the border watchtower of Vedette. Suddenly all they could see were colourful gryphons, lions, hearts, lilies, stars, crosses, chevrons and other heraldic trifles painted on shields and embroidered on cloaks and caparisons. Hooves drummed, pennants flapped, and a song resounded about the fortunes of a knight and his beloved who married another instead of waiting for him.

Geralt followed the detachment with his eyes. The sight of the knights errant reminded him of Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, who’d just returned from service and was recuperating in the arms of his townswoman, whose husband, a merchant, didn’t return morning or night, probably having been held up somewhere on his journey by swollen rivers, forests full of beasts and other turmoil of the elements. The Witcher wouldn’t have dreamed of tearing Reynart away from his lover’s embrace, but sincerely regretted not postponing the contract with Pomerol vineyard to a later date. He’d grown fond of the knight and missed his company.

‘Let’s ride, Master Witcher.’

‘Let us ride, Master Fierabras.’

They rode upstream along the highway. The Blessure wound and meandered, but there was an abundance of small bridges so they didn’t have to go out of their way.

Steam belched from the nostrils of Roach and the mule.

‘What do you think, Mr Fierabras, will the winter last long?’

‘There were frosts at Samhain. And the saying goes, “When at Samhain there’s ice, dress warm and nice”.’

‘I see. And your vines? Won’t the winter damage them?’

‘It’s been colder.’

They rode on in silence.

‘Look there,’ said Fierabras, pointing. ‘There in the valley lies the village of Fox Holes. Pots grow in the fields there, wonder of wonders.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Pots. They grow in the bosom of the earth, just like that, a pure trick of nature, without any human help at all. Like spuds or turnips grow elsewhere, in Fox Holes pots grow. Of all shapes and kinds.’

‘Indeed?’

‘As I live and breathe. For which reason Fox Holes has an agreement with the village of Dudno in Maecht. Because there, so the stories go, the earth bears forth pot lids.’

‘Of all shapes and kinds?’

‘Precisely, Master Witcher.’

They rode on. In silence. The Blessure sparkled and foamed on the rocks.

*

‘And look over yonder, Master Witcher, the ruins of the ancient burgh of Dun Tynne. That burgh was the witness to dreadful scenes, if one is to believe the stories. Walgerius, who they called the Cuckold, killed his faithless wife, her lover, her mother, her sister and her brother. Cruelly and bloodily. And then sat down and cried, no one knows why . . .’

‘I’ve heard about that.’

‘Have you been here before?’

‘No.’

‘Ah. Meaning the story has travelled widely.’

‘Precisely, Master Steward.’

*

‘And that slender tower, beyond that burgh, over there?’ The Witcher pointed. ‘What is it?’

‘Over there? That’s a temple.’

‘To which godhead?’

‘Who’d remember that?’

‘Very true. Who would?’

*

Around noon they saw the vineyard, hillsides gently falling towards the Blessure, bristling with evenly pruned vines, now misshapen and woefully leafless. At the top of the highest hill, lashed by the wind, were the soaring towers, squat keep and barbican of Pomerol Castle.

Geralt was interested to see that the road leading to the castle was well-used, no less furrowed by hooves and wheel rims than the main highway. It was evident that people often turned off the highway towards Pomerol Castle. He stopped his questions until he noticed at the foot of the castle a dozen or so wagons with horses and covered in tarpaulins, sturdy and well-made vehicles used for transporting goods long distances.

‘Merchants,’ explained the steward when asked. ‘Wine merchants.’

‘Merchants?’ Geralt was surprised. ‘How’s that? I thought the mountain passes were covered in snow, and Toussaint cut off from the world. How could the merchants get here?’

‘There are no bad roads for a merchant,’ said steward Fierabras gravely. ‘At least not for those who treat their trade seriously. They observe the principle, Master Witcher, that since the end is justified, the means must be found.’

‘Indeed,’ Geralt said slowly. ‘An apposite principle worthy of imitation. In any situation.’

‘Without doubt. But in truth, some of the traders have been stuck here since autumn, unable to leave. But they don’t lose heart. They say, “Why, who cares, in the spring of the year we’ll be here first, before the competition shows up.” With them they call it positive thinking.’

‘It would be hard to fault that principle either,’ nodded Geralt. ‘One thing still interests me, Master Steward. Why do the merchants stay here, in the middle of nowhere, and not in Beauclair? Isn’t the duchess keen on putting them up? Perhaps she disdains merchants?’

‘Not at all,’ answered Fierabras. ‘The Lady Duchess always invites them, while they graciously decline. And stay among the vineyards.’

‘Why?’

‘Beauclair, they say, is naught but feasts, balls, junkets, boozing and amour. A fellow, they say, only grows idle and stupid, and wastes time, instead of thinking about trade. And one should think about what’s really important. About the goal guiding us. Without let up. Not distract your thinking on mere bagatelles. Then, and only then, is the intended goal achieved.’

‘Indeed, Mr Fierabras,’ the Witcher said slowly. ‘I’m content with our shared journey. I’ve gained a great deal from our conversations. Truly a great deal.’

*

Contrary to the Witcher’s expectations they didn’t ride to Pomerol Castle, but a little further, to a prominence beyond the valley, where another castle rose, somewhat smaller and much more neglected. The castle was called Zurbarrán. Geralt was thrilled at the prospect of the upcoming work. Zurbarrán, dark and toothed with crumbling crenellations, looked the epitome of an enchanted ruin, and was no doubt teeming with witchcraft, marvels and monsters.

Inside, in the courtyard, instead of marvels and monsters he saw around a dozen people preoccupied with tasks as enchanted as rolling barrels, planing planks and nailing them together. It smelled of fresh timber, fresh lime, stale cat, sour wine and pea soup. The pea soup was served out soon after.

Made hungry by the journey, the wind and the cold, they ate briskly and in silence. They were accompanied by steward Fierabras’s subordinate, introduced to Geralt as Szymon Gilka. They were served by two fair-haired women with plaits two ells long. They both sent the Witcher such suggestive glances he decided to hasten to his work.

Szymon Gilka hadn’t seen the monster. He only knew of its appearance second-hand.

‘It was as black as pitch, but when it crawled across the wall, the bricks could be seen through it. Like jelly it was, see, Master Witcher, or some sort of snot, if you’ll excuse me. And it had long thin limbs, and a great number of them, eight or even more. And Yontek stood, stood and watched until at last he had a brainwave and shouted out loud “Die, perish!” and then threw in an exorcism: “Croak, you bastard, by God!” Then the beastie hop, hop, hop! Hopped away and that’s all we saw of it. Bolted into the cave mouth. Then the lads said, “If there’s a monster, give us a bonus for toiling in dangerous conditions, and if you don’t we’ll complain to the guild.” And I says, your guild can kiss my—’

‘When was the monster first seen?’ Geralt interrupted.

‘’Bout three days since. Bit before Yule.’

‘You said—’ the Witcher looked at the steward ‘—before Lammas.’

Alcides Fierabras blushed in the places not covered by his beard. Gilka snorted.

‘Aye, aye, Master Steward, if you want to steward you should come here more often and not just polish a chair with your arse in your office in Beauclair. That’s what I think—’

‘I’m not interested in what you think,’ interrupted Fierabras. ‘We’re talking about the monster.’

‘But I’ve already said it. Everything what happened.’

‘Weren’t there any victims? Was no one attacked?’

‘No. But last year a farmhand disappeared without trace. Some say a monster dragged him into the chasm and finished him off. Others, meanwhile, say it weren’t no monster, but that the farmhand made a cowardly escape off his own bat, because of debts and alley money and main tents. Because he, mark you, played the bones hard, and on top of that was shafting the miller’s daughter, and that miller’s daughter rushed to the courts, and the courts ordered the farmhand to pay main tents—’

‘Did the monster attack anyone else?’ Geralt unceremoniously interrupted his discourse. ‘Did anyone else see it?’

‘No.’

One of the serving women, pouring Geralt more of the local wine, brushed his ear with her breast, then winked encouragingly.

‘Let’s go,’ said Geralt quickly. ‘No point idling time away talking. Take me to these cellars.’

*

Fringilla’s amulet, unfortunately, didn’t live up to the hopes pinned on it. Geralt didn’t believe for a moment that the polished chrysoprase mounted in silver would replace his witcher’s wolf medallion. In any case, Fringilla hadn’t given any such promises. She had assured him, however – with great conviction – that after melding with the psyche of the wearer the amulet was capable of various things, including warning of danger.

Nonetheless, either Fringilla’s spells hadn’t worked, or Geralt and the amulet differed in the matter of what constituted danger. The chrysoprase perceptibly twitched when, as they walked to the cellars, they crossed the path of a large, ginger cat sauntering across the courtyard with its tail in the air. Indeed, the cat must have received some kind of signal, for it fled, meowing dreadfully.

When, though, the Witcher went down into the cellars it kept vibrating annoyingly, but in dry, well-ordered and clean vaults where the only danger was the wine in huge barrels. Someone who had lost their self-control and was lying with their mouth open under the spigot would be in danger of serious over-drinking. And nothing else.

The medallion didn’t twitch, however, when Geralt abandoned the service part of the cellars and descended down a series of steps and drifts. The Witcher had worked out long before that there were ancient mines under most of the vineyards in Toussaint. When the vines had been planted and started to bear fruit and generate better profits, exploitation of the mines must have ceased, and the mines abandoned, their corridors and galleries partly modified into wine cellars and stores. Pomerol and Zurbarrán castles stood over a disused slate mine. It was riddled with drifts and holes, and a moment’s inattention would have been enough for one to end up at the bottom of one of them with a compound fracture. Some of the holes were covered by rotten planks covered with slate powder and thus hardly differed from the floor. An incautious step onto something like that would have been dangerous – so the medallion ought to have given him a warning. It didn’t.

It also didn’t give a warning when a vague, grey shape sprang out of a heap of slate waste about ten paces in front of Geralt, scratched the mine floor with its claws, pranced, howled piercingly, then uttered a squeal and a snicker, before tearing off down the corridor and ducking into one of the niches gaping in the wall.

The Witcher swore. The magical trinket reacted to ginger cats, but not to gremlins. He’d have to talk to Fringilla about that, he thought, as he approached the opening into which the creature had vanished.

The amulet twitched powerfully.

About time, he thought. But right away he pondered matters more deeply. The medallion couldn’t have been that stupid, after all. The standard, favourite tactic of the gremlin was to flee and then slash its pursuer from an ambush with a surprise blow of its sickle-sharp talons. A gremlin might be waiting there in the darkness and the medallion had signalled it.

He waited a long time, holding his breath, intently focusing his hearing. The amulet lay placid and inert on his chest. A musty, disagreeable stench drifted from the hole. It was deadly silent. And no gremlin could have endured being quiet for so long.

Without a second thought he entered the hole on hands and knees, scraping his back against the jagged rock. He didn’t get far.

Something rustled and cracked, the floor gave way, and the Witcher tumbled downwards along with a few hundredweight of sand and stones. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, and there wasn’t a bottomless chasm under him but an ordinary corridor. He flew like shit off his shovel and smashed with a crunch at the foot of a pile of rotten wood. He shook the dirt from his hair and spat sand, swearing very coarsely. The amulet was twitching ceaselessly, fluttering on his chest like a sparrow inside his jacket. The Witcher stopped just short of tearing it off and flinging it away. First of all, Fringilla would have been livid. Second of all, the chrysoprase was supposed to have other magical abilities. Geralt hoped they would be less unreliable.

When he tried to stand up, he laid a hand on a rounded skull. And realised that what he was lying on wasn’t wood at all.

He stood up and quickly inspected the pile of bones. They belonged to people. At the moment of their deaths they had all been manacled and were most probably naked. The bones were crushed, with bite marks. The victims might not have been alive when they were being bitten. But he couldn’t be certain.

He was led out of the drift by a long corridor, which headed onwards as straight as a die. The slate wall had been worked to a smooth finish. It no longer looked like a mine.

He suddenly emerged into an immense cavern whose ceiling vanished into the darkness. In the centre of the cavern was a huge, black, bottomless hole, over which was suspended a dangerously fragile-looking stone bridge.

The jingle of water dripping from the walls echoed. Coldness and unidentifiable stenches drifted up from the chasm. The amulet hung motionless. Geralt set foot on the bridge, intent and focused, trying hard to stay well away from the crumbling balustrade.

There was another corridor on the far side of the bridge. He noticed rusted cressets in the smoothly carved walls. There were also niches, some of which contained small sandstone figures, but the ceaseless dripping of water had melted and eroded them into amorphous lumps. There were also tiles bearing reliefs set into the walls. The tiles were made of more a durable material so the reliefs were still recognisable. Geralt made out a woman with crescent horns, a tower, a swallow, a wild boar, a dolphin and a unicorn.

He heard a voice.

He stopped, holding his breath.

The amulet twitched.

No. It wasn’t an illusion, it wasn’t the murmur of shifting slate or the echo of dripping water. It was a human voice. Geralt shut his eyes and looked hard. Searching for the source.

The voice, the Witcher could have sworn, was coming from another niche, from behind another small figure, also eroded, but not enough to remove its shapely female curves. This time the medallion did its job. It flashed, and Geralt suddenly saw a reflection of metal in the wall. He grasped the eroded woman in a powerful embrace and twisted hard. There was a grating, and the entire niche revolved on steel hinges, revealing a spiral staircase leading upwards.

The voice again sounded from the top of the stairs. Geralt didn’t think twice.

At the top he found a door that opened smoothly and without any grating. Beyond the door was a tiny vaulted room. Four enormous brass pipes with their ends flared like trumpets protruded from the wall. A chair stood in the middle between the trumpet-like openings, and on the chair sat a skeleton. On its pate it had the remains of a biretta slumped down beyond its teeth. It was wearing the rags of fine garments, around its neck was a golden chain, and on its feet curled-toed cordovan slippers, much gnawed by rats.

The sound of a sneeze erupted from one of the horns, so loud and unexpected that the Witcher started. Then someone blew their nose and the sound – intensified by the brass tube – was simply unbearable.

‘Bless you,’ the pipe sounded. ‘Why, how your nose is running, Skellen.’

Geralt shoved the skeleton off the chair, not forgetting to remove and pocket the golden chain. Then he sat down at the surveillance post. At the end of the horn.

*

One of the men being eavesdropped on had a deep, rumbling bass voice. When he spoke, the brass tube vibrated.

‘Why, how your nose is running, Skellen. Where did you catch such a chill? And when?’

‘Not worth mentioning,’ answered the man with the runny nose. ‘I caught the damned illness and now it won’t subside. As soon as it lets up, it returns. Even magic doesn’t help.’

‘Perhaps you ought to change your sorcerer?’ came another voice, grating like a rusty old hinge. ‘For at the moment that Vilgefortz can’t boast of much success, can he? I’d say—’

‘Leave it,’ interjected someone speaking with characteristic long-drawn-out syllables. ‘That wasn’t why we organised this meeting, here, in Toussaint. At the world’s end.’

‘At the end of the bloody world!’

‘This world’s end,’ said the man with the cold, ‘is the only country I know that doesn’t possess its own security service. The only corner of the empire that isn’t crawling with Vattier de Rideaux’s agents. They regard this endlessly merry and fuddled duchy as ridiculous, and no one takes it seriously.’

‘Little countries like this,’ said the one who stretched out his syllables, ‘have always been a paradise for spies, and favourite locations for rendezvous. So they also attract counter-intelligence and narks, diverse professional snoopers and eavesdroppers.’

‘Perhaps it was like that long ago. But not during the distaff governments, that have prevailed in Toussaint for almost a hundred years. I repeat, we are safe here. No one will track us down or eavesdrop on us. We can, in the guise of merchants, calmly discuss matters so vital to Your Ducal Majesties. So vital to your private fortunes and estates.’

‘I despise self-interest, it’s as simple as that!’ said the one with the grating voice, annoyed. ‘And I’m not here for self-interest! I’m concerned only with the good of the empire. And the good of the empire, gentlemen, is a strong dynasty! It will be detrimental and most evil for the empire if some mongrel, rotten fruit of bad blood, the spawn of the corporally and morally sick northern kinglets, ascends to the throne. No, gentlemen. I, de Wett of the de Wetts, shall not look on passively, by the Great Sun, at something like this! Particularly since my daughter had almost been promised—’

‘Your daughter, de Wett?’ roared the thundering bass. ‘What am I to say? I, who supported that pup Emhyr in the fight against the usurper? Indeed, the cadets set off from my residence to storm the palace! Afterwards, the little sneak looked benignly at my Eilan, smiled, paid her compliments, while he was squeezing her tittles behind a curtain, I happen to know. And now what . . . A fresh empress? Such an affront? Such an outrage? The Emperor of the Eternal Empire, who prefers a stray from Cintra to the daughters of ancient houses! What? He’s on the throne by my grace, and he dares insult my Eilan? No, I will not abide that!’

‘Nor I!’ shouted another voice, high and gushing. ‘He also maligned me! He discarded my wife for that Cintran stray!’

‘As luck would have it,’ said the man who drawled his syllables, ‘the stray has been dispatched to the next world. So it would appear from Lord Skellen’s account.’

‘I listened to that account attentively,’ said the grating-voiced man, ‘and I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing is certain apart from that the stray vanished. If it has vanished it may reappear once more. It has vanished and reappeared several times since last year! Indeed, Lord Skellen, you have disappointed us greatly, it’s as simple as that. You and that sorcerer, Vilgefortz!’

‘This is not the time, Joachim! Not the time to accuse and blame each other, driving a wedge into our unity. We must be a strong, unified force. And a decisive one. For it’s not important if the Cintran is alive or not. An emperor who has once abused the ancient families with impunity will do it again! The Cintran is no more? Then he’s liable in a few months to present us with an empress from Zerrikania or Zangvebar! No, by the Great Sun, we shall not allow it!’

‘We shall not allow it, it’s as simple as that! Well said, Ardal! He has dashed the hopes of the Emreis family. Every moment Emhyr is on the throne he damages the empire, simple as that. And there is someone to put on the throne. Young Voorhis . . .’

A loud sneeze and then the sound of someone blowing their nose boomed out.

‘A constitutional monarchy,’ said the sneezer. ‘It’s high time for a constitutional monarchy, for a progressive political system. And afterwards democracy . . . The government of the people . . .’

‘Imperator Voorhis,’ repeated the deep voice with emphasis. ‘Imperator Voorhis, Stefan Skellen. Who will be married to my Eilan or one of Joachim’s daughters. And then I, as the Grand Chancellor of the Crown, and de Wett as the Marshal of Internal Affairs. Unless, as an advocate of some hoi-polloi, you declare your resignation from the title and the position. What?’

‘Let’s leave aside historical processes,’ said the one with the cold, in a conciliatory tone. ‘Nothing can stop them anyhow. But for today, Your Grace Grand Chancellor aep Dahy, if I have any reservations about Prince Voorhis it’s chiefly because he is a man of iron character, proud and unyielding, whom it is difficult to sway.’

‘If one may say something,’ said the drawling voice. ‘Prince Voorhis has a son, little Morvran. He is a much better candidate. Firstly, he has a more compelling right to the throne, both on the spear and the distaff side. Secondly, he’s a child, on whose behalf a council of regents shall govern. Which means us.’

‘Foolishness! We shall cope with his father too! We shall find a way!’

‘We could plant my wife on him!’ suggested the gushing one.

‘Be silent, Lord Broinne. Now is not the time. Gentlemen, it behoves us to debate something else, it’s as simple as that. For I would like to observe that Emhyr var Emreis still reigns.’

‘I’ll say,’ agreed the man with the cold, trumpeting into a handkerchief. ‘He lives and reigns, is well in body and in mind. The second, in particular, cannot be questioned after he expelled from Nilfgaard both Your Graces and your armies – which may have been loyal to you. How do you plan to stage a coup, Duke Ardal, when at any moment you may have to go into battle at the head of the East Army Group? And by now Duke Joachim should probably also be with his army and the Verden Special Operations Group.’

‘Give the acerbity a miss, Stefan Skellen. And don’t make faces that only you think make you look like your new paymaster, the sorcerer Vilgefortz. And know this, Tawny Owl, since Emhyr suspects something, it is you and Vilgefortz who shoulder the blame. Admit it, you’d like to capture the Cintran and trade her to gain favour with Emhyr, wouldn’t you? Now that the girl is dead, there’s nothing to trade with, is there? Emhyr will tear you apart with horses, simple as that. You must accept it with humility. You, and the sorcerer you’ve allied with against us!’

‘We must all accept it, Joachim,’ interjected the bass. ‘It’s time to face facts. We aren’t at all in a better position than Skellen. The circumstances have put us all in the same boat.’

‘But it was Tawny Owl who put us in that boat! We were supposed to act in secret, and now what? Emhyr knows everything! Vattier de Rideaux’s agents are hunting Tawny Owl throughout the empire. And we’ve been sent to war to get rid of ourselves, quite simply!’

‘I’d be pleased about that,’ said the drawling one. ‘I’d take advantage of it. Everyone has had enough of this current war, I can assure you, gentlemen. The army, the common folk, and above all merchants and entrepreneurs. News of a cessation of hostilities will be greeted throughout the empire with great joy, irrespective of the result. And you, gentlemen, as commanders of the armies, have an influence on the result of the war permanently within arm’s reach, so to speak, don’t you? What could be easier than to don a laurel wreath in the event of the victory that ends the war? Or, in the event of defeat, to step forward as men of the moment, intercessors of the negotiations that’ll put an end to the bloodshed?’

‘True,’ said the one with the grating voice a moment later. ‘By the Great Sun, it’s true. You talk sense, Lord Leuvaarden.’

‘By sending you to the front,’ said the bass, ‘Emhyr put a noose around his own neck.’

‘Emhyr is still alive, Your Grace,’ said the gushing one. ‘Is alive and well. Let’s not sell the bear’s skin before catching the bear.’

‘No,’ said the bass. ‘First let’s kill the bear.’

There was a long silence.

‘Assassination, then. Death.’

‘Death.’

‘Death!’

‘Death! It’s the only solution. As long as he’s alive, Emhyr has supporters. When he dies, everyone will support us. The aristocracy will be on our side, for we are the aristocracy and the aristocracy’s strength is in its solidarity. A significant part of the army will be with us, particularly the part of the officer corps that remembers Emhyr’s purges after the defeat at Sodden. And the people will be on our side—’

‘Because the people are ignorant, stupid and easily manipulated,’ finished Skellen, blowing his nose. ‘It’s enough to shout “Hurrah!”, make a speech from the steps of the senate, open the prisons and lower taxes.’

‘You are absolutely right, Count,’ said the one who extended his syllables. ‘Now I know why you clamour so for democracy.’

‘I warn you, gentlemen,’ grated the one called Joachim, ‘that it won’t go off without a hitch. Our plan depends on Emhyr dying. And we can’t close our eyes to the fact that Emhyr has many henchmen, has a corps of internal troops, and a fanatical guard. It won’t be easy to hack our way through the Impera Brigade, and they – let’s not delude ourselves – will fight to the last man.’

‘And here,’ declared Skellen, ‘Vilgefortz can offer us his help. We won’t have to besiege the palace or fight our way through the “Impera”. The issue will be solved by one assassin with magical protection. As it was in Tretogor just before the rebellion of the mages on Thanedd.’

‘King Radovid of Redania.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Does Vilgefortz have such an assassin?’

‘He does. In order to prove our reliability, gentlemen, I’ll tell you who it is. The sorceress Yennefer, who we’re holding in prison.’

‘In prison? I heard that Yennefer was Vilgefortz’s accomplice.’

‘She’s his prisoner. She will carry out the assassination like a golem, bewitched, hypnotised and programmed. And then commit suicide.’

‘A bewitched hag doesn’t especially suit me,’ said the one who drew out his syllables, and his reluctance made him draw them out even more. ‘Better would be a hero, an ardent idealist, an avenger—’

‘An avenger,’ Skellen interrupted. ‘That fits perfectly here, Lord Leuvaarden. Yennefer will be avenging the harm caused her by the tyrant. Emhyr tormented and caused the death of her ward, an innocent child. That cruel dictator, that deviant, instead of taking care of the empire and the people, persecuted and tortured a child. For that he won’t escape vengeance . . .’

‘I very much approve,’ Ardal aep Dahy declared.

‘I do, too,’ grated Joachim de Wett.

‘Splendid!’ gushed the Count of Broinne. ‘For outraging other men’s wives the tyrant and degenerate will receive his just deserts. Splendid!’

‘One thing.’ Leuvaarden drawled out his syllables. ‘In order to establish trust, Count Stefan, please reveal to us Lord Vilgefortz’s current place of abode.’

‘Gentlemen, I . . . I’m forbidden . . .’

‘It will be a guarantee. A safeguard of your sincerity and devotion to the cause.’

‘Don’t be afraid of betrayal, Stefan,’ added aep Dahy. ‘None of those present here will betray us. It’s a paradox. Under other conditions perhaps among us there’d be one who would buy his life by betraying the others. But all of us know only too well that we won’t buy anything with perfidy. Emhyr var Emreis doesn’t forgive. He is incapable of forgiving. He has a lump of ice in place of his heart. Which is why he must die.’

Stefan Skellen didn’t hesitate for long.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let it be a safeguard of my sincerity. Vilgefortz is hiding in . . .’

*

The Witcher, sitting at the openings of the trumpets, clenched his fists so hard they hurt. He pricked up his ears. And racked his memory.

*

The Witcher’s doubts regarding Fringilla’s amulet were misplaced and were dispelled in a flash. When he entered the large cavern and approached the stone bridge above the black chasm, the medallion jerked and fluttered on his neck, now not like a sparrow, but like a large, strong bird. A rook, for example.

Geralt froze. The amulet calmed down. He didn’t make the smallest movement, in order that not a single rustle or even loud breath would confuse his ears. He waited. He knew that on the other side of the chasm, beyond the bridge, was whatever was lurking in the darkness. He couldn’t rule out that something might also be hiding behind his back, and that the bridge was meant to be a trap. He had no intention of being caught in it. He waited. Until something happened.

‘Greetings, Witcher,’ he heard. ‘We’ve been waiting here for you.’

The voice emerging from the gloom sounded strange. But Geralt had heard voices like that before, and he knew them. The voices of creatures not accustomed to communicating using speech. Able to use the apparatus of the lungs, diaphragm, windpipe and voice box, these creatures weren’t in complete control of their articulatory apparatus, even when the construction of their lips, palates and tongues were quite similar to those of humans. The words spoken by creatures like that, apart from their strange accent and intonation, were full of sounds unpleasant to the human ear – from hard and nastily barking to hissing and slimily soft.

‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ repeated the voice. ‘We knew you’d come, lured by rumours. That you’d crawl in here, under the ground, to stalk, pursue, torment and murder. You won’t leave here now. You won’t see the sun you’ve come to love so much again.’

‘Show yourself.’

Something moved in the darkness on the far side of the bridge. In one place the gloom seemed to thicken and assume a more or less human form. The creature, it seemed, never remained in the same position or place for a moment, but shifted with the help of swift, nervous and shimmering movements. The Witcher had seen such creatures before.

‘A korred,’ he stated coldly. ‘I might have expected somebody like you here. It’s a wonder I haven’t happened upon you before.’

‘Well, well.’ Derision sounded in the restless creature’s voice. ‘It’s dark, but he recognised me. And do you recognise him? And him? And him?’

Three more creatures emerged from the darkness, as noiselessly as ghosts. One of them, lurking behind the korred’s back, was also humanoid in shape and general appearance, but was shorter, more hunched and more simian. Geralt knew it was a kilmulis.

The two other monsters, as he had rightly suspected, were skulking in front of the bridge, ready to cut off his retreat if he stepped onto it. The first, on the left, scrabbled its claws like a huge spider, stopped moving and shuffled its numerous legs. It was a pryskirnik. The last creature, roughly resembling a candelabra, seemed to slip straight out from the cracked slate wall. Geralt couldn’t guess what it was. A monster like that didn’t feature in any witcher tomes.

‘I don’t want to fight,’ he said, counting a little on the fact that the creatures had begun by talking instead of simply leaping on his back from the darkness. ‘I don’t want to pick a fight with you. But if it comes to it I’ll defend myself.’

‘We’ve taken that into account,’ hissed the korred. ‘Which is why there are four of us. Which is why we lured you here. You’ve driven us to a dog’s life, O roguish witcher. The most beautiful holes in this part of the world, a wonderful place for wintering. We’ve been wintering here almost since the dawn of time. And now you’ve come here hunting, you good-for-nothing. Chasing us, stalking us, killing us for money. We’re putting an end to it. And to you too.’

‘Listen, korred—’

‘Be polite,’ the creature snapped. ‘I can’t stand boorishness.’

‘How should I address—’

‘Mister Schweitzer.’

‘And so, Mister Schweitzer,’ continued Geralt, apparently obediently and meekly, ‘it’s like this. I came here, I admit, as a witcher, with a witcher task. I suggest we pass over the matter. Something has occurred in these vaults, however, which has changed the situation diametrically. I’ve learned something extremely important to me. Something that may change my entire life.’

‘And what results from that?’

‘I must immediately get onto the surface.’ Geralt was a model of calm and patience. ‘I must immediately set off on a long journey, without a moment’s delay. A road which may turn out to be one from which I won’t return. I doubt if I’ll ever be back in these parts—’

‘You want to buy your life like that, witcher?’ hissed Mr Schweitzer. ‘Nothing doing. Your begging is in vain. We have you in our grasp and we won’t let you out of it. We’ll kill you not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our other comrades. For our freedom and your freedom, so to speak.’

‘I won’t just never return here,’ Geralt continued patiently, ‘but I shall cease my witcher activities. I shall never kill any of you again—’

‘You lie! You lie from fear!’

‘But—’ Geralt wasn’t to be interrupted this time either ‘—I must, as I’ve said, get out of here right away. So you have two alternatives to choose from. Firstly, you’ll believe in my sincerity, and I leave you here. Or secondly, I leave here over your dead bodies.’

‘Or thirdly,’ the korred rasped, ‘you’ll be the dead body.’

The Witcher’s sword rasped as he drew it from the scabbard on his back.

‘Not the only one,’ he said unemotionally. ‘Certainly not the only one, Mister Schweitzer.’

The korred was silent for some time. The kilmulis was rocking and rasping behind his back. The pryskirnik was bending and straightening its limbs. The candelabra was changing its shape. Now it looked like a misshapen Christmas tree with two huge glowing eyes.

‘Give us some proof,’ the korred said at last, ‘of your sincerity and good will.’

‘What?’

‘Your sword. You claim you’ll give up being a witcher. A witcher is his sword. Throw it into the chasm. Or break it. Then we’ll let you out.’

For a moment Geralt stood without moving. The water dripping from the walls and ceiling could be heard in the silence. Then slowly, without hurrying, he jammed his sword vertically and deeply into a rocky cleft. And broke the blade with a powerful blow of his boot. The blade shattered with a whine whose echo sounded in the caverns.

Water dripped from the walls, dribbling down them like tears.

‘I can’t believe it,’ the korred said slowly. ‘I can’t believe anyone would be that stupid.’

They all fell on him, instantly, without any shouting, noises or commands. Mister Schweitzer was the first to lope across the bridge, his claws extended and baring fangs that wouldn’t have shamed a wolf.

Geralt let him come closer, then twisted his hips and slashed, hacking through his throat and lower jaw. The next moment he was on the bridge and cutting open the kilmulis with a powerful blow. He crouched and fell to the ground, just in time, and the attacking candelabra flew over his head, barely scratching his jacket with its talons. The Witcher dodged away from the pryskirnik, from its thin legs flashing like scythes. A blow from one of them hit him on the side of the head. Geralt danced, making a feint and encircling himself with a sweeping slash. The pryskirnik leaped again, but missed. It crashed against the barrier and smashed it, tumbling into the chasm with a hail of stones. Until that moment it hadn’t emitted the merest sound, but now it howled as it hurtled into the chasm. The howling gradually faded.

They attacked him from two sides – from one the candelabra, from the other the kilmulis, which, although wounded and gushing blood, had managed to stand up. The Witcher jumped onto the balustrade of the bridge, felt shifting stones grinding against each other and the whole bridge shuddering. He balanced, slipped out of reach of the candelabra’s clawed feet and found himself behind the kilmulis’s back. The kilmulis didn’t have a neck, so Geralt slashed it in the temple. But the monster’s skull was like iron, so he had to hack it a second time. He lost too much time doing it.

He was hit in the head, the pain exploded in his skull and eyes. He whirled around, defending himself with a parry, feeling blood pouring from under his hair, trying hard to understand what had happened. He dodged another blow of the claws and understood. The candelabra had changed shape – it was now attacking with its improbably extended legs.

That had a flaw. Now its centre of gravity and balance was disrupted. The Witcher ducked under the legs, drawing closer. The candelabra, seeing what was afoot, fell on its back like a cat, sticking out its rear legs, which were just as taloned as its fore legs. Geralt jumped over it, slashing mid-leap. He felt the blade cut flesh. He hunched up, turned and cut once more, dropping to his knee. The creature screamed and threw its head forward violently, savagely snapping its massive teeth just in front of the Witcher’s chest. Its huge eyes shone in the darkness. Geralt shoved it back with a powerful blow of the sword pommel and cut from close range, removing half its skull. Even without that half the strange creature, which didn’t feature in any witcher tomes, still snapped its teeth for a good few seconds. Then it died, with a terrible, almost human sigh.

The korred was twitching convulsively in a pool of blood.

The Witcher stood over it.

‘I cannot believe,’ he said, ‘that someone could be so stupid as to be taken in by such a simple illusion as the one with the broken sword.’

He wasn’t certain if the korred was conscious enough to understand. But actually he didn’t care.

‘I warned you,’ he said, wiping off the blood that was pouring down his cheek. ‘I warned you I had to get out of here.’

Mister Schweitzer trembled violently, wheezed, whistled and gnashed his teeth. Then fell silent and stopped moving.

Water dripped from the walls and ceiling.

*

‘Are you satisfied, Regis?’

‘I am now.’

‘In that case . . .’ The Witcher stood. ‘Go on. Run off and pack. And be quick.’

‘It won’t take me very long. Omnia mea mecum porto.’

‘What?’

‘I have very little luggage.’

‘So much the better. Outside the town in half an hour.’

‘I’ll be there.’

*

He’d underestimated her. She caught him in the act. He only had himself to blame. Rather than rushing, he could have ridden around the back of the palace and left Roach in the larger stables there, the one for the errant knighthood, staff and servants, and where his company also kept their horses. He hadn’t done that, but had used the ducal stables owing to haste and habit. And he might have guessed there would be somebody in the stable who would inform on him.

She was walking from stall to stall, kicking the straw. She was wearing a short lynx-skin coat, a white satin blouse, a black equestrian skirt and high boots. The horses snorted, sensing the anger emanating from her.

‘Well, well,’ she said on seeing him, flexing the riding crop she was holding. ‘We’re bolting! Without saying goodbye. For the letter which is probably lying on my table is no farewell. Not after what we had. I imagine some extremely important arguments explain and justify your behaviour.’

‘They do. Sorry, Fringilla.’

‘“Sorry, Fringilla”,’ she repeated, sneering furiously. ‘How curt, how economical, how unpretentious, with such attention to style. The letter you left for me, I’m absolutely certain, is doubtless edited just as elegantly. Without excess lavishness as regards ink.’

‘I must ride,’ he uttered. ‘You can guess why. And for whose sake. Please forgive me. I intended to flee stealthily and silently, because . . . I didn’t want you to try and come after me.’

‘Your fears were groundless,’ she drawled, bending the crop. ‘I wouldn’t have gone after you even if you’d asked me, grovelling at my feet. Oh, no, Witcher. Ride alone, die alone, freeze alone in the mountain passes. I have no obligations towards Ciri. And towards you? Do you know how many have begged for what you had? And for what you’re now contemptuously rejecting, tossing away?’

‘I’ll never forget you.’

‘Oh,’ she hissed. ‘You don’t know how much I feel like making sure you really won’t. Even if not using magic, then using this whip!’

‘You won’t do it.’

‘You’re right, I won’t. I wouldn’t be able to. I shall behave as befits a scorned and spurned lover. Classically. I shall walk away with my head high. With dignity and pride. Swallowing back the tears. Then I’ll howl into a pillow. And then I’ll bed another!’

By the end she was almost screaming.

He said nothing. Neither did she.

‘Geralt,’ she said finally, in quite a different voice. ‘Stay with me.

‘I think I love you,’ she said, seeing he was delaying his answer. ‘Stay with me. I implore you. I’ve never asked anyone nor thought I ever would. But I ask you.’

‘Fringilla,’ he answered after a while. ‘You’re a woman a man can only dream about. My fault, my only fault, is that I don’t have the nature of a dreamer.’

‘You are,’ she said a moment later, biting her lip, ‘like an angler’s hook, which once it’s stuck in, can only be pulled out with blood and flesh. Well, I’ve only got myself to blame. I knew what I was doing, playing around with a dangerous toy. Luckily, I also know how to cope with the effects. In that respect I have an advantage over the rest of the female species.’

He didn’t comment.

‘In any case,’ she added, ‘a broken heart, although it hurts greatly, a lot more than a broken arm, heals much, much more quickly.’

He didn’t comment that time, either. Fringilla contemplated the bruise on his cheek.

‘How was my amulet? Does it work well?’

‘It’s quite simply wonderful. Thank you.’

She nodded.

‘Where are you riding to?’ she asked in a completely different voice and tone. ‘What did you find out? You know where Vilgefortz is hiding, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Don’t ask me to tell you where that is. I won’t.’

‘I’ll buy that information. Quid pro quo.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘I have information,’ she repeated, ‘that is valuable. And to you quite simply invaluable. I’ll sell it to you in exchange for—’

‘For peace of mind,’ he finished, looking her in the eyes. ‘For the trust I placed in you. A moment ago there was talk of love. And now we’re starting to talk of trade?’

She was silent for a long while. Then she hit her boot violently, hard, with the riding crop.

‘Yennefer,’ she quickly recited, ‘the one whose name you called me several times in the night, in moments of ecstasy, never betrayed you, nor Ciri. She was never an accomplice of Vilgefortz. In order to rescue Cirilla, she fearlessly took an exceptional risk. She suffered a defeat, and fell into Vilgefortz’s hands. She was certainly tortured into the attempts at scanning that took place last autumn. It’s not known if she’s alive. I don’t know any more. I swear.’

‘Thank you, Fringilla.’

‘Now go.’

‘I trust you,’ he said, without moving. ‘And I shall never forget what was between us. I trust you, Fringilla. I won’t stay with you, but I think I loved you too . . . In my own way. Please keep utterly secret what you are about to find out. Vilgefortz’s hideout is in—’

‘Wait,’ she interrupted. ‘You’ll tell me later, you’ll disclose it later. Now, before you leave, say goodbye to me. The way you ought to say goodbye. Not with paltry letters, not with mumbled apologies. Say goodbye to me the way I desire.’

She took off her lynx fur coat and tossed it down on a pile of straw. She violently tore off her blouse, beneath which she was naked. She fell onto the fur, pulling him after her, onto her. Geralt caught her by the nape of her neck, lifted up her skirt, and suddenly realised there would be no time to take his gloves off. Fringilla was fortunately not wearing gloves. Or knickers. Even more fortunately she wasn’t wearing spurs either, for soon after the heels of her riding boots were literally everywhere. It doesn’t bear thinking what might have happened had she been wearing spurs.

When she screamed he kissed her. Stifling the scream.

The horses, scenting their furious passion, neighed, stamped and thumped against their stalls until hay and dust fell from the ceiling.

*

‘Rhys-Rhun citadel, in Nazair, by Lake Muredach,’ Fringilla Vigo ended triumphantly. ‘That’s where Vilgefortz’s hide-out is. I got it out of the Witcher before he rode away. We have enough time to overtake him. He has no chance of getting there before April.’

The nine women gathered in the columned chamber of Montecalvo Castle nodded, favouring Fringilla with looks of great appreciation.

‘Rhys-Rhun,’ repeated Philippa Eilhart, baring her teeth in a predatory smile and playing with the sardonyx cameo brooch fastened to her dress. ‘Rhys-Rhun in Nazair. Well, see you soon, Master Vilgefortz . . . See you soon!’

‘When the Witcher gets there,’ hissed Keira Metz, ‘he’ll find rubble which by then won’t even be stinking of ash.’

‘Or dead bodies.’ Sabrina Glevissig smiled enchantingly.

‘Well done, Miss Vigo,’ nodded Sheala. ‘Over three months in Toussaint . . . But it was probably worth it.’

Fringilla Vigo’s eyes swept over the sorceresses sitting at the table. Over Sheala, Philippa and Sabrina Glevissig. Over Keira Metz, Margarita Laux-Antille and Triss Merigold. Over Francesca Findabair and Ida Emean, whose eyes, ringed with garish elven makeup, expressed absolutely nothing. Over Assire var Anahid, whose eyes expressed anxiety and concern.

‘It was,’ she admitted.

Quite sincerely.

*

The sky slowly changed from dark blue to black. An icy gale blew among the vineyards. Geralt fastened his wolf-skin cloak and wrapped a woollen scarf around his neck. And felt wonderful. As usual, love expressed had raised him up to the peak of his physical, psychological and moral powers, had erased all traces of doubt, and his thinking was clear and intense. He only regretted he would be deprived of that wonderful panacea for a long time.

The voice of Reynart de Bois-Fresnes startled him out of his reverie.

‘Bad weather’s coming,’ said the knight errant, looking eastwards, from where the gale was blowing. ‘Make haste. If snow comes with that wind, if it catches you on the Malheur pass, you’ll be stuck in a trap. And then pray for a thaw to all the gods you venerate, know and understand.’

‘We understand.’

‘The Sansretour will guide you for the first few days. Keep to the river. You’ll pass a trapper’s manufactory and reach a place where a right-bank tributary flows into the Sansretour. Don’t forget: a right-bank tributary. Its course will indicate the way to the Malheur pass. Should you with God’s will conquer Malheur, don’t hurry too much, for you’ll still have the Sansmerci and Mortblanc passes ahead of you. Should you conquer both of them, you’ll descend into the Sudduth valley. Sudduth has a warm microclimate, almost like Toussaint. Were it not for the poor soil they would plant vines there.’

He broke off, embarrassed by the reproachful gazes.

‘Indeed,’ he hemmed. ‘To the point. At the mouth of the Sudduth lies the small town of Caravista. My cousin, Guy de Bois-Fresnes, lives there. Visit him and mention me. Should it turn out my cousin’s died or gone insane, remember the direction of your journey is the Mag Deira plain, the valley of the River Sylte. Further on, Geralt, it’s according to the maps you copied at the town cartographer’s. Since we’re on the subject of cartography, I don’t exactly understand why you asked me about some castles or other—’

‘Better forget about that, Reynart. Nothing like that took place. You heard nothing, saw nothing. Even if they torture you. Understand?’

‘I do.’

‘A rider,’ warned Cahir, getting his unruly stallion under control. ‘A rider’s galloping towards us from the palace.’

‘If there’s only one,’ Angoulême grinned, stroking the battle-axe hanging from her saddle, ‘it’s small beer.’

The rider turned out to be Dandelion, riding like a bat out of hell. Astonishingly the horse turned out to be Pegasus, the poet’s gelding, which didn’t like galloping and was not in the habit of doing so.

‘Well,’ said the troubadour, panting as though he had been carrying the gelding and not the other way around. ‘Well, I made it. I was afraid I wouldn’t catch you.’

‘Just don’t say you’re finally riding with us.’

‘No, Geralt.’ Dandelion lowered his head. ‘I’m not. I’m staying here in Toussaint with my Little Weasel. I mean with Anarietta. But I couldn’t not say farewell to you. Or wish you a safe journey.’

‘Thank the duchess for everything. And make excuses as to why it’s so sudden and without a farewell. Explain it somehow.’

‘You took a knightly vow and that’s that. Everybody in Toussaint, including the Little Weasel, will understand, and here . . . Have it. Let it be my contribution.’

‘Dandelion.’ Geralt took a heavy pouch from the poet. ‘We aren’t suffering from a shortage of money. It’s not necessary . . .’

‘Let it be my contribution.’ Repeated the troubadour. ‘Cash always comes in useful. And besides, it isn’t mine, I took those ducats from the Little Weasel’s private coffer. Why are you looking like that? Women don’t need money. I mean what for? They don’t drink, they don’t play dice, and they’re bloody women themselves. Well, farewell! Be off, because I’ll burst into tears. And when it’s all over you’re to stop by Toussaint on your way back and tell me everything. And I want to hug Ciri. Do you promise, Geralt?’

‘I promise.’

‘So, farewell.’

‘Wait.’ Geralt wheeled his horse around and rode closer to Pegasus. He took a letter surreptitiously from his bosom. ‘Make sure this letter reaches—’

‘Fringilla Vigo?’

‘No. Dijkstra.’

‘Are you serious, Geralt? And how do you propose I do it?’

‘Find a way. I know you will. And now farewell. Give us a hug, you old fool.’

‘Give us a hug, comrade. I’ll be looking out for you.’

They watched him ride away and saw him trotting towards Beauclair.

The sky darkened.

‘Reynart.’ The Witcher turned around in the saddle. ‘Ride with us.’

‘No, Geralt,’ replied Reynart de Bois-Fresnes a moment later. ‘I’m errant. But not asinine.’

*

There was unusual excitement in the great columned chamber of Montecalvo Castle. The subtle chiaroscuro of candelabras that usually predominated there was replaced by the milky brightness of a huge, magical screen. The image on the screen shimmered, flickered and vanished, intensifying the excitement and tension. And anxiety.

‘Ha,’ said Philippa Eilhart, smiling predatorily. ‘Pity I can’t be there. A little action would do me good. And a little adrenaline.’

Sheala de Tancarville looked at her sarcastically, but didn’t say anything. Francesca Findabair and Ida Emean magically stabilised the image, and enlarged it to fill the entire wall. They clearly saw black mountain peaks against a dark blue sky, stars reflecting in the surface of a lake, and the dark and angular shape of a castle.

‘I still can’t be sure,’ said Sheala, ‘if it wasn’t a mistake to entrust the command of the strike force to Sabrina and young Metz. They broke Keira’s ribs on Thanedd, she may want to get revenge. And Sabrina . . . Why, she loves action and adrenaline a little too much. Right, Philippa—’

‘We’ve discussed that already.’ Philippa cut her off, and her voice was as acidic as plum pickle. ‘We’ve established what there was to establish. No one will be killed without an absolute need. Sabrina and Keira’s force will enter Rhys-Rhun as quiet as mice, on tiptoe, hush-hush. They’ll take Vilgefortz alive, without a single scratch, without a single bruise. We agreed on that. Although I still think we ought to make an example. So that those in the castle who survive the night will awake screaming to the end of their days when they dream of this night.’

‘Revenge,’ said the sorceress from Kovir, ‘is the delight of mediocre, weak and petty minds.’

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Philippa, with an apparently indifferent smile. ‘But that doesn’t stop it being a delight.’

‘Let’s drop it.’ Margarita Laux-Antille raised a goblet of sparkling wine. ‘I suggest we drink to the health of Madam Fringilla Vigo, thanks to whose efforts Vilgefortz’s hide-out was discovered. Solid, exemplary work indeed, Madam Fringilla.’

Fringilla bowed, responding to the salutes. She noticed something like mockery in Philippa’s black eyes, and dislike in the azure gaze of Triss Merigold. She couldn’t decipher the smiles of Francesca and Sheala.

‘They are beginning,’ said Assire var Anahid, pointing at the magical image.

They settled themselves more comfortably. Philippa dimmed the lights with a spell in order for them to see better. They saw swift, black shapes peeling off from the rocks, as silent and agile as bats. Saw them flying low and then plummeting onto the battlements and machicolations of Rhys-Rhun Castle.

‘I probably haven’t had a broom between my legs for a century,’ murmured Philippa. ‘I’ll soon forget how to fly.’

Sheala, staring at the screen, quietened her with an impatient hiss.

Fire flashed briefly in the windows of the black castle complex. Once, twice, thrice. They knew what it was. The bolted doors and hasps splintered asunder under the impact of ball lightning.

‘They’re inside,’ said Assire var Anahid softly. She was the only one not observing the screen on the wall, but was staring at a crystal ball on the table. ‘The strike force is inside. But something’s not right. Not how it’s meant to be . . .’

Fringilla felt the blood flowing from her heart to her belly. She now knew what wasn’t right.

‘Madam Glevissig,’ reported Assire, ‘is opening the direct telecommunicator.’

The space between the columns in the hall suddenly lit up. In the materialising oval they saw Sabrina Glevissig in male attire, her hair tied on her forehead with a chiffon scarf and her face blackened with stripes of camouflage pigment. Behind the sorceress’s back could be seen dirty stone walls, and on them shreds of rags, once tapestries. Sabrina extended a gloved hand hung with long strands of cobwebs towards them.

‘The only thing there’s plenty of here,’ she said, gesticulating wildly, ‘is this! Just this! Bloody hell, what stupidity . . . What a fiasco . . .’

‘Make yourself clearer, Sabrina!’

‘Make what clearer?’ yelled the Kaedwenian witch. ‘What could be clearer here? Can’t you see? This is Rhys-Rhun Castle! It’s empty! Empty and dirty! It’s a sodding empty ruin! There’s nothing here! Nothing!’

Keira Metz emerged from behind Sabrina’s shoulder, looking like a hellish fiend in her facial camouflage.

‘There isn’t and there hasn’t been anyone in this castle,’ she said calmly, ‘for at least fifty years. For fifty years there hasn’t been a living soul here, not counting the spiders, rats and bats. We made the landing in completely the wrong place.’

‘Have you made sure it isn’t an illusion?’

‘Do you take us for children, Philippa?’

‘Listen, both of you.’ Philippa Eilhart nervously ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Tell the mercenaries and novices they were on manoeuvres. Pay them and return. Return at once. And put a brave face on it, do you hear? Put a brave face on it!’

The oval of the communicator went out. Only the image on the wall screen remained. Rhys-Rhun Castle against the black sky, twinkling with stars. And the lake, with the stars reflected in it.

Fringilla Vigo looked down at the table. She felt as though the pounding blood would soon burst her cheeks.

‘I . . . really,’ she said at last, unable to bear the silence in the columned hall of Montecalvo Castle. ‘I . . . really don’t under-stand . . .’

‘But I do,’ said Triss Merigold.

‘That castle . . .’ said Philippa deep in thought, not paying any attention to her comrades. ‘That castle . . . Rhys-Rhun . . . will have to be destroyed. Utterly annihilated. And when legends and tales begin to be made up about this whole debacle, it will be necessary to subject them to scrupulous censorship. Do you understand what I mean, ladies?’

‘Only too well,’ nodded Francesca Findabair, who had been silent up until that moment. Ida Emean, also silent, took the liberty of making quite an ambiguous snort.

‘I . . .’ Fringilla Vigo still seemed stunned. ‘I truly can’t comprehend . . . how it could have happened . . .’

‘Oh,’ said Sheala de Tancarville after a very long silence. ‘It’s nothing serious, Miss Vigo. No one’s perfect.’

Philippa snorted softly. Assire var Anahid sighed and raised her eyes towards the plafond.

‘After all,’ added Sheala, pouting her lips, ‘it’s befallen all of us at some time. Each of us, sitting here, has been cheated, taken advantage of, and made a laughing stock of by some man, at some time.’

‘I love you, I’m charmed by your lovely form: And if you’re not willing, I’ll have to use force.’

‘Father, my Father, he’s gripped me at last!

The Erlkönig’s hurting me, holding me fast! – Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Everything has been, everything has happened. And everything has already been written about.

Vysogota of Corvo

CHAPTER FIVE

A scorching, stuffy afternoon fell on the forest, and the lake surface, which had been as dark as jade shortly before, now flashed gold and lit up with reflections. Ciri had to shield her eyes with her hand. The glare reflected in the water blinded her, and she felt pain in her eyeballs and temples.

She rode through the lakeside thicket and urged Kelpie into the lake, deep enough for the water to reach above the mare’s knees. The water was so clear that even from the height of the saddle Ciri could see the colourful mosaic of the bottom, the mussels and the swaying, feathery pond weed in the shadow cast by the horse. She saw a small crayfish striding proudly among the pebbles.

Kelpie whinnied. Ciri jerked the reins and rode into the shallows, but not onto the bank, because it was sandy and covered in rocks, and that ruled out riding fast. She led the mare right to the water’s edge so she could walk on the hard gravel at the bottom. And almost at once urged Kelpie into a trot. She was as fleet as a real trotter, trained not to be ridden but to pull a gig or a landau. But she soon found that trotting was too slow. A kick of Ciri’s heels and a shout urged the mare into a gallop. They raced among splashes of water flying all around, sparkling in the sun like drops of molten silver.

When she saw the tower, she didn’t slow down yet not even the merest snort was audible in Kelpie’s breathing, and her gallop was still light and effortless.

She hurtled into the courtyard at full speed, with a clatter of hooves, and pulled the mare up so suddenly that for a moment Kelpie’s horseshoes slid over the flags with a long-drawn-out grinding sound. She stopped just before the elf-women waiting at the foot of the tower. Right in front of their noses. She felt satisfaction, for two of them, usually unmoving and dispassionate, now stepped back involuntarily.

‘Never fear,’ she snorted. ‘I won’t ride you down! Unless I mean to.’

The elves recovered quickly, their faces once more smoothed by calm, and nonchalant indifference returned to their eyes.

Ciri dismounted, or rather flew from the saddle. There was defiance in her eyes.

‘Bravo,’ said a fair-haired elf with a triangular-shaped face, emerging from the shadow under an arcade. ‘A nice display, Loc’hlaith.’

He had greeted her like that the first time, when she had entered the Tower of the Swallow and found herself among the blooming spring. But that was long ago and things like that had stopped making any impression on her at all.

‘I’m no Lady of the Lake,’ she barked. ‘I’m a prisoner here! And you’re my gaolers! And I may as well speak bluntly! There you go!’ She threw the reins to one of the elves. ‘The horse needs rubbing down. Water her when she cools. And above all she must be looked after!’

The fair-haired elf smiled slightly.

‘Indeed,’ he said, watching the elf-women wordlessly lead the mare to the stable. ‘You’re a wronged prisoner here, and they are your harsh gaolers. It’s quite plain.’

‘Let them have a taste of their own medicine!’ She stood akimbo, stuck up her nose and looked him boldly in the eyes, which were pale blue like aquamarines and quite gentle. ‘I’m treating them as they treat me! And a prison’s a prison.’

‘You astonish me, Loc’hlaith.’

‘And you treat me like a fool. And you haven’t even introduced yourself.’

‘I apologise. I am Crevan Espane aep Caomhan Macha. I am, if you know what it means, Aen Saevherne.’

‘I do.’ She looked at him with an admiration that she was unable to hide in time. ‘A Knowing One. An elven sorcerer.’

‘I could be called that. For convenience I use the alias Avallac’h, and you may address me as such.’

‘Who told you—’ she became sullen ‘—that I wish to address you at all? Knowing One or not, you’re a gaoler, and I’m—’

‘—a prisoner,’ he finished sarcastically. ‘You mentioned it. A badly treated prisoner to boot. You’re probably forced to take rides around here, you wear a sword on your back as a punishment, likewise the elegant and quite rich apparel, so much more elegant and clean than what you arrived here in. But in spite of these dreadful conditions you haven’t given in. You get your revenge for the harm you’ve received with brusqueness. With great courage and enthusiasm you also smash looking glasses which are works of art.’

She blushed, very cross with herself.

‘Oh,’ he said quickly, ‘you may smash looking glasses to your heart’s content. After all, they’re only objects, and who cares if they were made seven hundred years ago? Would you like to promenade with me along the lake shore?’

The wind that rose slightly tempered the heat. Furthermore, the tall trees and the tower cast shadows. The water in the bay was a dull green; densely garlanded by water lilies and piled up with spherical yellow flowers, it almost resembled a meadow. Moorhens, gargling and nodding their red beaks, cruised briskly among the leaves.

‘That mirror . . .’ Ciri mumbled, twisting a heel in the wet gravel. ‘I’m sorry about that. I lost my temper. And that’s that.’

‘Ah.’

‘They disrespect me. Those elf-women. When I talk to them they pretend they can’t understand. And when they do talk to me, they speak incomprehensibly on purpose. They humiliate me.’

‘You speak our tongue fluently,’ he explained calmly. ‘But it’s still a foreign language to you. Besides, you use hen llinge, and they use ellylon. The differences are slight, but do nonetheless exist.’

‘I understand you. Every word.’

‘When I talk to you I use hen llinge. The language of the elves from your world.’

‘And you?’ She turned around. ‘What world are you from? I’m not a child. It’s enough to look up at night. There isn’t a single constellation I know. This world isn’t mine. It isn’t my place. I entered it by accident. And I want to leave. To get away.’

She bent over, picked up a stone and made a movement as though meaning to throw it absent-mindedly into the lake, towards the moorhens. She abandoned her plans under his gaze.

‘Before I’ve ridden a furlong,’ she said, not hiding her resentment, ‘I’m at the lake. And I can see the tower. Regardless of which direction I ride, when I turn around there’s always the lake and the tower. Always. There’s no way of getting away from it. So it’s a prison. Worse than a dungeon, than an oubliette, than a chamber with a barred window. Do you know why? Because it’s more humiliating. Ellylon or not, it angers me when I’m sneered at and shown disrespect. Yes, yes, there’s no sense making faces. You’ve also slighted me, you also mock me. And you’re surprised that I’m furious?’

‘As a matter of fact I am.’ He opened his eyes wide. ‘Inordinately.’

She sighed and shrugged.

‘I entered the tower long ago,’ she said, trying to stay calm. ‘I happened upon another world. You were waiting for me, sitting and playing the pipes. You were even astonished at how long I’d delayed my arrival. You called me by my name, and only afterwards began that “Lady of the Lake” nonsense. Then you vanished without a word of explanation. Leaving me in prison. Call it what you like. I call it spiteful and malicious contempt.’

‘Zireael, it’s only been eight days.’

‘Ah,’ she scowled. ‘You mean I’m lucky? Because it might have been eight weeks? Or eight months? Or eight . . .’

She fell silent.

‘You’ve strayed far from Lara Dorren,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve lost your inheritance, you’ve lost the bond with your blood. No wonder the women don’t understand you, nor you them. You don’t just talk differently, you think differently. With quite different frames of reference. What is eight days or eight weeks? Time means nothing.’

‘Very well!’ she screamed in anger. ‘I agree I’m not a wise elf, I’m a stupid human. To me time does mean something. I count the days, I even count the hours. And I’ve reckoned that many of both the first and the second have passed. I don’t want anything from you now, I’ll make do without explanations, it doesn’t bother me why it’s spring here, why there are unicorns here, and different constellations in the night sky. I’m not at all interested how you know my name and how you knew I’d turn up here. I only want one thing. To return home. To my world. To people! People who think like me! Using the same frames of reference!’

‘You’ll return to them. In some time.’

‘I want to go now!’ she yelled. ‘Not in some time! For time here is an eternity! What right do you have to hold me here? Why can’t I leave this place? I came here myself! Of my own will! You don’t have any right!’

‘You came here yourself,’ he calmly confirmed. ‘But not of your own will. You were led here by destiny, helped a little by us. For you have been long awaited. Very long. Even according to our reckoning.’

‘I don’t understand any of that.’

‘We’ve waited long.’ He paid no attention to her. ‘Fearing but one thing: whether you’d be able to enter here. You were. You proved your blood, your lineage. And that means that your place is here, not among the Dh’oine. You are the daughter of Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal.’

‘I am Pavetta’s daughter! I don’t even know who your Lara is!’

He snorted, but very slightly, almost imperceptibly.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘it’d be best if I explained to you who “my” Lara is. Since time is short, I’d prefer to begin the explanations en route. But why, for the sake of a foolish demonstration you’ve almost run the mare into the ground—’

‘Into the ground? Ha! You don’t yet know how much that mare can endure. Where are we going?’

‘If you permit I’ll also explain that en route.’

*

Ciri halted Kelpie, who was now wheezing, recognising that a breakneck gallop was senseless and of no use at all.

Avallac’h hadn’t lied. Here, on open ground, on meadows and moors dotted with menhirs, the same force was active as around Tor Zireael. You could try riding at full speed in any direction, but after a furlong or so an invisible force made you ride around in a circle.

Ciri patted the wheezing Kelpie on her neck, and looked at the small group of elves who rode at an easy pace. A moment earlier, when Avallac’h had finally told her what they wanted from her, she had launched into a gallop, to escape from them, to leave them as far as possible behind her – they and their impudent, unthinkable task.

Now, though, they were in front of her again. At a distance of more or less a furlong.

Avallac’h hadn’t lied. There was no escape.

The only good thing the gallop had brought was that it had cooled her head, chilled her rage. She was now much calmer. But nonetheless she was still shaking with anger.

What a mess I’m in, she thought. Why did I go into the Tower?

She shuddered, thinking back. Recalling Bonhart riding after her across the ice on his grey horse, muzzle foaming.

She shuddered even more intensely. And calmed down.

I’m alive, she thought, looking around. It’s not the end of the battle. Death will end the fight, everything else only interrupts it. They taught me that at Kaer Morhen.

She urged Kelpie to a walk and then, seeing the mare was gamely raising her head, to a trot. She rode down an avenue of menhirs. The grass and heather reached her stirrups.

She quite quickly caught up with Avallac’h and the three elf-women. The Sage, smiling slightly, turned his aquamarine eyes enquiringly on her.

‘Please, Avallac’h.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Tell me it was a dismal joke.’

Something like a shadow passed over his face.

‘I’m not accustomed to joking,’ he said. ‘And since you consider it a joke, I’ll take the liberty repeating it with due gravity: we want to have your child, O Swallow, daughter of Lara Dorren. Only when you bear it will we permit you to leave here, to return to your world. The choice, naturally, is yours. I presume your reckless dash helped you to reach a decision. What is your answer?’

‘My answer is no,’ she replied firmly. ‘Categorically and absolutely no. I don’t agree and that’s that.’

‘Tough luck,’ he shrugged. ‘I admit I am disappointed. But why, it’s your choice.’

‘How can you demand something like that at all?’ she cried in a trembling voice. ‘How could you dare? By what right?’

He looked at her calmly. Ciri also felt the gaze of the elf-women on her.

‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that I told you the story of your family in detail. You seemed to understand. Thus your question astonishes me. We have the right to demand, and we can, O Swallow. Your father, Cregennan, took a child from us. You will give us one back. You will repay the debt. It seems just and logical to me.’

‘My father . . . I don’t remember my father, but he was called Duny. Not Cregennan. I’ve already told you!’

‘And I replied that those few ridiculous human generations are meaningless to us.’

‘But I don’t want to!’ yelled Ciri so loudly that the mare skittered beneath her. ‘I don’t want to, understand? I don’t waaaant tooooooo! The thought of a bloody parasite being implanted in me is sickening. I feel nauseous when I think that that parasite will grow inside me, that—’

She broke off, seeing the faces of the elf-women. Two of them expressed boundless astonishment. The third boundless odium. Avallac’h coughed meaningfully.

‘Let’s ride on a little and talk in private,’ he said coolly. ‘Your views, O Swallow, are a little too radical to be expressed in front of witnesses.’

She did as he asked. They rode on silence for a long while.

‘I’ll escape from you.’ Ciri spoke first. ‘You won’t keep me here against my will. I escaped from the Isle of Thanedd, I escaped from the Trappers and the Nilfgaardians, I escaped from Bonhart and Tawny Owl. And I’ll escape from you. I’ll find a way to outwit your witchcraft.’

‘I thought,’ he replied a moment later, ‘that you cared more about your friends. About Yennefer. And Geralt.’

‘You know about that?’ she gasped in amazement. ‘Well, yes. True. You are a Knowing One! So you ought to know I’m thinking about them. There, in my world, they’re in danger now, at this moment. And yet you want to imprison me here . . . Well, for at least nine months. You see for yourself I don’t have a choice. I understand it’s important for you – a child, that Elder Blood – but I cannot. I simply cannot.’

The elf said nothing for a while. He rode so close he was touching her knee.

‘The choice, as I said, belongs to you. You ought, however, to know something. It would be dishonest to conceal if from you. You can’t escape from here, O Swallow. So if you refuse to cooperate you will stay here forever, and will never see your friends or your world again.’

‘That’s despicable blackmail!’

‘If, though,’ he continued, unconcerned by her yelling, ‘you agree to what we ask, we’ll prove to you that time is meaningless.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Time passes differently here than there. If you do us this favour, we shall return the favour. We shall enable you to regain the time you will lose among us here. Among the Folk of the Alder.’

She said nothing, her eyes fixed on Kelpie’s black mane. Use delaying tactics, she thought. As Vesemir said in Kaer Morhen when they’re about to hang you, ask for a glass of water. You never know what might happen before they bring it.

One of the elf-women suddenly screamed and whistled.

Avallac’h’s horse neighed, and danced on the spot. The elf brought it under control and shouted something to the elf-women. Ciri saw one of them draw a bow from a leather quiver hanging from her saddle. She stood up in the stirrups and shielded her eyes with a hand.

‘Keep calm,’ said Avallac’h sharply. Ciri gasped.

Some unicorns were galloping over the moor about two hundred paces from them. An entire herd, at least thirty head.

Ciri had seen unicorns before. Sometimes, particularly at dawn, they came up to the lake at the foot of the Tower of the Swallow. They had never let her approach them, though. But had vanished like ghosts.

The leader of the herd was a great stallion with a strange, reddish coat. He suddenly stopped, neighed piercingly and reared up. He trotted on his hind hooves, waving his fore hooves in the air in a way that would have been absolutely impossible for any horse.

Ciri noted in amazement that Avallac’h and the three elf-women were humming, singing in chorus some strange, monotonous tune.

Who are you?

She shook her head.

Who are you? The question sounded again in her skull, pounded in her temples. The elves’ song suddenly rose a tone in pitch. The ruddy unicorn neighed and the entire herd answered in kind. The earth trembled as they galloped away.

The song of Avallac’h and the elf-women broke off. Ciri saw the Knowing One furtively wiping the sweat from his brow. The elf glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, understanding that she had seen.

‘Not everything here is as pretty as it looks,’ he said dryly. ‘Not everything.’

‘Are you afraid of unicorns? But they’re wise and friendly.’

He didn’t answer.

‘I heard,’ she went on, ‘that elves and unicorns loved one another.’

He turned his head.

‘Then accept,’ he said coldly, ‘that what you saw was a lovers’ tiff.’

She didn’t ask any more questions.

She had enough of her own concerns.

*

The tops of the hills were decorated by cromlechs and dolmens. The sight of them reminded Ciri of the stone near Ellander, beside which Yennefer taught her what magic is. That was so long ago, she thought. Ages . . .

One of the elf-women shouted again. Ciri glanced to where she was pointing. Before she had time to note that the herd being led by the ruddy stallion had returned, the second elf-woman shouted. She stood up in the stirrups.

Another herd emerged from the opposite side, from behind a hill. The unicorn leading it was bluish-grey and dappled.

Avallac’h quickly said a few words. It was the ellylon language that Ciri found so difficult, but she understood, particularly since the elf-women reached for their bows in unison. Avallac’h turned his face towards Ciri, and she felt a buzzing growing in her head. It was a buzzing quite similar to what a conch shell emits when pressed to the ear. But much stronger.

‘Do not resist,’ she heard a voice. ‘Do not fight. I must leap, I must transport you to another place. You are in mortal danger.’

A whistle and a long, drawn-out cry reached them from far away. And a moment later the earth shuddered under iron-shod hooves.

Riders emerged from behind the hill. An entire troop.

The horses were wearing caparisons, the riders crested helmets, and the cloaks around their shoulders fluttered in the gallop. Their vermilion-amaranth-crimson colour brought to mind the glow of a fire in the sky illuminated by the blaze of the setting sun.

A whistling and a cry. The horsemen raced towards them en masse.

Before they had ridden half a furlong the unicorns had vanished. They disappeared, leaving a cloud of dust behind them.

*

The riders’ leader, a black-haired elf, sat on a dark bay stallion as huge as a dragon. It was adorned, like all the horses in the troop, in a caparison embroidered with dragon’s scales, and wore on its head a truly demonic horned bucranium. Like all the elves, the black-haired one wore beneath his cloak of a myriad shades of red a mail shirt made of unbelievably tiny rings, thanks to which it fit his body snugly, like knitted woollen cloth.

‘Avallac’h,’ he said, saluting.

‘Eredin.’

‘You owe me a favour. You will pay it back when I demand it.’

‘I’ll pay it back when you demand it.’

The black-haired elf dismounted. Avallac’h also dismounted, gesturing to Ciri to do the same. They walked up the hill between white rocks with peculiar shapes covered in spindle and dwarf shrubs of flowering myrtle.

Ciri looked at them. They were of equal height, meaning they were both extremely tall. But Avallac’h’s face was gentle, while the black-haired elf’s face brought to mind a bird of prey. Fair and black, she thought. Good and evil. Light and dark . . .

‘Zireael, let me introduce you to Eredin Bréacc Glas.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you.’ The elf bowed and Ciri returned the bow. Not very gracefully.

‘How did you know,’ Avallac’h asked, ‘that we were in danger?’

‘I had no idea.’ The elf scrutinised Ciri. ‘We patrol the plain, for news has got out that the one-horns have become anxious and aggressive. No one knows why. I mean, now I know why. It’s because of her, naturally.’

Avallac’h neither confirmed nor denied it. Meanwhile, Ciri countered the black-haired elf’s gaze with a haughty expression. For a moment they looked at each other, neither of them wanting to be the first to look away.

‘So that’s the supposed Elder Blood,’ remarked the elf. ‘Aen Hen Ichaer. The inheritance of Shiadhal and Lara Dorren? One isn’t inclined to believe it. For it’s simply a young Dh’oine. A human female.’

Avallac’h said nothing. His face was motionless and indifferent.

‘I assume you aren’t mistaken,’ the black-haired elf continued. ‘Why, I take it for granted, for you, as rumour has it, never err. Hidden deep in this creature is the Lara gene. Yes, when one examines her more closely, one can see certain traits testifying to the young one’s lineage. She indeed has something in her eyes that brings to mind Lara Dorren. Doesn’t she, Avallac’h? Who, if not you, is more entitled to judge?’

Avallac’h didn’t speak this time either. But Ciri noticed a faint blush on his pale face. She was very surprised. And pondered it.

‘Summing up—’ the black-haired elf grimaced ‘—there is something precious, something beautiful, in this little Dh’oine female. I see it. And I have the impression I’ve seen a gold nugget in a pile of compost.’

Ciri’s eyes flashed furiously. Avallac’h slowly turned his head.

‘You talk just like a human, Eredin,’ he said slowly.

Eredin Bréacc Glas bared his teeth in a smile. Ciri had seen teeth like that before: very white, very small and very inhuman, as straight as a die, and lacking canines. She’d seen teeth like that on the dead elves lying in a row in the courtyard of the Kaedwen watchtower. She had delighted in teeth like that on Iskra. But the teeth in Iskra’s smile looked pretty, while on Eredin they were ghastly.

‘Does this lass,’ he said, ‘who is trying hard to kill me with her stare, already know the reason she’s here?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And is prepared to cooperate?’

‘Not completely.’

‘Not completely,’ he repeated. ‘Ha, that’s not good. Since the nature of the cooperation demands that it be complete. It’s simply not possible if it’s less than complete. And, because we are separated from Tir ná Lia by half a day’s ride, it’d be worth knowing where we stand.’

‘Why be impatient?’ Avallac’h pouted his lips slightly. ‘What can we gain by haste?’

‘Eternity.’ Eredin Bréacc Glas became serious. Something shone briefly in his green eyes. ‘But that’s your speciality, Avallac’h. Your speciality and your responsibility.’

‘You have spoken.’

‘Indeed I have. And now forgive me, but duty calls. I’ll leave you an escort, for safety. I advise you to overnight here, on this hill. If you set off tomorrow at daybreak, you’ll be in Tir ná Lia at the right time. Va faill. Aha, one more thing.’

He leaned over, broke and then tore off a twig of flowering myrtle. He brought it close to his face, then handed it to Ciri.

‘My apologies,’ he said briefly, ‘for the hasty words. Va faill, luned.’

He walked away quickly and a moment later the earth shuddered beneath hooves, as he rode off with the entire troop.

‘Just don’t tell me,’ she growled, ‘that I would have to . . . That it’s him . . . If it’s him, then I’ll never, ever.’

‘No,’ Avallac’h slowly corrected her. ‘It’s not him. Be calm.’

Ciri brought the myrtle up to her face. In order for him not to see the excitement and fascination that had seized her.

‘I am calm.’

*

The dry thistles and heather of the steppe were replaced by lush green grass and damp ferns. The marshy ground was yellow and violet with buttercups and lupins. Soon they saw a river, which although it was crystal clear had a brown tinge. It smelled of peat.

Avallac’h was playing various lively tunes on his pipes. Ciri, glum, was thinking intensely.

‘Who,’ she finally said, ‘is to be the father of the child that matters so much to you? Or perhaps it is of no importance?’

‘It is important. Am I to understand you’ve made your decision?’

‘No, you aren’t. I’m simply clearing up certain matters.’

‘May I help? What do you want to know?’

‘You know very well what.’

They rode on in silence for a time. Ciri saw some swans sailing elegantly down the river.

‘The child’s father,’ Avallac’h spoke calmly and to the point, ‘will be Auberon Muircetach. Auberon Muircetach is our . . . How do you say . . . Our highest leader?’

‘King? King of all the Aen Seidhe?’

‘Aen Seidhe, the People of the Hills, are the elves of your world. We are Aen Elle, the Folk of the Alder. And Auberon Muircetach is indeed our king.’

‘The Alder King?’

‘One could call him that.’

They rode on in silence. It was very warm.

‘Avallac’h.’

‘Yes.

‘If I agree, then afterwards . . . Later . . . will I be free?’

‘You’ll be free and may go wherever you wish. Assuming you don’t decide to stay. With the child.’

She snorted contemptuously, but said nothing.

‘So you’ve decided?’ he asked.

‘I’ll decide when we arrive.’

‘We have arrived.’

Ciri saw the palaces from behind the weeping willows which hung down towards the water like green curtains. She had never seen anything like them in her entire life. The palaces, although built of marble and alabaster, were like fragile bowers. They seemed so delicate, light and airy, as though they weren’t buildings but apparitions of buildings. Ciri expected at any moment that the wind would blow and the little palaces would vanish along with the mist rising from the river. But when the wind blew, when the mist vanished, when the willow branches moved and ripples appeared on the river, the little palaces didn’t vanish and had no intention of vanishing. They only gained in beauty.

Ciri looked in admiration at the little terraces, at the little towers resembling water lilies sticking up from water, at the little bridges suspended above the river like festoons of ivy, at the staircases, steps, balustrades, at the arcades and cloisters, at the peristyles, at the tall and short columns, at the large and small domes, at the slender pinnacles and towers resembling asparagus spears.

‘Tir ná Lia,’ Avallac’h said softly.

The closer they went, the more the beauty of the place seized her powerfully by the heart, more powerfully squeezed her throat, making tears well up in the corners of her eyes. Ciri looked at the fountains, at the mosaics and terracotta, and at the sculptures and monuments. At lacy constructions of whose purpose she couldn’t conceive. And at constructions she was certain served no purpose. Beside aesthetics and harmony.

‘Tir ná Lia,’ repeated Avallac’h. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’

‘I have.’ She felt the pressure on her throat. ‘I once saw something like this. In Shaerrawedd.’

Now it was the elf’s turn to say nothing for a long while.

*

They crossed over the river on an openwork bridge, which seemed so fragile that Kelpie danced and snorted a long time before she was brave enough to step on it.

Although agitated and tense, Ciri looked around attentively, not wanting to overlook anything, no sight that the fairy-tale city of Tir ná Lia offered. Firstly, she was simply consumed by curiosity, and secondly she couldn’t stop thinking about escaping and so looked out watchfully for an opportunity.

She saw long-haired elves in close-fitting jerkins and short cloaks embroidered with fanciful leaf-shaped motifs walking on small bridges and terraces, along avenues and peristyles, on balconies and cloisters. She saw coiffured and provocatively made-up elf-women in gauzy dresses or in outfits resembling male costume.

Eredin Bréacc Glas greeted them outside the portico of one of the palaces. At his curt order, small, grey-attired elves swarmed around, quickly and silently taking care of their horses. Ciri looked on somewhat amazed. Avallac’h, Eredin and all the other elves she had met before were extremely tall. She had to crane her neck to look them in the eye. The small grey elves were much shorter than her. A different race, she thought. A race of servants. Even here, in this fairy—tale world, there must be someone to do the work for the idle.

They entered the palace. Ciri gasped. She was an infanta of royal blood, raised in palaces. But she had never seen such marble and malachite, such stuccos, floors, mosaics, mirrors and candelabras. She felt uncomfortable, awkward in that dazzling interior, out of place, dusty, sweaty and unwashed after her journey.

Avallac’h, quite the opposite, wasn’t at all concerned. He brushed his breeches and boots with a glove, ignoring the fact that the dust was settling on a looking glass. Then he tossed his gloves grandly to the grey elf-woman bowing before him.

‘Auberon?’ he asked curtly. ‘Is he waiting?’

Eredin smiled.

‘Yes. He’s in a great hurry. He demanded that the Swallow go to him immediately, without a moment’s delay. I talked him out of it.’

Avallac’h raised his eyebrows.

‘Zireael,’ Eredin explained very calmly, ‘ought to go to the king free of cares, unburdened, rested, composed and in a good mood. A bath, a new outfit, hairstyle and makeup will ensure that good mood. Auberon will probably be able to hold out that long, I think.’

Ciri sighed deeply and looked at the elf. She was positively amazed at how kind he seemed. Eredin smiled, revealing his even teeth.

‘Only one thing arouses my reservations,’ he declared. ‘And that is the aquiline glint in our Swallow’s eyes. Our Swallow is flashing her eyes left and right, quite like a stoat looking for holes in a cage. The Swallow, I see, is still far from unconditional surrender.’

Avallac’h didn’t comment. Ciri, naturally, didn’t either.

‘I’m not surprised,’ continued Eredin. ‘It cannot be any other way, since it’s the blood of Shiadhal and Lara Dorren. But listen to me very attentively, Zireael. There is no escape from here. There is no possibility of breaking Geas Garadh, the Spell of the Barrier.’

Ciri’s gaze said clearly that she wouldn’t believe it until she had tested it.

‘Even if you were by some miracle to force the Barrier—’ Eredin didn’t take his eyes off her ‘—then know that it would mean your doom. This world only looks pretty. But it carries death, particularly to the inexperienced. Even magic can’t heal a wound from a one-horn’s spike.

‘Know also,’ he continued, not waiting for a comment, ‘that your wild talent won’t help you at all. You won’t make the leap, so don’t even try. And even if you managed, know that my Dearg Ruadhri, my Red Riders, can catch up with you even in the abyss of times and places.’

She didn’t quite understand what he was talking about. But it puzzled her that Avallac’h had suddenly become sullen and was frowning, very evidently unhappy about Eredin’s speech. As though Eredin had said too much.

‘Let us go,’ he said. ‘Come this way, Zireael. We’ll hand you over to the ladies. It’s necessary for you to look beautiful. The first impression is most important.’

*

Her heart was pounding in her breast, the blood thrummed in her temples, her hands were shaking a little. She brought them under control by clenching her fists. She calmed herself with the help of deep breaths. She loosened her shoulders, and moved her neck, stiff with nervousness.

She observed herself once again in the large looking glass. The sight didn’t especially please her. Her hair, still damp from bathing, was trimmed and combed so it at least partly concealed her scar. Her makeup nicely emphasised her eyes and mouth, the silver-grey skirt slit to halfway up her thigh, and black waistcoat with sheer blouse of pearl crepe looked very presentable. The silk scarf around her neck highlighted it all compellingly.

Ciri adjusted and straightened the scarf, then reached between her thighs and adjusted what was necessary. And she had on some truly sensational things beneath the skirt – panties as delicate as gossamer and stockings almost reaching the panties, which in some incredible way stayed up without garters.

She reached for the handle. Hesitantly, as though it wasn’t a handle but a sleeping cobra.

Spet! she thought involuntarily in the elven tongue, I’ve fought against men with swords. I’ll take on one man with . . .

She closed her eyes and sighed. And entered the chamber.

There was no one inside. A book and a carafe lay on the malachite table. There were strange reliefs on the walls, which were draped with heavy curtains and flowery tapestries. In one corner stood a statue. In another a four-poster bed. Her heart began to pound again. She swallowed.

She saw a movement out of the corner of one eye. Not in the chamber. On the terrace.

He was sitting there, turned towards her in half-profile.

Although by now somewhat aware that among elves everything looked different to what she was accustomed to, Ciri experienced a slight shock. All the time the king had been talked about, God knows why, she had had in mind Ervyll of Verden, whose daughter-in-law she had almost once become. Thinking about that king, she saw a large man immobilised by rolls of fat, breath stinking of onions and beer, with a red nose and bloodshot eyes visible above an unkempt beard. Holding a sceptre and orb in his swollen hands, flecked with liver spots.

But a completely different king was sitting by the balustrade of the terrace.

He was very slim, and it was also apparent that he was very tall. His hair was as ashen as hers, shot with snow-white streaks, long, and falling down onto his shoulders and back. He was dressed in a black velvet jerkin. He was wearing typical elven boots with numerous buckles running all the way up the leg. His hands were slender and white, with long fingers.

He was busy blowing bubbles. Holding a small bowl of soapy water and a straw, which he was blowing through. The iridescent, rainbow bubbles floated down towards the river.

She cleared her throat softly.

King Alder turned his head. Ciri was unable to suppress a gasp. His eyes were extraordinary. As bright as molten lead, bottomless. And full of unimaginable sadness.

‘Swallow,’ he said. ‘Zireael. Thank you for agreeing to come.’

She swallowed, not knowing at all what to say. Auberon Muircetach put the straw to his lips and sent another bubble into space.

She locked her fingers in order to stop them trembling, cracking her knuckles. Then she nervously combed her hair. The elf was apparently only paying attention to the bubbles.

‘Are you anxious?’

‘No,’ she lied arrogantly. ‘I’m not.’

‘Are you hurrying somewhere?’

‘Indeed I am.’

She must have put a little too much nonchalance into her voice, and felt she was balancing on the edge of good manners. But the elf wasn’t paying attention. He blew a huge bubble through the end of the straw, making it resemble a cucumber by rocking it. He admired his handiwork for a long time.

‘Would I be a nuisance if I asked you where you’re in such a rush to get to?’

‘Home!’ she snapped, but at once corrected herself, adding in a calm tone. ‘To my world.’

‘To what?’

‘To my world!’

‘Ah. Forgive me. I’d have sworn you said “To my quirk”. And I was indeed very amazed. You speak our language splendidly, but you could still work on your pronunciation and accent.’

‘Is my accent important? After all, you don’t need me for conversation.’

‘Nothing should stop us striving for excellence.’

Another bubble sprang up at the end of the straw. When it broke away it drifted up and burst as it touched a willow branch. Ciri gasped.

‘So you’re in a hurry to get back to your world,’ Auberon Muircetach said a moment later. ‘To yours! Indeed, you humans aren’t overly blessed with humility.’

He dipped the straw in the bowl, and with a seemingly careless blow encircled himself in a swarm of rainbow bubbles.

‘Humans,’ he said. ‘Your hirsute forebear on the spear side appeared in the world much later than the hen. And I’ve never heard of any hens laying claim to the world . . . Why are you fidgeting and hopping on the spot like a little monkey? What I’m saying ought to interest you. After all, it’s history. Ah, let me guess. History doesn’t interest you and bores you.’

A huge iridescent bubble floated towards the river. Ciri said nothing, biting her lip.

‘Your hirsute forebear,’ the elf continued, stirring the mixture with the straw, ‘quickly learned how to use his opposable thumb and rudimentary intelligence. With their help he did various things, usually as amusing as they were woeful. That is, I meant to say that if the things your forebear did hadn’t been woeful, they would have been amusing.’

Another bubble, and, immediately after, a second and a third.

‘We, the Aen Elle, were little concerned what foolishness your ancestor got up to. We, unlike our cousins, the Aen Seidhe, left that world long ago. We chose another, more interesting universe. For at that time – you’ll be astonished by what I say – one could move quite freely between the worlds. With a little talent and skill, naturally. Beyond all doubt you understand what I have in mind.’

Ciri was dying of curiosity, but remained stubbornly silent, aware that the elf was teasing her a little. She didn’t want to make his task any easier.

Auberon Muircetach smiled and turned around. He had on a golden necklace, a badge of office called a torc’h in the Elder Speech.

‘Mire, luned.’

He blew softly, moving the straw around nimbly. Instead of one large bubble, as before, several of them hung from the end.

‘A bubble beside a bubble, and another beside another,’ he crooned. ‘Oh, that’s how it was, that’s how it was . . . We used to say to ourselves, what’s the difference, we’ll spend some time here, some time there, so what if the Dh’oine insist on destroying their world along with themselves? We’ll go somewhere else . . . To another bubble . . .’

Ciri nodded and licked her lips under his burning gaze. The elf smiled again, shook the bubbles, blew once again, this time creating a single large bunch from a myriad of small bubbles joined to each other at the end of the straw.

‘The Conjunction came—’ the elf raised the straw, hung with bubbles ‘—and even more worlds were created. But the door is closed. It is closed to all apart from a handful of chosen ones. And time is passing. The door ought to be opened. Urgently. It’s imperative. Do you understand that word?’

‘I’m not stupid.’

‘No, you aren’t.’ He turned his head. ‘You can’t be. For you are Aen Hen Ichaer, of the Elder Blood. Come closer.’

When he reached out his hand towards her she clenched her teeth involuntarily. But he only touched her forearm, and then her hand. She felt a pleasant tingling. She dared to look into his extraordinary eyes.

‘I didn’t believe it when they said it,’ he whispered. ‘But it’s true. You have Shiadhal’s eyes. Lara’s eyes.’ She lowered her gaze. She felt insecure and foolish.

The Alder King rested his elbow on the balustrade and his chin on his hand. For a long time, he seemed only to be interested in the swans swimming in the river.

‘Thank you for coming,’ he finally said, without turning his head. ‘And now go away and leave me alone.’

*

She found Avallac’h on the terrace by the river just as he was boarding a boat in the company of a gorgeous elf-woman with straw-coloured hair. The elf-woman was wearing lipstick the colour of pistachios and flecks of golden glitter on her eyelids and temples.

Ciri was about to turn around and walk away when Avallac’h stopped her with a gesture. And invited her into the boat with another. Ciri hesitated. She didn’t want to talk in front of witnesses. Avallac’h said something quickly to the elf-woman and blew her a kiss. The elf-woman shrugged and went away. She only turned around once, to show Ciri with her eyes what she thought of her.

‘If you could, refrain from comment,’ said Avallac’h when she sat down on the bench nearest the bow. He also sat down, took out his pipes and played, utterly unconcerned about the boat. Ciri looked around apprehensively, but the boat was sailing perfectly down the centre of the current, not deviating by even an inch towards the steps, pillars and columns extending into the water. It was a strange boat. Ciri had never seen one like it, even on Skellige, where she had spent a long time examining everything that was capable of floating on the water. It had a very high, slender prow, carved in the shape of a key. It was very long, very narrow and very unstable. Indeed, only an elf could sit in something like that and play his pipes instead of holding the tiller or the oars.

Avallac’h stopped playing.

‘What troubles you?’

He heard her out, watching her with a strange smile.

‘You’re saddened,’ he stated rather than asked. ‘Saddened, disappointed, but above all indignant.’

‘Not at all! I’m not!’

‘And you shouldn’t be.’ The elf became serious. ‘Auberon treated you with reverence, like a born Aen Elle. Don’t forget, we, the Alder Folk, never hurry. We have time.’

‘He told me something quite different.’

‘I know what he told you.’

‘And what it’s all about, do you also know that?’

‘Indeed.’

She had already learned a great deal. Not by sighing, not even by flickering an eyelid, did she betray her impatience or anger, when once again he put the pipes to his mouth and played. Melodiously, longingly. For a long time.

The boat glided along and Ciri counted the bridges passing over their heads.

‘We have,’ he said right after the fourth bridge, ‘more than serious grounds to suppose that your world is in danger of destruction. By a climactic cataclysm of immense scale. As a scholar you have certainly encountered Aen Ithlinne Speath, Ithlinne’s Prophecy. There is talk of the White Frost in the prophecy. According to us it concerns extensive glaciation. And because it so happens that ninety per cent of the land of your world is in the northern hemisphere, this glaciation may endanger the existence of most living creatures. They will simply perish from the cold. Those that survive will fall into barbarism, will destroy each other in merciless battles for food, or become prey to predators insane with hunger. Remember the text of the prophecy: The Time of Contempt, the Time of the Battle Axe, the Time of the Wolfish Blizzard.’

Ciri didn’t interrupt, fearing he would begin playing again.

‘The child that matters so much to us,’ continued Avallac’h, fiddling with the pipes, ‘the descendant and bearer of the Lara Dorren gene, the gene that was specially constructed by us, may save the denizens of that world. We have reason to believe that the descendant of Lara – and of you, naturally – will possess abilities a thousandfold more powerful than that which we, the Knowing Ones, possess. And which you possess in rudimentary form. You know what this is about, don’t you?’

Ciri had come to learn that in the Elder Speech such rhetorical devices, although apparently questions, not only did not demand, but quite simply did not brook, a response.

‘In short,’ Avallac’h continued, ‘it concerns the possibility of transferring between worlds not only oneself, one’s own – indeed – insignificant person. It concerns the opening of Ard Gaeth, the great and permanent Gateway, through which everyone would pass. We managed to do it before the Conjunction, and we want to achieve it now. We will evacuate from the dying world the Aen Seidhe residing there. Our brothers, to whom we owe it to help. We wouldn’t be able to live with the thought that we had abandoned anything. And we shall rescue, evacuate from that world, everyone who is in danger. Everyone, Zireael. Humans too.’

‘Really?’ She couldn’t hold it back. ‘Dh’oine too?’

‘Dh’oine too. Now you see for yourself how important you are, how much depends on you. How important a thing it is for you to remain patient. How important a thing it is for you to go to Auberon this evening and stay all night. Believe me, his behaviour wasn’t a demonstration of enmity. He knows that this isn’t an easy matter for you, that he might hurt and discourage you by being importunately hasty. He knows a great deal, O Swallow. I don’t doubt you’ve noticed.’

‘I have,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve also noticed that the current has borne us quite far from Tir ná Lia. Time to take up the oars. Which I can’t see here, as a matter of fact.’

‘Because there aren’t any.’ Avallac’h raised an arm, twisted his hand and snapped his fingers. The boat stopped. It rested for a while in place, and then began to move against the current.

The elf made himself more comfortable, put his pipes to his lips and gave himself over entirely to his music.

*

In the evening the Alder King entertained her to supper. When she entered, rustling silk, he invited her to the table with a gesture. There were no servants. He served her himself.

The supper consisted of over a dozen kinds of vegetables. There were mushrooms, boiled and simmered in a sauce. Ciri had never eaten mushrooms like them before either. Some of them were as white and thin as dainty leaves, tasted delicate and mild, and others were brown and black, fleshy and aromatic.

Auberon was also generous with the rosé wine. Seemingly light, it went to her head, relaxed her, and loosened her tongue. The next thing she knew she was telling him things she never thought she would.

He listened. Patiently. And then, when she suddenly remembered why she was there. She turned gloomy and fell silent.

‘As I understand it—’ he served her quite new mushrooms, greenish and smelling of apple pie ‘—you think that destiny connects you to this Geralt?’

‘Precisely so.’ She raised a cup now marked with numerous smudges of lipstick. ‘Destiny. He, I mean Geralt, is linked to me by destiny, and I am to him. Our destinies are conjoined. So it would be better if I went away from here. Right away. Do you understand?’

‘I confess that I don’t quite.’

‘Destiny!’ She took a sip. ‘A force which it’s better not to get in the way of. Which is why I think . . . No, no thank you, don’t serve me any more, please, I’ve eaten so much I think I’ll burst.’

‘You mentioned thinking.’

‘I think it was a mistake to lure me here. And force me to . . . Well, you know what I mean. I must get away from here, and hurry to help him . . . Because it’s my destiny—’

‘Destiny,’ he interrupted, raising his glass. ‘Predestination. Something that is inevitable. A mechanism which means that a practically unlimited number of unforeseeable events must end with the same result and no other. Is that right?’

‘Certainly!’

‘Then whence and wherefore do you wish to go? Drink your wine, enjoy the moment, delight in life. What is to come will come, if it’s inevitable.’

‘Like hell. It’s not that easy.’

‘You’re contradicting yourself.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You’re contradicting your contradiction, and that’s a vicious circle.’

‘No!’ She tossed her head. ‘You can’t just sit and do nothing! Nothing comes by itself!’

‘Sophistry.’

‘You can’t waste time unthinkingly! You might overlook the right moment . . . That one right, unique moment. For time never repeats itself.’

‘Permit me.’ He stood up. ‘Look at that, over there.’

On the wall he was pointing at was a protruding relief portraying an immense, scaly snake. The reptile, curled up in a figure of eight, was sinking its great teeth into its own tail. Ciri had once seen something like it, but couldn’t remember where.

‘There,’ said the elf. ‘The ancient snake Ouroboros. Ouroboros symbolises eternity and is itself eternal. It is the eternal going away and the eternal return. It is something that has no beginning and no end.

‘Time is like the ancient Ouroboros. Time is fleeting moments, grains of sand passing through an hourglass. Time is the moments and events we so readily try to measure. But the ancient Ouroboros reminds us that in every moment, in every instant, in every event, is hidden the past, the present and the future. Eternity is hidden in every moment. Every departure is at once a return, every farewell is a greeting, every return is a parting. Everything is simultaneously a beginning and an end.

‘And you too,’ he said, not looking at her at all, ‘are at once the beginning and the end. And because we are discussing destiny, know that it is precisely your destiny. To be the beginning and the end. Do you understand?’

She hesitated for a moment. But his glowing eyes forced her to answer.

‘I do.’

‘Get undressed.’

He said it so casually, so indifferently, she almost yelled in anger. Instead, she began to unfasten her waistcoat with trembling hands.

Her fingers were disobedient; the hooks and eyes, little buttons and ribbons awkward and tight. Though Ciri hurried as much as she could, wanting to get everything over as quickly as possible, the undressing lasted an annoyingly long time. But the elf didn’t give the impression of being in a hurry. As though he really had the whole of eternity at his disposal.

Who knows, she thought, perhaps he has?

Now, completely undressed, she shuffled from foot to foot, the floor chilling her feet. He noticed it and pointed wordlessly to the bed.

The bedclothes were made of mink. Of mink pelts sewn into great sheets. Wonderfully soft, warm and pleasantly ticklish.

He lay down beside her, fully dressed, even in his boots. When he touched her, she tensed up, involuntarily, a little angry at herself, for she had decided to act proud and impassive. Her teeth, whether she liked it or not, were chattering somewhat. His touch thrilled her, however, and his fingers taught her and commanded her. Guided her. Once she had begun to understand the suggestions so well that she was almost anticipating them, she closed her eyes and imagined it was Mistle. But she was unable to. For he was so unlike Mistle.

He instructed her with his hand. She obeyed. Willingly. Urgently.

He didn’t hurry at all. He made her soften beneath his caresses like a silk ribbon. He made her moan. Made her bite her lips. Made her whole body jerk in a sudden, shocking spasm.

What he did then, she hadn’t expected at all.

He stood up and walked away. Leaving her aroused, panting and trembling.

He didn’t even look back.

The blood struck Ciri’s face and temples. She curled up in a ball on the mink sheets and sobbed. From rage, shame and humiliation.

*

In the morning she found Avallac’h in the peristyle behind the palace, among an avenue of statues. The statues – most peculiarly – portrayed elven children. In various – mainly playful – poses. The one Avallac’h was standing by was particularly interesting: it depicted a young elf standing on one leg with its face contorted in anger, fists clenched.

Ciri couldn’t tear her gaze away for a long time, and she felt a dull ache in her belly. Only when urged by Avallac’h did she tell him everything. In general terms and stammering.

‘He,’ Avallac’h said gravely after she had finished, ‘has watched the smokes of Samhain more than six hundred times. Believe me, Swallow, that is a lot even for the Alder Folk.’

‘What do I care?’ she snapped. ‘I made an agreement! You must have learned from the dwarves, your comrades, what a contract is? I’m keeping my side of it! I’m giving myself! What do I care that he can’t or doesn’t want to? What do I care if it’s senile impotence, or if I don’t attract him? Perhaps Dh’oine repulse him? Perhaps like Eredin he only sees in me a nugget in a heap of compost?’

‘I hope . . .’ Avallac’h’s face, exceptionally, changed and contorted. ‘I hope you didn’t say anything like that to him?’

‘No, I didn’t. Though I felt like it.’

‘Beware. You don’t know what you’re risking.’

‘It’s all the same to me. I entered into a contract. Take it or leave it! Either you keep your side of the bargain, or we nullify the contract and I’ll be free.’

‘Beware, Zireael,’ he repeated, pointing at the statue of the upset child. ‘Don’t be like this one here. Consider every word. Try to understand. And if you don’t understand something, don’t act rashly under any circumstances. Be patient. Remember, time means nothing.’

‘Yes, it does!’

‘Please, don’t be an unruly child. I repeat again: be patient with Auberon. Because he’s your only chance of regaining your freedom.’

‘Really?’ she almost screamed. ‘I’m beginning to have my doubts! I’m beginning to suspect you of cheating me! That you’ve all cheated me—’

‘I promised you—’ Avallac’h’s face was as lifeless as a stone statue ‘—you will return to your world. I’ve given my word. Doubting someone’s word is a serious insult to the Aen Elle. In order to keep you from doing it, I suggest we end this conversation.’

He was about to go, but she barred his way. His aquamarine eyes narrowed and Ciri understood she was dealing with a very, very, dangerous elf. But it was too late to withdraw.

‘That’s very much in the elven style,’ she hissed like a viper. ‘To insult someone and then not let them get even.’

‘Beware, O Swallow.’

‘Listen.’ She lifted her head proudly. ‘Your Alder King won’t fulfil the task, that’s more than clear. It isn’t important if he’s the problem or if I am. That’s trivial and meaningless. But I want to fulfil the contract. And get it over with. Let someone else impregnate me to beget the child you care so much about.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘And if I’m the problem—’ she didn’t change her tone or expression ‘—it means you’re mistaken, Avallac’h. You lured the wrong person to this world.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Zireael.’

‘If, though,’ she screamed, ‘you’re all repulsed by me, use the hinny breeders’ method. What, don’t you know? You show the stallion a mare, and then you blindfold it and put the jenny in front of it.’

He didn’t even deign to reply. He passed her by unceremoniously and walked off along the avenue of statues.

‘Or you, perhaps?’ she yelled. ‘If you want I’ll give myself to you! Well? Won’t you sacrifice yourself? I mean, they say I’ve got Lara’s eyes!’

He was in front of her in two paces. His hands shot towards her neck like snakes and squeezed like steel pincers. She understood that if he’d wanted to, he could have throttled her like a fledgling.

He let her go. He leaned over and looked into her eyes from close up.

‘Who are you,’ he asked extremely calmly, ‘to dare to defile her name in such a way? Who are you to dare to abuse me with such miserable charity? Oh, I know, I see who you are. You are not the daughter of Lara. You are the daughter of Cregennan. You are a thoughtless, arrogant, selfish Dh’oine, a simply perfect representative of your race, who understands nothing, and must ruin and destroy, besmirch by touch alone, denigrate and defile by thought alone. Your ancestor stole my love from me, took her away from me, selfishly and arrogantly took Lara from me. But I shall not permit you, O his worthy daughter, to take the memory of her from me.’

He turned around. Ciri overcame the lump in her throat.

‘Avallac’h.’

A look.

‘Forgive me. I behaved thoughtlessly and shabbily. Forgive me. And, if you can, forget it.’

He went over to her and embraced her.

‘I’ve already forgotten,’ he said warmly. ‘No, let us not return to that ever again.’

*

When she entered the royal chambers that evening – bathed, perfumed and coiffured – Auberon Muircetach was sitting at the table, bent over a chessboard. He instructed her to sit opposite without a word.

He won in nine moves.

The second time, she played white and he won in eleven moves.

Only then did he raise his eyes, his extraordinary, clear eyes.

‘Get undressed, please.’

He deserved credit for one thing – he was delicate and didn’t hurry at all.

When – as before – he got up from the bed and walked away without a word, Ciri accepted it with calm resignation. But she couldn’t fall asleep until almost the very break of day.

And when the windows brightened from the dawn, and she finally fell asleep, she had a very strange dream.

*

Vysogota, stooping, was cleaning duckweed from a muskrat trap. Reeds blown by the wind rustled.

I feel guilty, Swallow. It was I who suggested the idea of this insane escapade. I showed you the way to that accursed Tower.

‘Don’t reproach yourself, Old Raven. Had it not been for the tower, Bonhart would have caught me. At least I’m safe here.’

You are not safe there.

Vysogota straightens up.

Behind him Ciri sees hills, bare and rounded, sticking up from the grass like the bent back of a monster lurking in ambush. A huge boulder is lying on the hill. And two figures stand beside it. A woman and girl. The wind yanks and tugs the woman’s black hair.

The horizon blazes with lightning.

Chaos extends a hand towards you, daughter. O Child of the Elder Blood, O girl entangled in Movement and Change, Destruction and Rebirth. Both destined and destiny. From behind a closed door Chaos holds its talons out to you, not knowing yet if you will become its tool, or a hindrance in its plans. Not knowing if you will by chance play the role of a grain of sand in the works of the Clock of Destiny. Chaos fears you, O Child of Destiny. And wants to make you feel fear. Which is why it sends you dreams.

Vysogota stoops and cleans the muskrat trap. But he’s dead, Ciri thinks clear-headedly. Does that mean that in the spirit world the dead have to clean muskrat traps?

Vysogota straightens up. The sky burns with the glow of fires behind his back. Thousands of horsemen gallop across the plain. Horsemen in red cloaks.

Dearg Ruadhri.

Listen to me carefully, Swallow. The Elder Blood you have in your veins gives you great power. You are the Master of Places and Times. You have a mighty Power. Don’t let criminals and rogues take it from you and use it for dishonourable purposes. Defend yourself! Flee out of reach of their vile hands.

‘That’s easy to say! They’ve ensnared me with some kind of magical barrier or tether . . .’

You are the Master of Places and Times. You cannot be tethered.

Vysogota straightens up. Behind his back is a plateau, a rocky plain, and on it shipwrecks. Dozens of shipwrecks. And beyond them a castle; black, ominous, toothed with battlements, rising up above a mountain lake.

They will perish without your help, O Swallow. Only you can save them.

Yennefer’s mouth, cut and bloodied, moves noiselessly, gushing blood. Her violet eyes shine, burn in her face; gaunt, contorted, blackened by torture, covered by a shock of unkempt, dirty black hair. A foul-smelling puddle in a hollow of the floor, rats scurrying all around. The horrifying cold of the stone walls. The cold of shackles on her wrists, on her ankles . . .

Yennefer’s hands and fingers are a mass of dried blood.

‘Mummy! What have they done to you?’

A marble staircase leading downwards. A staircase with three landings.

Va’esse deireadh aep eigean . . . Something ends . . . What?

A staircase. Fire blazing in iron cressets at the bottom. Burning tapestries.

Let’s go, says Geralt. Steps leading downwards. We have to. We must. There’s no other way. Just this staircase. I want to see the sky.

His lips aren’t moving. They’re blue and there’s blood on them. Blood, blood everywhere . . . The stairs are totally covered in blood.

There’s no other way. No other way, Star—Eye.

‘How?’ she cries. ‘How can I help them? I’m in another world! Imprisoned! And powerless!’

You cannot be imprisoned.

Everything has been written, says Vysogota. Even this. Look beneath your feet.

Ciri sees in horror that she’s standing in a sea of bones. Among skulls, shinbones and ribs.

Only you can prevent it, Star—Eye.

Vysogota straightens up. Behind him is winter, snow, a blizzard. The wind blows and whistles. Before her, in the snowstorm, on a horse, is Geralt. Ciri recognises him, although he has a fur hat on his head, and his face is shrouded in a woollen scarf. Behind him in the blizzard loom other riders, their silhouettes vague, so muffled up are they that there is no way to identify them.

Geralt looks straight at her. But doesn’t see her. Snow falls into his eyes.

‘Geralt! It’s me! Here!’

He can’t see her. Or hear her among the wailing of the gale.

‘Geraaalt!’

It’s a moufflon, says Geralt. Only a moufflon. Let’s go back. The riders disappear, dissolving in the snowstorm.

‘Geraaalt! Nooooo!’

*

She woke up.

*

Next morning she went at once to the stables without even eating breakfast. She didn’t want to meet Avallac’h, didn’t want to talk to him. She preferred to avoid the intrusive, curious, questioning, clinging looks of the other elves and elf-women. On every other occasion studiously indifferent, now the elves were betraying their curiosity on the subject of the royal bedchamber, and the palace walls, Ciri was certain, had ears.

She found Kelpie in her stall, found her saddle and harness. Before she managed to saddle the mare the servants were already beside her; those little grey elves, short, a head shorter than ordinary Aen Elle. They assisted her with the mare, bowing and smiling ingratiatingly.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’d cope by myself, but thank you. It’s sweet of you.’

The nearest girl smiled and Ciri shuddered.

For she had canine teeth.

Ciri was by her so fast the girl was almost dumbfounded. Ciri brushed the hair back from her ear. An ear that didn’t end in a point.

‘You’re human!’

The girl – and all the others with her – knelt down on the freshly swept floor. She bowed her head. Expecting to be punished.

‘I . . .’ Ciri began, kneading the reins. ‘I . . .’

She didn’t know what to say. The girls continued to kneel. The horses nervously snorted and stamped in their stalls.

Outside, in the saddle, trotting, she still couldn’t gather her thoughts. Human girls. Working as servants, but that was unimportant. What was important was that there were Dh’oine in this world . . .

People, she corrected herself. I’m thinking like them.

She was startled out of her reverie by Kelpie neighing loudly and starting. She raised her head and saw Eredin.

He was sitting on his dark bay stallion, now without its demonic bucranium and most of the other battle paraphernalia. He was, though, wearing a mail shirt beneath a cloak shimmering in many shades of red.

The stallion neighed a husky welcome, shook its head and bared its yellow teeth at Kelpie. Kelpie, in accordance with the principle that one settles matters with the master and not with the servant, reached for the elf’s thigh with her teeth. Ciri jerked the reins sharply.

‘Careful,’ she said. ‘Keep your distance. My mare doesn’t like strangers. And she bites.’

‘Biters—’ the elf glared at her evilly ‘—should be tamed with an iron bit. Tight enough to draw blood. A splendid method for eradicating bad habits. In horses too.’

He jerked the stallion’s bridle so hard that the horse snorted and took several paces backwards, foam trickling from its muzzle.

‘Why the mail shirt?’ Now Ciri was glaring at the elf. ‘Are you preparing for war?’

‘Quite the opposite. I desire peace. Does your mare, apart from being skittish, have any other virtues?’

‘What kind?’

‘May I challenge you to a race?’

‘If you wish, why not.’ She stood up in the stirrups. ‘There, towards those cromlechs—’

‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘Not there.’

‘Why not?’

‘That’s off limits.’

‘For everyone, naturally.’

‘Not everyone, naturally. Your company is too precious to us, Swallow, for us to risk being deprived of it by you or anyone else.’

‘Anyone else? You can’t be thinking about the unicorns?’

‘I don’t want to bore you with what I think. Or be frustrated by your not understanding my thoughts.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I know you don’t. Evolution didn’t give you a sufficiently folded brain to enable you to understand. Listen, if you want a race I suggest along the river. That way. To the Porphyry Bridge, the third one along. Then across the bridge to the other side, then along the bank, downstream, finishing at the stream that flows into the river. Ready?’

‘Always.’

He urged on his stallion with a cry, and the horse set off like a hurricane. Before Kelpie could start he was well ahead. He made the earth tremble, but he couldn’t match Kelpie. She caught up with him quickly, even before the Porphyry Bridge. The bridge was narrow. Eredin yelled, and the stallion, incredibly, picked up speed. Ciri understand immediately what was happening. Not for all the world would two horses fit on the bridge. One had to yield.

Ciri had no intention of slowing. She pressed herself to Kelpie’s mane, and the mare shot ahead like an arrow. She brushed against the elf’s stirrup and hurtled onto the bridge. Eredin yelled again. The stallion reared up, hit its side against an alabaster figure, knocking it from its plinth and smashing it into pieces.

Ciri, sniggering like a ghoul, galloped across the bridge. Without looking back.

She dismounted by the stream and waited.

He trotted up a moment later. Smiling and composed.

‘My compliments,’ he said curtly, dismounting. ‘Both to the mare and to the Amazon.’

Although she was strutting like a peacock she snorted carelessly.

‘Aha! Won’t you brutally tame us now?’

‘Not unless you permit me,’ he smiled suggestively. ‘Some mares like rough caresses.’

‘Not so long ago—’ she looked at him haughtily ‘—you compared me to compost. And now we’re talking about caresses?’

He went closer to Kelpie, stroked and patted the mare’s neck and shook his head on finding it was dry. Kelpie tossed her head and neighed at length. Eredin turned towards Ciri. If he pats me too, she thought, he’ll regret it.

‘Follow me.’

Moss-covered steps made of sandstone blocks stood alongside the stream, which flowed down from a steep, thickly wooded hillside into the river. The steps were ancient, cracked, split by tree roots. They zig-zagged upwards, occasionally crossing the stream over footbridges. All around was a forest, a wild forest, full of old ash and hornbeam, yew, maple and oak, the floor carpeted with a thicket of hazel, tamarisk and bramble. It smelled of wormwood, sage, nettles, wet stones, the spring and mould.

Ciri walked in silence, not hurrying, and controlling her breathing. She was also trying to control her nerves. She had no idea what Eredin might want from her, but she had her misgivings.

There was a stone terrace beside another cascade, falling with a roar from a rocky cleft, and on it, overshadowed by wild lilac, was an old bower, wound around with ivy and spiderwort. The ribbon of the river, roofs, peristyles and the terraces of Tir ná Lia could be seen below the crowns of the trees.

They stood a while, looking.

‘No one told me—’ Ciri was the first to interrupt the silence ‘—what that river’s called.’

‘The Easnadh.’

‘The Sigh? Pretty. And that stream?’

‘The Tuathe.’

‘The Whisper. That’s pretty too. Why did no one tell me that there are humans living in this world?’

‘Because it’s irrelevant information and totally meaningless to you. Let’s go into the bower.’

‘What for?’

‘Let’s go in.’

The first thing she noticed after entering was a bare wooden divan. Ciri felt her temples beginning to throb. Of course, she thought, I should have seen that coming. I read a romance written by Anna Tiller in the temple, didn’t I? About an old king, a young queen and a pretender prince greedy for power. Eredin is ruthless, ambitious and determined. He knows that whoever has a queen is the real king, a real ruler. A real man. Whoever possesses a queen, possesses the kingdom. Here, on this couch, will begin the coup d’état . . .

The elf sat down on a marble table, and gestured at a chair for Ciri. The view from the window seemed to interest him more than she did, and he wasn’t looking at the couch at all.

‘You’ll remain here forever,’ he said, surprising her, ‘my Amazon, as light as a little butterfly. To the end of your butterfly life.’

She was silent, looking him straight in the eye. There was nothing in those eyes.

‘They won’t let you leave,’ he repeated. ‘They won’t accept that, contrary to the prophecy and myths, you’re no one and nothing, a meaningless creature. They won’t believe it and they won’t let you leave. They hoodwinked you with a promise to ensure your submission, but they never intended to keep that promise. Never.’

‘Avallac’h gave me his word,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Allegedly it’s an insult to doubt the word of an elf.’

‘Avallac’h is a Knowing One. Knowing Ones have their own code of honour in which every second sentence there’s mention of the end justifying the means.’

‘I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this. Unless . . . you want something from me. Unless I have something you desire. And you want to bargain. Well? Eredin? My freedom for . . . for what?’

He looked at her for a long while. And she vainly searched in his eyes for some indication, some signal, some sign. Of anything.

‘You’ve no doubt managed to get to know Auberon a little,’ he began slowly. ‘You’ve certainly noticed already that he is simply unimaginably ambitious. There are things he’ll never accept, that he’ll never concede. He’d sooner die.’

Ciri was silent, biting her lips and glancing at the couch.

‘Auberon Muircetach,’ continued the elf, ‘will never use magic or other measures which might change the current situation. And such measures exist. Good, powerful, guaranteed measures. Much more effective than the aphrodisiacs that Avallac’h’s servants saturate your cosmetics with.’

He moved his hand quickly over the dark, veined table top. When he withdrew it a tiny flacon of grey-green nephrite was lying on the table.

‘No,’ said Ciri hoarsely. ‘Absolutely not. I won’t agree to that.’

‘You didn’t let me finish.’

‘Don’t treat me like a fool. I won’t give him what’s in that flacon. You won’t use me for things like that.’

‘You draw very hasty conclusions,’ he said slowly, looking her in the eye. ‘You’re trying to outrun yourself in the race. And things like that always end with a fall. A very painful fall.’

‘I said no.’

‘Think it over well. Regardless of what the vessel contains, you always win. You always win, Swallow.’

‘No!’

With a movement just as dextrous as before, truly worthy of a conjuror, he swept the flacon from the table. Then he stayed silent for a long while, looking at the River Easnadh glinting among the trees.

‘You’ll die here, little butterfly,’ he said finally. ‘They won’t let you leave. But it’s your choice.’

‘I made a deal. My freedom for—’

‘Freedom,’ he snorted. ‘You keep talking about freedom. And what would you do if you finally regained it? Where would you make for? Get it into your head that at this moment not only places but time separate you from your world. Time passes differently here than there. Those you knew as children are now decrepit, those who were your peers died long ago.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Think back to your legends. Legends about people who mysteriously disappeared and returned years later, only to gaze on the overgrown graves of their loved ones. Do you think they were fantasies, fabrications? You’re mistaken. For whole centuries people have been kidnapped, carried away by horsemen whom you call the Wild Hunt. Kidnapped, exploited, and then discarded like the shell of a sucked-out egg. But not even that will befall you, Zireael. You will die here. You won’t even have the chance of seeing your friends’ graves.’

‘I don’t believe what you’re saying.’

‘Your beliefs are your own private matter. And you chose your own fate yourself. Let’s go back. I have a request, Swallow. Would you like to consume a light meal with me in Tir ná Lia?’

For several heartbeats hunger and a reckless fascination fought in Ciri against anger, fear of poison and general antipathy.

‘With pleasure.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘Thank you for the offer.’

‘No, I thank you. Let’s go.’

As they were exiting the bower she glanced at the divan once again. And thought that Anna Tiller was actually a stupid and gushing hack.

They descended to the River Sigh slowly, in silence, amidst the aroma of mint, sage and nettle. Down the steps. Along the bank of a stream called the Whisper.

*

When that evening, perfumed, with hair still damp after an aromatic bath, she entered the royal chambers, she found Auberon on a sofa, bent over a large book. Without a word, with only a gesture, he ordered her to sit beside him.

The book was richly illustrated. To tell the truth, there was nothing in it apart from illustrations. Although she tried to play the sophisticated lady, the blood rushed to Ciri’s cheeks. She’d seen several such works in the temple library in Ellander. But they couldn’t compete with the book of the Alder King, neither in the richness and variety of the positions, nor in the artistry of their depiction.

They looked at it for a long time, in silence.

‘Please get undressed.’

This time he also got undressed. His body was slender and boyish, downright skinny like Giselher, like Kayleigh, like Reef, whom she’d seen many times when they bathed in streams or mountain lakes. But vitality exuded from Giselher and the Rats, life exuded from them, the desire to live, blazing among the silver drops of water spraying around.

But from him, from the Alder King, the cold of eternity exuded.

He was patient. Several times it seemed it was about to happen. But nothing came of it. Ciri was angry at herself, certain that it was because of her ignorance and paralysing lack of skill. He noticed and calmed her. As usual, very effectively. And she fell asleep in his arms.

But in the morning he wasn’t with her.

*

The next evening, for the first time, the Alder King betrayed his impatience.

She found him hunched over the table where a looking glass framed in amber was lying. White powder had been sprinkled on it.

It’s beginning, she thought.

Auberon used a small knife to gather the fisstech and form it into two lines. He took a silver tube and sniffed up the narcotic, first to the left, then to the right nostril. His eyes, usually sparkling, dimmed slightly and became cloudy, began to water. Ciri knew at once it wasn’t his first dose.

He formed two fresh lines on the glass, then invited her over with a gesture, handing her the tube. Oh, who cares, she thought. It’ll be easier.

The drug was extremely powerful.

A short while later they were both sitting on the bed, hugging, and staring at the moon with their eyes watering.

Ciri sneezed.

‘An uncharted night,’ she said, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her silk blouse.

‘Enchanting,’ he corrected her, wiping an eye. ‘Ensh’eass, not en’leass. You need to work on your pronunciation.’

‘I will.’

‘Get undressed.’

At first it seemed it would be good, that the drug would stimulate him as much as it was her. And its effect on her was to make her active and adventurous, why, she even whispered a few extremely indecent – in her opinion – words into his ear. It must have got to him a little – the effect was, hmm, tangible, and at one moment Ciri was certain it was about to happen. But it didn’t. At least not all the way.

And once again he became impatient. He stood up and threw a sable fur over his shoulders. He stood like that, turned away, staring at the window and the moon. Ciri sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. She was disappointed and cross, and at the same time she felt strangely wistful. It was doubtless the action of the powerful fisstech.

‘It’s all my fault,’ she mumbled. ‘That scar blights me, I know. I know what you see when you look at me. There’s not much elf left in me. A gold nugget in a pile of compost—’

He turned around suddenly.

‘You’re extremely modest,’ he drawled. ‘I would say rather: a pearl in pig shit. A diamond on the finger of a rotting corpse. As part of your language training you can create even more comparisons. I’ll test you on them tomorrow, little Dh’oine. O human creature in whom nothing, but nothing, remains of an elven woman.’

He walked over to the table, picked up the tube and leaned over the looking glass. Ciri sat as though petrified. She felt as if she’d been spat on.

‘I don’t come here out of love!’ she barked furiously. ‘I’m being held and being blackmailed, as you well know! But I’m reconciled to it, I’m doing it for—’

‘For whom?’ he interrupted heatedly, quite unlike an elf. ‘For me? For the Aen Seidhe imprisoned in your world? You foolish maid! You’re doing it for yourself. You come here for yourself and vainly try to give yourself to me. For it’s your only hope, your only chance. And I’ll tell you one more thing. Pray, pray zealously to your human idols, godheads and totems. Because it’ll either be me, or Avallac’h and his laboratory. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to end up in the laboratory and become acquainted with the alternative.’

‘It’s all the same to me,’ she said softly, huddling up in bed. ‘I’ll agree to anything, as long as I regain my freedom. To finally free myself from you. To depart. To my world. To my friends.’

‘Your friends!’ he sneered. ‘Here are your friends!’

He turned around and abruptly tossed the fisstech-strewn looking glass to her.

‘Here are your friends,’ he repeated. ‘Have a look.’

He went out, the tails of the fur flapping behind him.

At first she only saw her own, blurred reflection in the dirtied glass. But almost immediately the looking glass brightened up milkily, filled up with smoke. And then with an image.

Yennefer suspended in a chasm, back arched, with hands raised. The sleeves of her dress are like the outstretched wings of a bird. Her hair undulates, little fishes dart among it. Whole shoals of shimmering, busy little fish. Some of them are nibbling the sorceress’s cheeks and eyes. A rope runs towards the bottom of the lake from Yennefer’s leg, and the end of the rope, trapped in the sludge and waterweed, is a large basket of stones. High above, the surface of the water shines and sparkles.

Yennefer’s dress undulates in the same rhythm as the waterweed.

The surface of the looking glass, smudged with fisstech, becomes enveloped in smoke.

Geralt, glassily pale, with closed eyes, sits under long icicles extending from a rock, motionless, covered in ice and quickly being buried in snow being blown over him by a blizzard. His white hair has already become white tangles of ice, white icicles hang from his eyebrows, eyelashes and lips. The snow keeps falling and falling. The snowdrift covering Geralt’s legs grows, the fluffy piles on his shoulders grow. The blizzard howls and whistles . . .

Ciri leapt up from the bed, and hurled the looking glass at the wall with great force. The amber frame smashed and the glass shattered into a million splinters.

She recognised, knew, remembered that kind of vision. From her earlier dreams.

‘It’s all false!’ she yelled. ‘Do you hear, Auberon? I don’t believe it! It’s not true! It’s just your anger, which is as impotent as you are! It’s your anger . . .’

She sat on the floor and burst into tears.

*

She suspected the palace walls had ears. The next day she couldn’t rid herself of the ambiguous looks. She felt sneers behind her back, listened out for whispers.

Avallac’h was nowhere to be found. He knows, she thought, he knows what happened and is avoiding me. In advance, before I got up, he sailed or rode somewhere far away with his gilded elf—woman. He doesn’t want to talk to me, doesn’t want to admit his entire plan has come to nothing.

Eredin was nowhere to be found either. But that was to be expected. He often went riding with his Dearg Ruadhri, the Red Horsemen.

Ciri led Kelpie out of the stable and rode to the far side of the river, frantically thinking the whole time, not noticing anything around her.

To escape is what matters. It doesn’t matter if all those visions were false or true. One thing is certain – Yennefer and Geralt are there in my world and my place is there, with them. I have to escape from here, escape without delay! After all, there must be a way. I entered it alone, I ought to be able to leave alone. Eredin said I have an untamed talent, and Vysogota suspected the same thing. There was no way out of Tor Zireael; I explored it thoroughly. But perhaps there is some other tower . . .

She looked into the distance, at the far-off hill, at the silhouette of the cromlech visible there. Forbidden territory, she thought. Ha, I see it’s too far. The barrier probably won’t allow me to go there. Not worth the effort. I’ll ride upstream instead. I haven’t ridden there yet.

Kelpie neighed, tossed her head, and broke into a hard run. She wouldn’t let herself be turned. Instead she trotted hard towards the hill. Ciri was so dumbstruck that for a moment she didn’t react and let the mare run. Only a moment later did she yell and tug at the reins. The result was that Kelpie reared up, kicked, jerked her rump and galloped away. Continuing in the same direction.

Ciri didn’t stop her, didn’t try to control her. She was utterly amazed. But she knew Kelpie too well. The mare could be disobedient, but not to this extent. Behaviour like this must mean something.

Kelpie slowed to a trot. She continued straight ahead towards the hill topped with the cromlech.

More or less a furlong, Ciri thought. At any moment the barrier will come down.

The mare ran into the stone circle, amidst crowded, moss-covered and lopsided monoliths growing out of a thicket of thorny brambles, and stopped dead. The only thing Kelpie moved was her ears, which she pricked up attentively.

Ciri tried to rein her around and then set off. Without success. Were it not for the blood vessels throbbing on Kelpie’s neck, Ciri would have sworn she was sitting not on a horse, but on a statue. Suddenly something touched her back. Something sharp, something that penetrated her clothing and pricked painfully. She didn’t have time to turn around. Then a ruddy-coloured unicorn emerged from behind the rocks without the slightest noise and thrust its horn under her arm. Hard. Roughly. She felt a trickle of blood running down her side.

Yet another unicorn emerged from the other side. This one was completely white, from the tips of its ears to the end of its tail. Only its nostrils were pink, and its eyes were black.

The white unicorn approached. And slowly, very slowly, placed its head in her lap. The excitement was so powerful Ciri moaned.

I’ve grown, resounded in her head. I’ve grown, Star—Eye. Back then, in the desert, I didn’t know how to behave. Now I know.

‘Little Horse?’ she moaned, still almost hanging from the two horns piercing her.

My name is Ihuarraquax. Do you remember me, Star—Eye? Do you remember treating me? Saving me?

He stepped back and turned around. She saw the mark of a scar on his leg. She recognised him. Remembered.

‘Little Horse! It’s you! But your coat was a different colour . . .’

I’ve grown up.

In her head came a sudden confusion, whispers, voices, cries and neighing. The horns withdrew. She noticed that the second unicorn, the one behind her back, was dappled blue-grey.

The elders are learning you, Star—Eye. They are learning you through me. Just a moment longer and they’ll be able to talk by themselves. They’ll tell you themselves what they want from you.

The cacophony in Ciri’s head burst in an eruption of savage tumult. And almost immediately abated, before it flowed into a stream of comprehensible and clear thoughts.

We want to help you escape, Star—Eye.

She was silent, though her heart pounded hard in her chest.

Where is the tremendous joy? Where are the thanks?

‘And why,’ she asked aggressively, ‘this desire to help me all of a sudden? Do you love me so much?’

We don’t love you at all. But this is not your world. This is no place for you. You cannot stay here. We don’t want you to stay.

She clenched her teeth. Although excited by the prospect, she shook her head. Little Horse – Ihuarraquax – pricked up his ears, pawed the ground with a hoof and glanced at her with his black eye. The ruddy unicorn stamped so hard the ground shook, and twisted its horn menacingly. It snorted angrily, and Ciri understood.

You don’t trust us.

‘I don’t,’ she confessed cheerfully. ‘Everybody here is playing a game of their own, and trying to exploit me in my ignorance. Why exactly should I trust you? There’s clearly no love lost between you and the elves. I saw for myself on the steppe how there was almost a fight. I can easily assume you want to use me to annoy them. I’m not fond of them either, after all they’ve imprisoned me and are forcing me to do something I don’t want to do at all. But I won’t allow myself to be taken advantage of.’

The ruddy unicorn shook his head, and his horn made a threatening movement again. The blue-grey one neighed. Ciri’s head thundered like the inside of a well, and the thought she picked up was unpleasant.

‘Aha!’ she cried. ‘You’re just like them! Either subservience and obedience, or death? I’m not afraid! And I won’t let myself be abused!’

She felt confusion and chaos in her head again. It was some time before a clear thought emerged.

It’s good, Star—Eye, that you don’t like being taken advantage of. That is precisely what concerns us. That is precisely what we want to guarantee to you. To ourselves. And to the whole world. To all worlds.

‘I don’t understand.’

You are a dangerous weapon, a fell weapon. We can’t allow that weapon to fall into the hands of the Alder King, the Fox or the Sparrowhawk.

‘Who?’ she stammered. ‘Ah . . .’

The Alder King is old. But the Fox and the Sparrowhawk cannot seize power over Ard Gaeth, the Gateway to the Worlds. They captured it once. They lost it once. Now they can do nothing more than wander, roam among the worlds taking tiny steps, alone, like spectres, powerless. The Fox to Tir ná Béa Arainne, the Sparrowhawk and his horsemen around the Spiral. They can go no further, they don’t have the strength. Which is why they dream of Ard Gaeth and power. We shall show you how they have already abused such power. We shall show you, Star—Eye, when you leave here.

‘I can’t leave here. They’ve put a spell on me. A barrier. Geas Garadh . . .’

You cannot be imprisoned. You are now Master of the Worlds.

‘Like hell. I don’t have any natural talent, I can’t control anything. And I relinquished the Power in the desert, a year ago. Little Horse was a witness.’

In the desert you relinquished conjuring. The Power you have in your blood cannot be relinquished. You still have it. We shall teach you how to use it.

‘And isn’t it, perhaps,’ she shouted, ‘that you want to capture that power, this power over the worlds that I reputedly have?’

It is not. We do not have to capture that power. For we have always had it.

Trust them, requested Ihuarraquax. Trust, Star—Eye.

‘Under one condition.’

The unicorns jerked up their heads and flared their nostrils. You would have sworn sparks were shooting from their eyes. They don’t like it, thought Ciri, when conditions are imposed on them. They don’t even like the sound of the word. Spet, I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing . . . Let’s hope it doesn’t end tragically . . .

Speak. What is the condition?

‘Ihuarraquax will be with me.’

*

In the evening it clouded over, became close. A thick, sticky mist rose from the river. And when darkness fell over Tir ná Lia, a storm sounded with a dull, distant growl. Every now and then the glow of lightning lit the horizon.

Ciri had been ready a long time. Dressed in black, with sword on her back, anxious and tense, she waited impatiently for dusk.

She passed quietly through the empty vestibule, stole through the colonnade and onto the terrace. The River Easnadh sparkled in the darkness, willows soughed.

Distant thunder rolled across the sky.

Ciri led Kelpie out of the stable. The mare knew what was expected of her. She trotted obediently towards the Porphyry Bridge. For a moment Ciri followed her tracks, then glanced at the terrace beside which the boats stood.

I can’t, she thought. I’ll appear before him once more. Perhaps I’ll manage to delay the pursuers by doing it? It’s risky, but there’s no other way.

*

In the first moment she thought he wasn’t there, that the royal chambers were empty. Because they were silent and lifeless.

She only noticed him after a moment. He was sitting in an armchair in the corner, a white shirt gaping open on his skinny chest. The shirt was made of stuff so fine it clung to his body as though wet.

The Alder King’s face and hands were almost as white as his shirt.

He raised his eyes towards her, and there was a void in them.

‘Shiadhal?’ he whispered. ‘I’m glad you are here. You know, they told me you had died.’

He opened his hand and something fell onto the carpet. It was the flacon of grey-green nephrite. ‘Lara.’ The Alder King moved his head, and touched his neck as though his royal torc’h was garrotting him. ‘Caemm a me, luned. Come to me, daughter. Caemm a me, elaine.’

Ciri sensed death in his breath.

‘Elaine blath, feainne wedd . . .’ he sang. ‘Mire, luned, your ribbon has come undone . . . Allow me . . .’

He tried to lift his hand, but he was unable to. He sighed deeply, raised his hand abruptly, and looked her in the eyes. This time lucidly.

‘Zireael,’ he said. ‘Loc’hlaith. You are indeed destiny, O Lady of the Lake. Mine too, as it transpires.

Va’esse deireadh aep eigean . . .’ he said a moment later, and Ciri observed with dread that his words and movements had begun to slow down horribly.

‘But,’ he finished with a sigh, ‘it’s good that something is beginning.’

They heard a long-drawn-out peal of thunder outside the window. The storm was still far away. But it was approaching fast.

‘In spite of everything,’ he said, ‘I very much don’t want to die, Zireael. And I’m so sorry that I must. Who’d have thought it? I thought I wouldn’t regret it. I’ve lived long, I’ve experienced everything. I’ve become bored with everything . . . but nonetheless I feel regret. And do you know what else? Come closer. I’ll tell you in confidence. Let it be our secret.’

She bent forward.

‘I’m afraid,’ he whispered.

‘I know.’

‘Are you with me?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Va faill, luned.’

‘Farewell, O Alder King.’

She sat with him, holding his hand, until he went completely quiet and his delicate breath faded. She didn’t wipe away the tears. She let them flow.

The storm was coming closer. The horizon blazed with lightning.

*

She ran quickly down the marble staircase to the terrace with the small columns, beside which the boats were rocking. She untied one, the outermost, which she had selected the evening before. She pushed off the terrace with a long mahogany pole she had had the foresight to remove from a curtain rod. She doubted whether the boat would be as obedient to her as it had to Avallac’h.

The boat glided noiselessly with the current. Tir ná Lia was quiet and dark. Only the statues on the terrace followed her with their dead gaze. Ciri counted the bridges.

The sky above the forest was lit up by a flash of lightning. A moment later there was a long grumble of thunder.

The third bridge.

Something stole across the bridge, softly, as nimble as a great black rat. The boat rocked as he jumped onto the bow. Ciri threw down the rod and drew her sword.

‘And so,’ hissed Eredin Bréacc Glas, ‘you wish to deprive us of your company?’

He also drew a sword. In a brief flash of lightning she managed to size up the weapon. The blade was single-edged, slightly curved. The edge of the blade was shining and undoubtedly sharp, the hilt was long and the pommel was in the shape of a circular, openwork plate. It was apparent at once that the elf knew how to use it.

He unexpectedly rocked the boat, pressing a foot down hard on the side. Ciri kept her balance with ease, and righted the boat with a powerful tilt of her body, then almost immediately tried the same trick by jumping on the side with both feet. He wobbled but kept his balance and lunged at her with his sword. She parried the blow, blocking instinctively, for she could see little. She retaliated with a rapid, low cut. Eredin parried and struck, and Ciri deflected the blow. A stream of sparks flew from the blades as though from flint and steel.

He rocked the boat again, hard, almost knocking her over. Ciri danced, balancing with arms outstretched. He retreated towards the bow and lowered his sword.

‘Where did you learn that, Swallow?’

‘You’d be astonished.’

‘I doubt it. Was it your idea that the barrier can be overcome by sailing along the river, or did someone reveal it to you?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does. And let’s get to the bottom of it. There are methods for doing that. Now drop your sword and we’ll go back.’

‘Like hell.’

‘We’re going back, Zireael. Auberon’s waiting. Tonight, I guarantee, he’ll be lively and full of vigour.’

‘Like hell,’ she repeated. ‘He overdosed on that invigorating draught you showed me. The one you gave him. Or perhaps it wasn’t for vigour at all.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘He’s dead.’

Eredin quickly overcame his astonishment and suddenly went for her, rocking the boat. Balancing, they traded several ferocious blows, the water carrying the resonant clang of steel.

Lightning lit up the night. A bridge slid past above their heads. One of the last bridges of Tir ná Lia. Or maybe the last?

‘You must understand, Swallow,’ he rasped, ‘that you’re only delaying the inevitable. I can’t let you leave here.’

‘Why not? Auberon’s dead. And I’m nobody and mean nothing, after all. You told me so yourself.’

‘Well, it’s true.’ He raised his sword. ‘You mean nothing. You’re a tiny clothes moth that can be crushed in the fingers into shining dust, but which, perhaps, if it’s allowed, can cut out a hole in a precious fabric. You’re a grain of pepper, despicably small, but which when inadvertently chewed spoils the most exquisite food, forces one to spit it out, when one wanted to savour it. That is what you are. Nothing. An irritating nothing.’

Lightning. In its light Ciri saw what she wanted to see. The elf raised his sword and swung, leaping onto the bench of the boat. He had the advantage of height. He was sure to win the next clash.

‘You ought not to draw a weapon on me, Zireael. It’s too late now. I won’t forgive you that. I won’t kill you, oh, no. But a few weeks in bed, in bandages, will certainly do you good.’

‘Wait. First, I want to tell you something. Disclose a certain secret.’

‘And what could you tell me?’ he snorted. ‘What can you tell me that I don’t know? What truth can you reveal to me?’

‘That you won’t fit under the bridge.’

He had no time to react, struck the bridge with the back of his head and shot forward, losing his balance completely. Ciri could have simply pushed him out of the boat, but was afraid that wouldn’t be enough, that it wouldn’t stop her being pursued. Besides, he, whether deliberately or not, had killed the Alder King. And he deserved pain for that.

She stabbed him in the thigh, right at the edge of his mail shirt. He didn’t even scream. He flew overboard and splashed into the river, the water closing over him.

She turned around and looked. It was a long time before he surfaced. Before he dragged himself out onto some marble steps descending into the river. He lay still, dripping water and blood.

‘It’ll do you good,’ she muttered. ‘A few weeks in bed in bandages.’

She grabbed the pole, and pushed off powerfully. The River Easnadh became more and more rapid. The boat was moving more quickly. The final buildings of Tir ná Lia soon lay behind her.

She didn’t look back.

First it became very dark, for the boat had passed into an old forest, among trees whose boughs touched each other over the river, forming a vault. Then it brightened up as the forest came to an end, and on both banks there were alder wetlands, reeds and bulrushes. Tussocks of weed, floating water plants and tree trunks appeared in the previously clear river. When the sky brightened up from the lightning she saw rings on the water, and after the thunder rumbled she heard the splash of startled fish. Something was splashing and plopping, squelching and smacking its lips. Several times, not far from the boat, she saw large glowing eyes. Several times the boat shuddered upon hitting something large and alive. Not everything here is beautiful. For the unaccustomed this world means death. She repeated the words of Eredin in her mind.

The river broadened considerably, spreading out wide. Islands and channels appeared. She let the boat float randomly, wherever the current took her. But she began to worry. What would happen if she made a mistake and took the wrong branch?

She had barely thought that when the neighing of Kelpie and a strong, mental signal from the unicorn came from the rushes by the bank.

‘It’s you, Little Horse!’

Hurry, Star—Eye. Follow me.

‘To my world?’

First, I must show you something. The elders ordered me to.

They rode, first through a forest, then across a steppe densely furrowed with ravines and gorges. Lightning flashed, thunder bellowed. The storm was coming closer. A wind was getting up.

The unicorn led Ciri to one of the ravines.

It’s here.

‘What’s here?’

Dismount and see.

She obeyed. The ground was uneven. She tripped. Something crunched and slipped under her foot. Lightning flashed and Ciri cried hollowly.

She was standing among a sea of bones.

The ravine’s sandy slopes had subsided, probably washed away by downpours. And that revealed what had been concealed. A burial ground. A boneyard. A huge heap of bones. Shinbones, hip bones, ribs and thigh bones. And skulls.

She picked up one of them.

The lightning flashed and Ciri screamed. She understood whose remains they were.

The skull, which bore the marks of a blade, had canine teeth.

Now you understand, she heard in her head. Now you know. They did it, the Aen Elle. The Alder King. The Fox. The Sparrowhawk. This world was not their world at all. It became their world. After they had conquered it. When they opened Ard Gaeth, having deceived and taken advantage of us, just as they have tried to deceive and take advantage of you.

Ciri threw the skull away.

‘Murderers!’ she shouted into the night. ‘Scoundrels.’

Thunder rolled across the sky with a clatter. Ihuarraquax neighed loudly, in warning. She understood. She leaped into the saddle, and urged Kelpie into a gallop with a cry.

Pursuers were on their trail.

*

This has happened before, she thought, gulping air as she galloped. This has happened before. A ride like this, reckless, in the darkness, on a night full of dread, ghosts and apparitions.

‘Forward, Kelpie!’

A furious gallop, eyes watering from the speed. Lightning split the sky in two. Ciri sees alders lit up on both sides of the road. From all sides misshapen trees reach out towards her the long, knobbly arms of their boughs, snap the black jaws of their hollows, and hurl curses and threats in her tracks. Kelpie neighs piercingly, hurtles along so fast her hooves seem only to brush the earth. Ciri flattens herself against the mare’s neck. Not just to minimise the drag, but also to avoid the alder branches, trying to knock or pull her from the saddle. The branches swish, lash, and whip, trying to latch onto her clothes and hair. The misshapen trunks sway, the hollows snap and roar.

Kelpie neighs wildly. The unicorn replies. There is a snow-white dot in the gloom. It points the way.

Hurry, Star—Eye! Ride with all your might!

There are more and more alders, it’s getting more and more difficult to dodge their boughs. Soon they’ll bar the entire road . . .

A cry behind. The voice of the pursuers.

Ihuarraquax neighs. Ciri receives his signal. She understands its significance. She presses herself to Kelpie’s neck. She doesn’t have to urge her on. The mare, chased by fear, flies in a breakneck gallop.

Again a signal from the unicorn, clearer, penetrating her brain. It’s an instruction, quite simply an order.

Leap, Star—Eye. You must leap. Into another place, into another time.

Ciri doesn’t understand, but she fights to. She tries hard to understand, she focuses, she focuses so hard that the blood buzzes and pulses in her ears . . .

Lightning. And after it a sudden darkness, darkness soft and black, black darkness that nothing can lighten.

A buzzing in her ears.

*

The wind on her face. A cool wind. Drops of rain. The scent of pine in her nostrils.

Kelpie prances, snorts and stamps. Her neck is hot and wet.

Lightning. Soon after it thunder. In the light Ciri sees Ihuarraquax shaking his head and horn, powerfully pawing the ground with his hoof.

‘Little Horse?’

I’m here, Star—Eye.

The sky is full of stars. Full of constellations. The Dragon. The Winter Maiden. The Seven Goats. The Pitcher.

And almost just above the horizon – the Eye.

‘We did it,’ she gasped. ‘We made it, Little Horse. This is my world!’

His signal is so clear that Ciri understands everything.

No, Star—Eye. We’ve fled from one world. But it still isn’t your place, not your time. There are still many worlds ahead of us.

‘Don’t leave me alone.’

I will not. I am in debt to you. I must pay it off. Entirely.

*

Along with the growing wind, the sky darkens from the west. The clouds, coming in waves, extinguish the constellations in turn. The Dragon goes out, the Winter Maiden goes out, then the Seven Goats and the Pitcher. The Eye, which shines brightest and longest, goes out.

The line of the horizon is lit up by the short-lived brightness of lightning. Thunder rolls with a dull rumble. The wind abruptly intensifies, blowing dust and dry leaves into their eyes.

The unicorn neighs and sends a mental signal.

There’s no time to lose. Our only hope is in a quick escape. To the right place, and the right time. We must hurry, Star—Eye.

I am the Master of Worlds. I am the Elder Blood.

I am of the blood of Lara Dorren, the daughter of Shiadhal.

Ihuarraquax neighs, urges them on. Kelpie echoes it with a long-drawn-out snort. Ciri puts on her gloves.

‘I’m ready,’ she says.

A buzzing in her ears. A flash and brightness. And then darkness.

The trial, sentence and execution of Joachim de Wett is usually ascribed by most historians to the violent, cruel and tyrannical nature of Emperor Emhyr, and neither is there any shortage either – particularly amongst authors of a literary bent – of allusive hypotheses about revenge and the settling of wholely private scores. It is high time the truth were told: the truth, which for every attentive scholar is more than obvious. Duke de Wett commanded the Verden Group in such a way that the term ‘inept’ is much too mild. Having against him forces twice as weak as his own, he delayed the offensive to the north, and directed all his efforts towards a fight against the Verdanian guerrillas. The Verden Group committed unspeakable atrocities against the civilian population. The result was easy to predict and was inevitable. If, in the winter, the forces of the insurgents had numbered less than half a thousand, by spring almost the entire country had risen up. King Ervyll, who had been devoted to the Empire, was eliminated, and the insurrection was led by his son, Prince Kistrin, who sympathised with the Nordlings. Having on his flank a landing force of pirates from Skellige, to the fore an offensive of Nordlings from Cidaris, and at the rear a rebellion, de Wett became entangled in piecemeal engagements, suffering defeat after defeat. In the process he delayed the offensive of the Centre Army Group – instead of, as had been planned, engaging the Nordlings’ wing, the Verden Group tied down Menno Coehoorn. The Nordlings immediately exploited the situation and went on the counter—attack, breaking through the encirclement near Mayena and Maribor, and thwarting the chances of those vital forts being swiftly captured a second time.

The ineptitude and stupidity of de Wett also had a psychological significance. The myth of Nilfgaard’s invincibility was broken. Scores of volunteers began to flock to the army of the Nordlings . . .

Restif de Montholon The Northern Wars. Myths, Lies and Half—truths.

CHAPTER SIX

Jarre – what else can be said? – was very disappointed. An upbringing in a temple and his own open nature made him believe in people, in their goodness, kindness and selflessness. Not much remained of that faith.

He had already slept two nights in the open, among the remains of hay ricks, and now it looked like he would be spending a third night in a similar fashion. In every village where he asked for a bed or a piece of bread he was answered with either a weighty silence, or insults and threats from behind securely locked gates. It didn’t help when he said who he was and why he was travelling.

He was very, very disappointed in people.

It was quickly growing dark. The boy marched jauntily and briskly along a path between some fields. He spotted a hay rick, resigned and downcast at the prospect of another night under the open sky. March was, admittedly, extremely warm, but it got cold at night. And very frightening.

Jarre looked up at the sky, where, as it had been every night for almost a week, the gold and red bee of a comet was visible, crossing the sky from the west to the east, dragging in its wake a flickering plait of fire. He wondered what this strange phenomenon, mentioned in many prophecies, might actually auger.

He started walking again. It was growing darker and darker. The track led downwards, into an avenue of dense undergrowth that assumed terrifying shapes in the semi-darkness. From below, where it was even darker, drifted the cold, foul smell of rotting weed and something else. Something very unpleasant.

Jarre stopped. He tried to persuade himself that what was crawling over his back and shoulders was not fear, but cold. Unsuccessfully.

A low footbridge connected the banks of a canal overgrown with osiers and misshapen willows, black and shining like freshly pared pitch. Long holes gaped in the footbridge in places where the timbers had rotted and caved in, and the handrail was broken, its spindles submerged in the water. The willows grew more thickly beyond the bridge. Although it was still a long way to the actual night, although the distant meadows beyond the canal were still glowing with a yarn of mist hanging on the top of the grass, darkness reigned among the willows. Jarre saw the vague ruins of a building in the gloom – probably a mill, sluice or eel smokery.

I must cross that footbridge, thought the lad. There’s nothing to be done! Although I feel in my bones that something evil is lurking in the darkness, I must get to the other side of this canal. I must cross this canal, like that mythical leader or hero I read about in yellowed manuscripts in the Temple of Melitele. I’ll traverse this canal and then . . . What was it? The cards will have been dealt? No, the dice will have been cast. Behind me lies my past, before me stretches my future . . .

He stepped onto the bridge and at once knew that his sense of foreboding hadn’t been mistaken. Before he even saw them. Or heard them.

‘Well?’ rasped one of the men who now blocked his way. ‘Didn’t I say? I said, just wait a tick and someone’ll appear.’

‘Exackly, Okultich,’ another of the characters armed with clubs lisped slightly. ‘Verily we’ll ‘ave to make you a fortune-teller or a wise-man. Well, gentle passer-by, walking all alone! Will you give us what you have of your own free will, or will it have to come to a struggle?’

‘I don’t have anything!’ yelled Jarre at the top of his voice, although he didn’t have much hope that anybody would hear and rush to help. ‘I’m a poor wanderer! I don’t have a groat to my name! What can I give you? This cane? These garments?’

‘Not only that,’ said the lisping one, and something in his voice made Jarre tremble. ‘For you ought to know, poor wanderer, that in truth we, being in urgent need, were looking out for a wench. Well, night’s just around the corner, no one else is coming now, so beggars can’t be choosers. Grab ‘im, boys!’

‘I have a knife,’ yelled Jarre. ‘I’m warning you!’

He had a knife indeed. He’d swiped it from the temple kitchen the day before his flight and hidden it in his bundle. But he didn’t reach for it. He was paralysed – and terrified – by the realisation that it was pointless and that nothing would help him.

‘I have a knife!’

‘Well, prithee,’ sneered the lisping one, approaching. ‘He has a knife. Who’d have thought it?’

Jarre couldn’t run away. Terror turned his legs into two posts stuck into the ground. Adrenaline seized him by the throat like a noose.

‘Hi there!’ a third character suddenly shouted, in a young and strangely familiar voice. ‘I think I know him! Yes, yes, I know him! Let him be, I say, he’s a pal! Jarre? Do you recognise me? I’m Melfi! Hey, Jarre? Do you recognise me?’

‘Yes . . . I do . . .’ Jarre fought against the hideous, overwhelming, previously unfamiliar sensation with all his strength. Only when he felt a pain in his hip, which had smashed against a timber of the bridge, did he understand what the sensation was.

The sensation of losing consciousness.

*

‘Oh, this is a surprise,’ said Melfi. ‘Why, a fluke among flukes! Why, coming across a fellow-countryman. A pal from Ellander. A mate! Eh, Jarre?’

Jarre swallowed a bite of the hard, rubbery piece of fatback that his strange company had given him and ate a bit of roasted turnip. He didn’t reply, but only nodded towards the whole group of six surrounding the campfire.

‘And which way are you going, Jarre?’

‘To Vizima.’

‘Ha! We’re heading to Vizima too! Why, a fluke among flukes! What, Milton? Remember Milton, Jarre?’

Jarre didn’t. He wasn’t certain if he had ever seen him. As a matter of fact, Melfi was exaggerating a little in calling him a pal. He was the cooper’s son from Ellander. When the two of them used to attend the temple school, Melfi would regularly and severely beat Jarre and call him a ‘bastard-without-a-mother-or-father-begotten-in-the-nettles’. This went on for about a year, after which the cooper took his son out of school, since it had been proved that his offspring was only fit for barrels. Thus Melfi, rather than toiling to learn the arcana of reading and writing, toiled to whittle staves in his father’s workshop. And after Jarre had completed his studies and on the strength of a recommendation from the temple became an assistant scribe in the magistrates’ court, the cooper’s son – following the example of his father – bowed to him, gave him presents and declared his friendship.

‘—we’re going to Vizima,’ Melfi continued his tale. ‘To join up. All of us here, to a man, are going to join the army. These here, look, Milton and Ograbek, peasant boys, have been selected for the acreage duty, why, you know. . .’

‘I do.’ Jarre cast his eyes over the peasant sons, fair-haired and as alike as brothers, chewing some unrecognisable food roasted in the cinders. ‘One for each two score and ten acres. The acreage levy. And you, Melfi?’

‘With me,’ sighed the cooper’s son, ‘it’s like this, see: the first time the guilds had to supply a recruit my father got me out of trouble. But when poverty came, we had to draw lots a second time, because the town so decided . . . Well, you know . . .’

‘I do,’ nodded Jarre again. ‘An additional lottery for the levy was decreed by a resolution of Ellander town council on the day of the sixteenth of January. It was necessary owing to the Nilfgaardian threat—’

‘Just listen to ’im talk, Pike,’ raspingly interjected the thickset and shaven-headed fellow, the one called Okultich, who had hailed him on the bridge not long before.

‘Fop! Know-it-all!’

‘Smart alec!’ drawled another huge farmhand with a dopey smile permanently plastered onto his round face. ‘Know-all!’

‘Shut it, Klaproth,’ slowly lisped the one called Pike, the oldest of the company, sturdy, with a drooping moustache and a shaved nape. ‘Since he’s a know-it-all, it’s worth listening when he talks. There may be a benefit from it. Facts. And facts never harmed anyone. Well, almost never. And almost no one.’

‘I’ll second that,’ announced Melfi. ‘He, I mean Jarre, is indeed clever, knows his letters . . . A scholar! I mean he works as a court scribe in Ellander, and at the Temple of Melitele the whole book collection is under his care—’

‘What then, I wonder,’ interrupted Pike, staring at Jarre through the smoke and sparks, ‘is a sodding court-temple librarian doing on the highway to Vizima?’

‘Just like you,’ said the boy, ‘I’m going to join the army.’

‘And what—’ Pike’s eyes shone, reflecting the glow like the eyes of a real fish in the light of a torch on the bow of a boat ‘—what is a court-temple scholar hoping to find in the army? For he can’t be going to join up. Eh? Why, any fool knows that temples are exempt from the levy, they don’t have to supply recruits. And any fool knows that every single court is capable of defending its scribe and wangling him out of joining the army. So what’s it all about, master clerk?’

‘I’m joining the army as a volunteer,’ declared Jarre. ‘I’m signing up myself, of my own free will, not from the levy. Partly for personal reasons, but mainly from patriotic duty.’

The company roared with loud, thunderous, general laughter.

‘Heed, boys,’ Pike finally said, ‘what contradictions sometimes lurk in a body. Two natures. Here we have a young shaver, it would seem, educated and worldly, and undoubtedly clever by nature on top of all that. He ought to know what’s happening in the war, know who’s fighting whom and who will soon utterly defeat whom. And he, as you’ve heard, without being forced, of his own free will, out of paterotic duty, wants to join the losing party.’

No one commented. Jarre included.

‘Such a paterotic duty,’ Pike finally said, ‘is usually only the mark of the feeble—minded. Why, perhaps it even befits temple—court alumni. But there was talk here of some sort of personal reasons. I’m awful curious as to what those personal reasons might be.’

‘They’re so personal—’ Jarre cut him off ‘—that I’m not going to talk about them. All the more so since you, good sir, are in no hurry to talk about your reasons.’

‘Now heed,’ said Pike a moment later. ‘Were some boor to talk to me like that, he’d get a punch in the mush right off. Well, if he’s a learned scribe . . . I’ll forgive him . . . just this once. And say: I’m also going to join up. And also as a volunteer.’

‘In order, like one of the feeble-minded, to join the losers?’ It surprised Jarre himself where so much insolence had suddenly come from. ‘Fleecing travellers on bridges en route?’

‘He,’ chortled Melfi, anticipating Pike, ‘he’s still mad at us for that ambush on the footbridge. Let it go, Jarre, it was only a prank! Just innocent tricks. Right, Pike?’

‘Right.’ Pike yawned and snapped his teeth so loud it echoed. ‘Just innocent tricks. Life is sad and glum, just like a calf being led to the slaughter. Then only tricks or pranks can cheer it up. Don’t you think so, scribe?’

‘I do. By and large.’

‘That’s good.’ Pike didn’t lower his shining eyes from him. ‘For otherwise you’d be a miserable companion for us and it would be better if you walked to Vizima by yourself. Right away, for instance.’

Jarre said nothing. Pike stretched.

‘I’ve said what I meant to say. Well, mates, we’ve fooled around, frolicked, had our fun, and now it’s time. If we’re to be in Vizima by suppertime, we ought to set off with the sun.’

*

The night was very cold, and Jarre couldn’t sleep despite his tiredness. He was curled up in a ball under his mantle, with his knees almost touching his chin. When he finally fell asleep, he slept badly, his dreams constantly waking him up. He couldn’t remember most of them. Apart from two. In the first dream, the witcher, Geralt of Rivia, was sitting beneath long icicles hanging from a rock, motionless, covered in ice and being quickly buried under drifting snow. In the other dream, Ciri was galloping on a black horse, hugging its mane, along an avenue of misshapen alders that were trying hard to seize her with their crooked boughs.

Oh, and just before dawn he dreamed of Triss Merigold. After her stay in the temple the year before the boy had dreamed about the sorceress several times. The dreams had made Jarre do things which he was very ashamed of afterwards.

This time, naturally, nothing shameful happened. It was too cold.

*

All seven of them set off in the morning, barely after the sun rose. Milton and Ograbek, the peasant sons from the acreage duty, fortified themselves by singing a soldiers’ song.

Here rides the warrior, armour glinting bright.

Flee young lass, he’ll steal a kiss this night.

And wherefore not; who will stay his hand?

For his keen blade defends the motherland.

Pike, Okultich, Klaproth and Melfi the cooper’s son – who had attached himself to them – were telling each other anecdotes and stories; extremely funny ones. In their opinion.

‘—and the Nilfgaardian asks: “What stinks around here?” And the elf says: “Shit”. Haaa, haa, haaa!’

‘Ha, ha, ha, ha! And do you know this one? A Nilfgaardian, an elf and a dwarf are walking along. They look: a mouse is scampering . . .’

The longer the day went on, the more other wanderers, peasants’ carts, bailiffs and small squads of marching soldiers they encountered on the highway. Some of the carts were crammed with goods. Pike’s gang followed them with their noses almost touching the ground, like pointers, gathering whatever fell – here a carrot, there a potato, a turnip, occasionally even an onion. Some of the loot they cleverly put away for a rainy day, and some they greedily devoured without even interrupting their joke-telling.

‘—and the Nilfgaardian goes: fluuub! And shits himself right up to the ears! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!’

‘Haa, haaa, haa! O Gods, I can’t bear it . . . Shat himself . . . Haaaa, haaa, haaa!’

Jarre was waiting for an opportunity and a pretext to wander off. He wasn’t keen on Pike, he wasn’t keen on Okultich. He wasn’t keen on the glances which Pike and Okultich were casting at the passing merchants’ wagons, peasants’ carts and the women and girls sitting on them. He wasn’t keen on Pike’s sneering tone, since he kept talking about the usefulness of signing up as a volunteer when defeat and extermination were certain and self-evident.

There was a smell of ploughed earth. And smoke. They saw the roofs of buildings in the valley, among a regular patchwork of fields, groves and fishponds gleaming like mirrors. Sometimes the distant barking of a dog, the lowing of an ox, or the crowing of a cock reached their ears.

‘You can see these villages are wealthy,’ Pike lisped, licking his lips. ‘Tmall but fanthy.’

‘Halflings live and farm here in the valley,’ Okultich hurried to explain. ‘Everything about them’s fancy and pretty. A thrifty little nation, those midgets.’

‘Damned inhumans,’ rasped Klaproth. ‘Bloody kobolds! They farm here, and poverty and misery befalls real people because of creatures like them. Even war doesn’t harm such as them.’

‘For now.’ Pike stretched his mouth in an ugly smile. ‘Remember this village, lads. The outermoft one, among those birches, right in the forest. Remember it well. If I ever dethire to visit here again, I wouldn’t want to go astray.’

Jarre turned his head away. He pretended he couldn’t hear. That all he could see was the highway in front of him.

They walked on. Milton and Ograbek, the peasant sons from the acreage duty, sang a new song. Less soldierly. Perhaps a little more pessimistic. Which could – particularly after Pike’s earlier allusions – be considered a bad omen.

Hark and think on what I say,

I shall speak of death today,

For no matter how old you be,

You’ll not escape its misery,

Be ever mindful of your due;

Death will surely throttle you!

*

‘He,’ judged Okultich morosely, ‘must have cash. If he doesn’t have cash, may me balls be cut off.’

The individual about whom Okultich had made such a ghastly bet was a wandering trader, hurrying beside a donkey-drawn cart.

‘Dosh or no dosh,’ lisped Pike, ‘the donkey must be worth something. Hasten your steps, boys.’

‘Melfi.’ Jarre seized the cooper’s son by his sleeve. ‘Open your eyes. Can’t you see what’s being planned?’

‘Oh, they’re only jokes, Jarre.’ Melfi wrenched himself free. ‘Just jokes . . .’

The trader’s cart – it was evident from close up – was at the same time a stall, and could be set up within a few moments. The whole donkey-drawn construction was covered in garishly and picturesquely sprawling writing, in which the goods on sale included balsams and remedies, protective talismans and amulets, elixirs, magical philtres and poultices, cleaning agents, and furthermore detectors of metals, ores and truffles and fail-safe baits for fish, ducks and wenches.

The trader, a thin old man weighed down by the burden of his years, looked around, saw them, cursed and drove his donkey on. But the donkey, like all donkeys, had no intention of going any faster.

‘Fine robes on that one,’ judged Okultich quietly. ‘And we’ll certainly find a little something on the cart . . .’

‘Very well, boys,’ said Pike. ‘Chop, chop! We’ll deal with this matter while there are few witnesses on the road.’

Jarre, astonished at his courage, pulled ahead of the company in a few swift paces and turned around, standing between them and the merchant.

‘No,’ he said, fighting to get a word out of his tight throat. ‘I won’t allow it . . .’

Pike slowly opened his coat and displayed a long knife shoved into his belt, clearly as sharp as a razor.

‘Out of the road, scribbler,’ he lisped malevolently. ‘If you respect your neck. I thought you’d fit into our company, but no, your temple, I see, has made you overly sanctimonious. You stink overly of pious incense. So out of the way, for otherwise—’

‘And what’s going on here? Eh?’

Two strange shapes emerged from behind the stout and spreading willows which flanked the highway and were the most common feature of the Ismena valley’s scenery.

The two men wore waxed and upwardly twisted moustaches, colourful puffed breeches, quilted short jackets decorated with ribbons and huge, soft velvet berets with bunches of feathers. Apart from the sabres and daggers hanging from their broad belts, the two men carried on their backs double-handed swords, probably two yards long, with hilts measuring two feet and large, curved cross guards.

These landsknechts were hopping up and down, and fastening their trousers. Neither of them made even a movement towards the hilts of their terrible swords, but in any case, Pike and Okultich immediately became more docile, and the huge Klaproth shrank like a deflated goatskin.

‘We’re . . . we’re doing nothing . . .’ lisped Pike. ‘Nothing we shouldn’t . . .’

‘Just pranks!’ squealed Melfi.

‘No one’s been harmed,’ unexpectedly piped up the stooping trader. ‘No one!’

‘We,’ Jarre quickly interjected, ‘are going to Vizima, to join up. Perhaps you’re going the same way, noble sirs?’

‘Indeed we are,’ the landsknecht snorted, realising at once what this was about. ‘We head for Vizima. Whoever wishes may go with us. It will be safer.’

‘Safer, I swear,’ added the other one, knowingly, eyeing Pike up and down. ‘It behoves me to add, indeed, that not long ago we saw a mounted patrol in the vicinity of the Vizimian bailiwick. They are most inclined to hang, and miserable will be the fate of any marauder whom they catch in the act.’

‘And it’s most good—’ Pike had regained his aplomb, and grinned a gap-toothed smile ‘—my lords, it’s good, gentlemen, that there is law and punishment for rogues, that is the correct order of things. Thus let us set off to Vizima, to the army, for our paterotic duty summons us.’

The landsknecht looked at him long and quite contemptuously, then shrugged, straightened his great sword on his back and set off down the road. His companion, Jarre, as well as the merchant with his donkey and cart set off after him, and at the rear, some distance away, shambled Pike’s rabble.

‘Thank you, sir knights,’ the merchant said some time later, driving his donkey with a withy. ‘And thank you, young master.’

‘It’s nothing.’ The landsknecht waved a hand. ‘We’re accustomed to it.’

‘Various characters are drawn to the army.’ His companion looked back over his shoulder. ‘The order comes to a village or small town to supply a recruit for every five hundred acres, and sometimes that method is used to rid themselves right away of the worst sort of scoundrel. And then the roads are full of nuisances like that lot there. Well, in the army the lance-corporal’s rod will teach them obedience. Those rascals will learn discipline when they’ve run the gauntlet once or twice, faced the rows of lashes—’

‘I,’ Jarre hurried with an explanation, ‘am signing on as a volunteer, not compulsorily.’

‘Commendable, commendable.’ The landsknecht glanced at him and twisted the waxed ends of his moustaches. ‘And I see you are moulded from somewhat different clay than those men. Why are you with them?’

‘Fate brought us together.’

‘I’ve seen such chance encounters and fraternising before.’ The soldier’s voice was grave. ‘It led the fraternisers to the same gibbet. Learn a lesson from that, lad.’

‘I shall.’

*

Before the cloud-darkened sun had stood at the zenith, they reached the main road. Here a forced break in their journey awaited them. As it did a large group of wanderers who also had to stop – for the main road was packed full of marching soldiers.

‘Southwards,’ one of the landsknechts commented knowingly on the direction of the march. ‘To the front. To Maribor and Mayena.’

‘Heed their standards,’ the other one indicated with his head.

‘Redanians,’ said Jarre. ‘Silver eagles on crimson.’

‘You’ve guessed right.’ The landsknecht slapped him on the back. ‘You’re a truly smart youngster. That’s the Redanian Army, which Queen Hedwig has sent to aid us. Now we are strong in unity. Temeria, Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen. Now we’re all allies, supporters of one cause.’

‘A bit late,’ said Pike with a pronounced sneer from behind their backs. The landsknecht looked back, but said nothing.

‘So let’s sit down,’ suggested Melfi, ‘and give our pins a rest. There’s no end in sight of that army. It will be ages before the road frees itself up.’

‘Let’s sit down,’ said the merchant, ‘yonder, on that hill. The view will be better from there.’

The Redanian cavalry rode by and, after them, raising dust, marched crossbowmen and pavisiers. After them a column of heavy cavalry trotted past.

‘And they,’ Melfi pointed to the armoured troops, ‘are marching under different colours. They have black standards, flecked with something white.’

‘Ah, the ignorant provinces.’ The landsknecht glanced at him contemptuously. ‘They don’t know their own king’s arms. They are silver lilies, blockhead . . .’

‘Field sable with lilies argent,’ said Jarre, who all of a sudden felt a desire to prove that of all people he wasn’t from the ignorant provinces.

‘In the kingdom of Temeria’s former coat of arms,’ he began, ‘there was a lion passant. But the Temerian royal dukes used a different one. To be precise, they added an extra field to the shield, containing three lilies. Since in heraldic symbolism the lily flower is a sign of the successor to the throne, the royal son, the heir to the throne and sceptre—’

‘Sodding know-it-all,’ barked Klaproth.

‘You can shut your gob, cloth-head,’ said the landsknecht menacingly. ‘And you, lad, go on. This is interesting.’

‘And when Prince Goidemar, the son of old King Gardik, went to fight against the insurgents of the she-devil Falka, the Temerian Army, under his standard, under the emblem of the lily, fought and won decisive victories. And when Goidemar inherited the throne from his father, he established three lilies argent on a field sable as the kingdom’s coat of arms as a memento of those victories and for the miraculous escape of his wife and children from the hands of the enemy. And later King Cedric changed the state coat of arms by a special decree so that it’s a black shield aspersed with silver lilies. And the Temerian coat of arms has been like that ever since. Which you may all easily confirm for yourself, since the Temerian lancers are riding along the main road right now.’

‘You have worked it out very elegantly, young master,’ said the merchant.

‘Not I,’ Jarre sighed, ‘but John of Attre, a heraldic scholar.’

‘And you are no worse schooled, I see.’

‘Perfect for a recruit,’ added Pike under his breath. ‘To be clubbed to death under the standard of those silver lilies, for the king and Temeria.’

They heard singing. Menacing, soldierly, booming like a sea wave, like the growl of an approaching storm. Following the Temerians passed other soldiers in close and even array. Grey, almost colourless cavalrymen, over which neither standards nor pennants fluttered. A pole with a horizontal bar decorated with horses’ tails and three human skulls nailed to it was being borne in front of the commanders riding at the head of the column.

‘The Free Company.’ The first landsknecht subtly indicated the grey riders. ‘Mercenaries. Soldiers of fortune.’

‘They’re clearly stout-hearted,’ gasped Melfi. ‘Every man! And they’re marching in step, as though on parade . . .’

‘The Free Company,’ the landsknecht repeated. ‘Take a good look, O peasants and striplings, at a genuine soldier. They’ve been in battle before. It was they, those mercenaries, the companies of Adam Pangratt, Molla, Frontin and Abatemarco, who tipped the scales at Mayena. Thanks to them the Nilfgaardian encirclement was broken. We owe it to them that that the fortress was liberated.’

‘Brave and doughty folk indeed, those mercenaries,’ added the other, ‘as unyielding in battle as a rock. Though the Free Company serves for coin, as you can easily mark from their song.’

The troop approached at a walk, their thunderous song sounding a strong and booming, but strangely gloomy, bitter, note.

No sceptre nor throne will win us over

We shall never be in league with kings

We are in the service of the ducat

That glitters in the sun!

Your oaths are nothing to us

We do not kiss your standards or your hands

We swear faith to the ducat

That glitters in the sun!

‘Eh, to serve with them,’ sighed Melfi again. ‘To fight together with such as them . . . A man would know glory and spoils . . .’

‘Do my eyes fail me or what?’ Okultich screwed up his face. ‘At the head of the second regiment . . . A woman? Do those soldiers of fortune fight under the command of a woman?’

‘She’s a woman,’ confirmed the landsknecht. ‘But not just any woman. That’s Julia Abatemarco, who they call Pretty Kitty. She’s some warrior! Under her command the mercenaries demolished the Black Cloaks and elven troops at Mayena, even though only twice five hundred of them assailed three thousand.’

‘I’ve heard,’ said Pike in a strange, repulsively obsequious, but at the same time malicious, tone, ‘that the victory didn’t count for much, that the ducats spent on the mercenaries went down the drain. Nilfgaard regrouped and gave our boys a thrashing, and a sound one. And encircled Mayena again. And perhaps they’ve already captured the stronghold? And perhaps they’re already heading here? Perhaps they’ll be here any day? Perhaps those corrupt mercenaries were bribed with Nilfgaardian gold long ago? And perhaps—’

‘And perhaps,’ interrupted the landsknecht, enraged, ‘you want a punch in the face, you churl? Beware, for running down our army is punished by the noose! So shut your trap, while I’m in a good mood!’

‘Oooh!’ The bruiser Klaproth, mouth wide open, defused the situation. ‘Oooh, look! Look at those funny short-arses!’

An infantry formation armed with halberds, guisarmes, battle-axes, flails and morning stars marched along the road, to the dull thud of drums, the fierce hooting of bagpipes and the shrill whistling of fifes. Dressed in fur cloaks, mail shirts and pointed pot helmets, the soldiers were indeed extremely short.

‘Dwarves from the mountains,’ explained the first landsknecht. ‘One of the Mahakam Volunteer Foot.’

‘I thought,’ said Okultich, ‘that the dwarves weren’t with us, but against us. That those foul short-arses had betrayed us and were in league with the Black Cloaks—’

‘You thought?’ The landsknecht glanced at him piteously. ‘Using what, I wonder? If you swallowed a cockroach with your soup, dolt, you’d have more intelligence in your guts than in your head. Those marching there are one of the dwarven foot regiments that Brouver Hoog, the headman of Mahakam, has sent us as succour. Most of them have also seen action, suffered great losses, so they’ve been withdrawn to Vizima to regroup.’

‘The dwarves are a valiant folk,’ confirmed Melfi. ‘When one of them thumped me in the ear in the tavern in Ellander at Samhain it rang until Yule.’

‘The dwarven regiment is the last in the column.’ The landsknecht shaded his eyes with a hand. ‘That’s the end of the march. The road will soon be empty. Let’s prepare to set off, for it’s almost noon.’

*

‘So many military folk are marching south,’ said the seller of amulets and remedies, ‘that there’s surely going to be a great war. Great misfortune will fall on the people! Great defeats on the armies! Thousands of folk will die from fire and sword. So consider, gentlemen, that this comet, which can be seen in the sky every night, trails a fiery red tail behind it. If a comet’s tail is blue or pale, it heralds cold ailments: chills, pleurisy, phlegm and catarrh, and such aquatic misfortunes as floods, downpours or long periods of rainy weather. While a red colour indicates that it’s a comet of fevers, blood and fire, and also of the iron which springs from the fire. Dreadful, dreadful defeats will befall the people! Great pogroms and massacres will happen. As it says in the prophecy: corpses will pile up to a height of a dozen ells, wolves shall howl on the desolate ground, and men will kiss other men’s footsteps . . . Oh woe to us!’

‘Why to us?’ the landsknecht interrupted coolly. ‘The comet is flying high. It can also be seen from Nilfgaard, not to mention the Ina valley, whence, they say, Menno Coehoorn is approaching. The Black Cloaks are also looking at the sky and also see the comet. Why, then, should we not assume that it foretells their defeat and not ours? That their corpses will be piled up?’

‘That’s right!’ snapped the other landsknecht. ‘Woe to them, to the Black Cloaks.’

‘You’ve worked it out elegantly, gentlemen.’

‘Certainly.’

*

They passed by the forest surrounding Vizima and entered meadows and pastures. Entire herds of horses were grazing there, of various kinds: cavalry, harness, and draught horses. There was next to no grass on the meadows, it being March, but there were wagons and barracks full of hay.

‘See that?’ Okultich licked his lips. ‘Eh, fine little horses! And no one’s guarding them! There for the taking—’

‘Shut your trap,’ hissed Pike and obsequiously directed his gap-toothed grin at the landsknechts. ‘He, gentlemen, has always dreamed of serving in the cavalry, which is why he looks at those steeds so greedily.’

‘In the cavalry!’ snorted the first landsknecht. ‘What fantasies has the churl! He’ll sooner be a stable boy, gathering muck from under the horses with a pitchfork and wheeling it out on a barrow.’

‘That’s right, sire!’

They went on, and soon reached a causeway running beside ponds and ditches. And suddenly they saw the red tiles of the towers of Vizima castle looming over the lake above the tops of alders.

‘Well, we’re almost there,’ said the merchant. ‘Can you smell it?’

‘Uurgh!’ Melfi grimaced. ‘What a stench! What’s that?’

‘Probably soldiers on the royal coin who died of hunger,’ muttered Pike behind their backs, making sure the landsknechts didn’t hear.

‘Almost makes your eyes water, doesn’t it?’ laughed one of them. ‘Aye, thousands of military folk have wintered here, and military folk have to eat, and when they eat they defecate. Nature has ordered things thus and there’s nothing you can do about it! And what’s been shat out is carted to these ditches and dumped, without even being buried. In the winter, while the frost kept the shit frozen, you could stand it, but from the spring . . . Ugh!’

‘And more and more fresh soldiers are arriving and adding to the old heap.’ The other landsknecht also spat. ‘And can you hear that great buzzing? It’s flies. There are swarms of them, an uncommon thing for early spring! Cover your gobs with whatever you can, for they’ll get into your eyes and mouths, the bastards. And briskly. The quicker we pass by, the better.’

*

They passed the ditches, but didn’t manage to lose the stench. On the contrary, Jarre would have sworn that the closer to the town they were, the worse the fug was. Except it was more varied, richer in scale and hue. The military camps and tents surrounding the castle stank. The huge field hospital stank. The crowded and busy suburbs stank, the embankment stank, the gate stank, the berm stank, the small squares and streets stank, the walls of the great castle towering over the town stank. Fortunately, the nostrils quickly became accustomed and it soon made no difference to them if it was dung, or rotten meat, or cat’s piss, or another field kitchen.

There were flies everywhere. They buzzed annoyingly, getting into the eyes, ears and nose. They couldn’t be driven away. It was easier to squash them on the face. Or chew them up.

When they had just exited the shadow of the gatehouse, their eyes were struck by a huge mural depicting a knight with his finger aimed at them. The writing beneath the mural asked in huge letters: WHAT ABOUT YOU? HAVE YOU SIGNED UP?

‘All right, all right,’ mumbled the landsknecht. ‘Unfortunately.’

There were plenty of similar murals. You could have said there was a mural on every wall. It was generally the knight with his finger, but there was also often a solemn Mother Country with grey hair blowing around, against a background of burning villages and babies on Nilfgaardian pikes. There were also images of elves with bloodied knives in their teeth.

Jarre suddenly looked around and found they were alone: he, the landsknechts and the merchant. There wasn’t any sign of Pike, Okultich, the peasants from the draft or Melfi.

‘Yes, yes,’ the first landsknecht confirmed his speculation, eyeing him closely. ‘Your comrades scrammed at the first opportunity, they scarpered around the first corner. And do you know what I’ll tell you, lad? It’s good that your paths have diverged. Don’t strive for them to converge again.’

‘Shame about Melfi,’ muttered Jarre. ‘He’s a good lad at heart.’

‘Everyone chooses his destiny. And you, come with us. We’ll show you where to sign up.’

They entered a square in the middle of which stood a pillory on a stone platform. Townspeople and soldiers greedy for amusement were gathered around the pillory. A handcuffed convict, who had just been hit in the face with a lump of mud, spat and wept. The crowd roared with laughter.

‘Hey!’ yelled the landsknecht. ‘Look who they’ve put in the stocks. Why, it’s Fuson! I wonder what for?’

‘For farming,’ a fat burgher in a wolf skin and felt cap hurried to explain.

‘For what?’

‘For farming,’ the fat man repeated with emphasis. ‘For what he sowed.’

‘Ha, now, if you’ll excuse me, you’ve dropped a clanger like a bull dumping on a threshing floor,’ laughed the landsknecht. ‘I know Fuson, he’s a shoemaker, the son of a shoemaker, and the grandson of a shoemaker. He’s never ploughed, nor sown, nor harvested in his life. You’re exaggerating, I say, with that sowing, you really are.’

‘That’s the bailiff’s own words!’ said the burgher crossly. ‘He’s to stand in the pillory until twilight for sowing! For the villain sowed after being goaded on by Nilfgaard and for Nilfgaardian silver pennies . . . He sowed some strange crops, in truth. Foreign, I’ll warrant . . . Let me think . . . Aha! Defeatism!’

‘Yes, yes!’ called the vender of amulets. ‘I’ve heard tell of it! Nilfgaardian spies and elves are spreading the plague, spoiling wells, springs and brooks with various poisons and using devil’s trumpet, hemlock, lepra and defeatism.’

‘Aye,’ the burgher in the wolf skin nodded. ‘They hung two elves yesterday. Most probably for poisoning.’

*

‘Round that corner—’ the landsknecht pointed ‘—is the tavern where the conscription committee sits. A big canvas sheet is stretched out there with the Temerian lilies on it, which you know, of course, lad. You’ll find it without any difficulty. Look after yourself. May we meet again in better times, God willing. Farewell to you, too, merchant, sir.’

The merchant cleared his throat loudly.

‘Noble gentlemen,’ he said, rooting around in his chests and boxes, ‘let me, as proof of my gratitude . . . for your help. . .’

‘Don’t trouble yourself, good fellow,’ said the landsknecht with a smile. ‘We helped and that’s that, don’t mention it . . .’

‘Perhaps a miraculous ointment against lumbago?’ The merchant dug something out from the bottom of a box. ‘Perhaps a universal and reliable medicine for bronchitis, gout, paralysis, dandruff and scrofula? Perhaps a resinous balsam for bee, viper and vampire bites? Perhaps a talisman to protect you from the effects of the stare of the evil eye?’

‘And do you have, perhaps,’ the landsknecht asked seriously, ‘something to protect one from the effects of bad vittles?’

‘I do!’ beamed the merchant. ‘This is a most effective remedy made from magical roots, flavoured with aromatic herbs. Three drops after a meal should suffice. Please, take it, noble gentlemen.’

‘Thanks. Farewell, sir. Farewell to you, too, lad. Good luck!’

‘Honest, politic and courteous,’ commented the merchant, when the soldiers had disappeared into the crowd. ‘You don’t encounter such as them every day. Well, but you turned out al right too, young master. What then can I give you? An amulet against lightning? A bezoar? A turtle’s shell effective against witches’ spells? Ha, I also have a corpse’s tooth for fumigation and a bit of dried devil’s dung, it’s good to wear it in your right shoe . . .’

Jarre tore his gaze away from some people doggedly cleaning a slogan from the wall of a building: DOWN WITH THE SODDING WAR.

‘Leave it, sir,’ he said. ‘Time I went . . .’

‘Ha,’ cried the merchant, taking a small, heart-shaped brass medallion from the box. ‘This ought to suit you, young man, it’s just right for young people. It’s a great rarity, the only one I have. It’s a magical amulet. It makes the wearer never forget his love, even though time and countless miles separate them. Look, it opens here, and inside is a leaf of thin papyrus. Suffice to write on the leaf the name of your beloved in magical red ink, which I have, and she will not forget, not change her heart, not betray you or cast you aside. Well?’

‘Hmfff . . .’ Jarre blushed slightly. ‘I don’t really know . . .’

‘What name—’ the merchant dipped a stick in the magical ink ‘—am I to write?’

‘Ciri. I mean, Cirilla.’

‘There. Take it.’

‘Jarre! What are you doing here, by a hundred devils?’

Jarre whirled around. I had hoped, he thought mechanically, that I was leaving my whole past behind me, that everything would now be new. But I almost unceasingly keep bumping into old acquaintances.

‘Mr Dennis Cranmer . . .’

A dwarf in a heavy overcoat, cuirass, iron vambraces and tall fox fur hat with a tail cast a crafty glance over the boy, the merchant and then again over the boy.

‘What are you,’ he asked again sharply, ruffling his eyebrows, beard and moustache, ‘doing here, Jarre?’

For a moment the boy considered lying, and to lend credence entangling the kind merchant into the false version. But he almost immediately rejected the idea. Dennis Cranmer, who had once served in the guard of the Duke of Ellander, enjoyed the reputation of a dwarf whom it was hard to deceive. And it wasn’t worth trying.

‘I want to join up.’

He knew what the next question would be.

‘Did Nenneke give you permission?’

He didn’t have to answer.

‘You bolted.’ Dennis Cranmer nodded his beard. ‘You simply fled from the temple. And Nenneke and the priestesses are tearing their hair out . . .’

‘I left a letter,’ muttered Jarre. ‘Mr Cranmer, I couldn’t . . . I had to . . . It wasn’t right to stay there idly, when the enemy are in the marches . . . At a dangerous moment for the fatherland . . . And what’s more she . . . Ciri . . . Mother Nenneke didn’t want to agree at all, although she’s sent three quarters of the girls from the temple to the army, she didn’t allow me . . . And I couldn’t . . .’

‘So you did a runner.’ The dwarf frowned sternly. ‘By a hundred bloody demons, I ought to tie you up with a stick under your knees and send you to Ellander by courier post! Order you locked up in the oubliette under the castle until the priestesses come to collect you! I ought to . . .’

He panted angrily.

‘When did you last eat, Jarre? When did you last have hot vittles in your gob?’

‘Really hot? Three . . . No, four days ago.’

‘Come with me.’

*

‘Eat slower, son,’ Zoltan Chivay, one of Dennis Cranmer’s comrades cautioned him. ‘It isn’t healthy to guzzle your food so quickly, without chewing properly. Where are you rushing to? Believe me, no one’s going to take it away from you.’

Jarre wasn’t so sure about that. A fist-fight duel was taking place right then in the main room of The Shaggy Bear inn. Two stocky dwarves, as wide as stoves, were punching each other so loudly it thudded, amidst the roars of their comrades from the Volunteer Regiment and the applause of the local prostitutes. The floor was shaking, furniture and pots were falling, and drops of blood from smashed noses were spraying around like rain. Jarre was just waiting for one of the fighters to sprawl across the officers’ table and bang into the wooden plate of pork knuckle, the great bowl of steamed peas and the earthenware mugs. He quickly swallowed a piece of fatty meat he had bitten off, assuming that what he swallowed was his.

‘I don’t really get it, Dennis.’ Another dwarf, called Sheldon Skaggs, didn’t even turn his head when one of the fighters almost caught him with a right hook. ‘Since this boy’s a priest, how can he join up? Priests aren’t allowed to shed blood.’

‘He’s a student at the temple, not a priest.’

‘I’ve never been bloody able to understand those tortuous human superstitions. Well, but it doesn’t do to mock other people’s beliefs. The conclusion, though, is that this young man here, although brought up in a temple, has nothing against spilling blood. Particularly Nilfgaardian blood. Eh, what, young man?’

‘Let him eat in peace, Skaggs.’

‘I’m happy to answer . . .’ Jarre swallowed a mouthful of pork knuckle and shoved a handful of peas into his mouth. ‘It’s like this: you can spill blood in a just war. In the defence of higher reasons. That’s why I’m signing up . . . The motherland is calling . . .’

‘You can see for yourselves—’ Sheldon Skaggs swept his gaze over his companions ‘—how much truth there is in the statement that humans are a race similar to and related to us, that we come from a common root, both us, and them. The best proof is, here, sitting before us, wolfing down peas. In other words: you can come across loads of similar stupid zealots among young dwarves.’

‘Especially after the Mayena battle,’ remarked Zoltan Chivay coolly. ‘Tons more volunteers always sign up after a victorious battle. The rush will stop when news spreads of Menno Coehoorn’s army marching up the Ina, leaving behind only earth and water.’

‘As long as a rush in the other direction doesn’t start,’ muttered Cranmer. ‘I somehow don’t trust volunteers. Interesting that every second deserter is a volunteer.’

‘How can you . . .’ Jarre almost choked. ‘How can you suggest something like that, sir? I’m joining up for ideological reasons . . . To fight a just and legitimate war . . . The motherland . . .’

One of the fighting dwarves fell from a blow that, it seemed to the boy, shook the very foundations of the building, the dust rising a yard in the air from gaps in the floorboards. This time, the fallen dwarf, rather than leaping up and whacking his adversary, lay, clumsily twitching his limbs, prompting associations of a huge beetle flipped on its back.

Dennis Cranmer stood up.

‘The matter is settled!’ he declared loudly, looking around the inn. ‘The position of commander of the troop made vacant after the heroic death of Elkana Foster, who fell on the battlefield at Mayena, is taken up by . . . What’s your name, mate? Because I’ve forgotten.’

‘Blasco Grant!’ The victor of the fist fight spat a tooth onto the floor.

‘Blasco Grant takes up the position. Are there any other contentious issues regarding promotions? There aren’t? Well and good. Innkeeper! Beer!’

‘Where were we. . . ?’

‘A just war.’ Zoltan Chivay began to count, bending his fingers back. ‘Volunteers. Deserters—’

‘Exactly,’ Dennis interrupted. ‘I knew I wanted to refer to something, and the matter concerned deserting and treacherous volunteers. Remember Vissegerd’s former Cintran corps? The whoresons, it turns out, didn’t even change their standard. I know that from the mercenaries of the Free Company, from the gang of Julia “Pretty Kitty”. Julia’s gang quarrelled with the Cintrans at Mayena. They marched in the vanguard of the Nilfgaardian troop, under the same standard with the lions—’

‘The Mother Country summoned them,’ Skaggs interjected morosely. ‘And Empress Ciri.’

‘Quiet,’ Dennis hissed.

‘That’s true,’ said a fourth dwarf, Yarpen Zigrin, who’d said nothing until then. ‘Quiet. Quieter than quietness itself. And not for fear of snoopers, but because you don’t talk about things you have no idea about.’

‘While you, Zigrin—’ Skaggs stuck out his chin ‘—do have an idea, eh?’

‘I do. And I’ll say one thing: no one, whether it’s Emhyr var Emreis or the rebellious sorcerers from Thanedd, or even the devil himself, could make that girl do anything. They couldn’t break her. I know that. Because I know her. That bloody marriage with Emhyr is a hoax. A hoax various asses have been taken in by . . . That girl, I tell you, has a different destiny. Quite a different one.’

‘You talk,’ muttered Skaggs, ‘as though you really knew her, Zigrin.’

‘Drop it,’ snapped Zoltan Chivay unexpectedly. ‘He’s right about that destiny. I believe it. I also have reason to.’

‘Eh.’ Sheldon Skaggs waved a hand. ‘Why waste breath. Cirilla, Emhyr, destiny . . . They’re distant matters. While a closer matter, gentlemen, is Menno Coehoorn and the Centre Army Group.’

‘Aye,’ sighed Zoltan Chivay. ‘Something tells me a huge battle won’t pass us by. Perhaps the biggest history has ever seen.’

‘A great deal,’ mumbled Dennis Cranmer. ‘Truly a great deal will be decided . . .’

‘And put an end to even more.’

‘Everything . . .’ Jarre belched, decorously covering his mouth with his hand. ‘Everything will end.’

The dwarves eyed him up for a moment, keeping silent.

‘I don’t quite understand you, young man,’ Zoltan Chivay finally said. ‘You wouldn’t like to explain what you have in mind, would you?’

‘In the ducal council . . .’ Jarre stammered. ‘In Ellander, I mean, it was said that victory in this great war is so important, because . . . because it’s the great war to end all wars.’

Sheldon Skaggs snorted and spat beer down his beard. Zoltan Chivay burst out laughing.

‘Don’t you believe so, gentlemen?’

Now it was Dennis Cranmer’s turn to snort. Yarpen Zigrin remained serious, looking intently and seemingly with concern at the boy.

‘Look, son,’ he said at last, very seriously. ‘Evangelina Parr is sitting at the bar. She is, one must admit, large. Why, even enormous. But in spite of her size, beyond all doubt, she isn’t a whore to end all whores.’

*

Turning into a narrow and deserted alley, Dennis Cranmer stopped.

‘I must praise you, Jarre,’ he said. ‘Do you know what for?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t pretend. You don’t have to in front of me. It’s praiseworthy that you didn’t blink when Cirilla was being talked about. It’s even more praiseworthy that you didn’t open your trap then . . . Hey, hey, don’t make faces. I knew a lot of what went on behind Nenneke’s temple walls, a lot, you can believe me. And if that’s too little for you, then know that I heard what name the merchant wrote on that medallion for you.

‘Keep it up.’ The dwarf tactfully pretended he hadn’t noticed the crimson blush that suffused the boy’s face. ‘Keep it up, Jarre. And not only in the case of Ciri . . . What are you staring at?’

On the wall of a granary visible at the end of the lane was a lopsided, whitewashed slogan reading MAKE LOVE NOT WAR. Just under that somebody had scribbled in much smaller letters AND TAKE A SHIT EVERY MORNING.

‘Look somewhere else, idiot,’ Dennis Cranmer barked. ‘Just for looking at graffiti like that you can get into trouble, and if you say something at the wrong time, they’ll flog you at the post, they’ll flay the skin off your back. The judgments are swift here! Extremely swift!’

‘I saw the shoemaker in the pillory,’ muttered Jarre. ‘Reputedly for sowing defeatism.’

‘His defeatism,’ the dwarf stated seriously, pulling the boy by his sleeve, ‘probably lay in the fact that when he took his son to his troop he wept, instead of cheering patriotically. They punish differently for more serious sowing. Come, I’ll show you.’

They entered a small square. Jarre stepped back, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve. About a dozen corpses were hanging from a large, stone gallows. Some of them – their appearance and smell betrayed it – had been hanging there a long time. ‘That one,’ pointed Dennis, simultaneously driving flies away, ‘wrote stupid graffiti on walls and fences. That one claimed that war is a matter for lords and that the Nilfgaardian drafted peasants aren’t his enemies. And that one told the following anecdote when he was drunk: “What’s a spear? It’s a nobleman’s weapon, a stick with a poor man on each end.” And there, at the end, do you see that woman? She was the madam of the military brothel on wheels, which she decorated with the words “Soldier, get your leg over today! You might not be able to tomorrow”.’

‘And just for that . . .’

‘Furthermore, one of the girls had the clap, as it turned out. Which contravenes the law concerning sabotage and the undermining of military readiness.’

‘I understand, Mr Cranmer.’ Jarre stood up straight in a position he considered soldierly.

‘But don’t worry about me. I’m no defeatist . . .’

‘You haven’t understood shit and don’t interrupt me, because I haven’t finished. That last hanged man, the one stinking to high heaven, was only guilty of reacting to the chatter of a provocateur-snooper with the shout “You were right, sir, it’s like that and not otherwise, as two plus two makes four!” Now tell me if you understand.’

‘I do.’ Jarre looked around furtively. ‘I shall be careful. But . . . Mr Cranmer . . . What’s it really like . . . ?’

The dwarf also looked around.

‘It’s like this,’ he said softly. ‘Marshal Menno Coehoorn’s Centre Army Group is marching north with a force of around a hundred thousand men. Indeed, were it not for the insurrection in Verden, they’d already be here. Indeed, it would be better if negotiations were to take place. Indeed, Temeria and Redania don’t have the forces to stop Coehoorn. Indeed, not before the strategic border of the Pontar.’

‘The River Pontar,’ whispered Jarre, ‘is north of here.’

‘That’s exactly what I wanted to say. But remember: keep your trap shut about that.’

‘I’ll beware. When I’m in my unit will I also have to? May I also encounter a snooper?’

‘In a frontline unit? Near the front? Not really. Snoopers are so ardent behind the front, because they’re afraid of ending up on it. Furthermore, if they hung every soldier what grumbles, complains and swears there’d be no one left to fight. But, like you did with the matter of Ciri, Jarre, always keep your trap shut. Mark my words, no dung fly ever flew into a trap that was shut. Now go, I’ll take you to the committee.’

‘Will you put in a good word for me?’ Jarre looked at the dwarf hopefully. ‘Eh? Mr Cranmer?’

‘Dear me, you’re an ass, Mr Scribe. This is the army! If I put in a good word for you and tried pulling strings it would be as though I’d embroidered “lemon” on your back in gold thread! You’d have a hard time in your troop, laddie.’

‘What about if I joined . . .’ blinked Jarre, ‘your unit . . .’

‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Because there’s only room for dwarves in it, right?’ the boy said bitterly. ‘And not for me?’

‘Right.’

Not for you, thought Dennis Cranmer. Not for you, Jarre. Because I still have unpaid debts with Nenneke. Which is why I’d prefer you to return from the war in one piece. And the Mahakam Volunteer Regiment, consisting of dwarves, specimens of a foreign and inferior race, will always be sent to do the lousiest tasks, to the worst sectors. The ones you don’t come back from. The ones you don’t send humans to.

‘So how can I make sure,’ Jarre continued, downcast, ‘that I’ll end up in a good troop?’

‘And which one, according to you, is so first-rate it’s worth trying to get into?’

Jarre turned around on hearing singing, swelling like a breaking wave, growing like the thunder of an approaching storm. Loud, powerful, swaggering singing, as hard as steel. He’d heard singing like that before.

The mercenary troop, formed up into threes, walked their horses along the narrow street leading from the castle. At their head, on a grey stallion, beneath a pole decorated with human skulls, rode the commander, a grey-haired man with an aquiline nose and hair plaited into a queue falling down onto his armour.

‘Adam “Adieu” Pangratt,’ mumbled Dennis Cranmer.

The singing of the mercenaries thundered, roared and rumbled. Counterpointed by the ringing of horseshoes on cobbles, it filled the narrow street way up to the tops of the houses, and into the blue sky above the town.

No lovers or wives spill tears

When the time comes to bite the blood—soaked dust

For we briskly go to war

For the ducat, as red as the sun!

‘You ask what troop . . .’ said Jarre, unable to tear his eyes from the cavalrymen. ‘Why, one like that! In one such as that I’d like to—’

‘Each has his song,’ the dwarf interrupted quietly. ‘And each bites the blood-soaked earth his own way. Just as it befalls him. And they either cry for him or not. In a war, scribbler, you only sing and march as one, you stand in the ranks as one. And later in battle everyone gets what is written for him. Whether in “Adieu” Pangratt’s Free Company, or in the infantry, or in the convoys . . . Whether in a shining suit of armour with a glorious crest, or in bast shoes and a flea-ridden sheepskin coat . . . Whether on a fleet steed, or behind a shield . . . Something different comes to each one. As it befalls him! Well, and there’s the commission, do you see the sign above the entrance? That’s your way, since you’ve thought to become a soldier. Go, Jarre. Farewell. We’ll meet again when it’s all over.’

The dwarf’s gaze followed the boy until he disappeared into the door of the tavern occupied by the recruiting commission.

‘Or we won’t meet again,’ he added softly. ‘No one knows what’s written for anybody. Or what will befall them.’

*

‘Can you ride? Can you shoot a longbow or crossbow?’

‘No, sir. But I can write and calligraph, ancient runes, too . . . I know the Elder Speech . . .’

‘Can you wield a sword? Are you trained in lanceplay?’

‘. . . I’ve read The History of Wars. The work by Marshal Pelligram . . . And Roderick de Novembre . . .’

‘Or perhaps you know how to cook?’

‘No, I don’t . . . But I reckon up well . . .’

The recruiting officer grimaced and waved a hand.

‘A well-read smart-alec! You’re not the first today. Write him out a chitty for the pee-eff-eye. You’ll be serving in the pee-eff-eye, lad. Run with this chitty to the southern end of the town, then beyond the Maribor Gate, down by the lake.’

‘But . . .’

‘You’ll find it for sure. Next!’

*

‘Hey, Jarre! Hey! Wait!’

‘Melfi?’

‘Who else?’ The cooper’s son staggered, holding on to the wall. ‘It’s me, right here, tee-hee!’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Wrong with me? He, he! Nothing! We’ve had a bit to drink! We drank to Nilfgaard’s confusion! Ugh, Jarre, I’m glad to see you, for I thought I’d lost you somewhere . . . My comrade. . .’

Jarre stepped back as though someone had hit him. For the cooper’s son’s breath didn’t only smell of second-rate beer and third-rate vodka, but also of onions, garlic and God knows what else. Very intensively.

‘And where,’ Jarre asked sneeringly, ‘is your eminent company?’

‘You asking about Pike?’ Melfi grimaced. ‘Then I’ll tell you: to hell with him! Do you know, Jarre, I think he was a bad man.’

‘Bravo. You saw through him quickly.’

‘Didn’t I just!’ Melfi strutted, not noticing the mockery. ‘He hid it, but whoever cheats me can eat the devil! I tell you I know what he was planning! What drew him here to Vizima! You probably think, Jarre, that he and his miscreants came to sign up like us? Ha, well you’re seriously mistaken! Do you know what he had planned? You wouldn’t believe it!’

‘I would.’

‘He needed horses and uniforms,’ Melfi finished triumphantly. ‘He meant to steal them from round here. For he meant to go to war in disguised as a soldier!’

‘Let him end his days on the gallows.’

‘The quicker the better!’ The cooper’s son staggered slightly, stopped by the wall and undid his breeches. ‘I’m just sorry that Ograbek and Milton, those stupid village idiots, were taken in. They followed Pike, so they’re liable to meet the hangman too. Well, bollocks to them, effing bumpkins! And how goes it with you, Jarre?’

‘Regarding?’

‘Did the recruiting officers post you anywhere?’ Melfi sent a stream of piss down the whitewashed wall. ‘I asked because I’m already recruited. I’m to go through the Maribor Gate, to the southern end of the castle. And where do you have to go?’

‘To the south side too.’

‘Ha!’ The cooper’s son jumped up and down a few times, shook, and fastened his trousers. ‘So we’re going to fight together?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Jarre looked at him condescendingly. ‘I was assigned in accordance with my qualifications. To the pee-eff-eye.’

‘Well, naturally.’ Melfi hiccupped and breathed his dreadful mixture over him. ‘You’re book-learned! They probably assign smart alecs like you to important matters, not any old ones. Well, what to do. But for now, we’ll be travelling a little longer together. For our route’s to the southern end of the castle.’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Let’s go then.’

‘Let’s go.’

*

‘I don’t think it’s here,’ judged Jarre, looking at a parade square surrounded by tents, where a troop of scruffs with long sticks on their shoulders were kicking up dust. Every scruff, as the boy observed, had a bunch of hay attached to his right leg and a bunch of straw attached to his left.

‘I think we’ve come to the wrong place, Melfi.’

‘Straw! Hay!’ the roar of the lance corporal directing the scruffs could be heard from the parade square. ‘Straw! Hay! Even it up, for fuck’s sake!’

‘A standard’s fluttering over the tents,’ said Melfi. ‘See for yourself, Jarre. Those same lilies, what you were talking about on the road. Is there a standard? There is. Is there an army? There is. That means it’s here. We’ve come to the right place.’

‘You, maybe. Not me, for sure.’

‘Ah, some officer or other is standing there by the fence. Let’s ask him.’

It moved fast after that.

‘New recruits?’ yelled the sergeant. ‘From the conscription office? Papers! Why the fuck are you standing one behind the other? March on the spot! Don’t fucking stand there! Left turn! About-turn, right-fucking-turn! Quick march! About-fucking-turn! Listen and remember. First-of-fucking-all, get to the quartermaster! Get your kit! Mail shirt, boots, pike, helmet and sword, for fuck’s sake! Then to the drill ground! Be ready for the fucking muster, at dusk! Quiiiick maaarch!’

‘Just a minute.’ Jarre looked around hesitantly. ‘Because I think I have a different posting—’

‘Whaaaaaaaat?’

‘I beg your pardon, officer, sir.’ Jarre blushed. ‘I only want to prevent a possible error . . . For the commissioner clearly . . . He distinctly spoke of a posting to the pee-eff-eye, so I—’

‘You’re at home, my lad,’ snorted the sergeant, somewhat disarmed by the ‘officer’. ‘This is your posting. Welcome to the Poor Fucking Infantry.’

*

‘And why,’ repeated Rocco Hildebrandt, ‘and for what reason, are we to pay you gentlemen tax? We’ve already paid everything we were supposed to.’

‘Blow this, look at ’im, the smart-arsed halfling.’ Pike, sprawled on the saddle of a stolen horse, grinned at his comrades. ‘He’s already paid! And he thinks that’s all. Really, ’e’s the spitting image of that turkey what were thinking about Sunday. But they chopped ’is ’ead off on Saturday!’

Okultich, Klaproth, Milton and Ograbek cackled in unison. The joke was excellent, after all. And the amusement promised to be even more excellent.

Rocco noticed the revolting, clammy gazes of the marauders, and looked back. On the threshold of his cottage stood Incarvilia Hildebrandt, his wife, and Aloë and Yasmin, his two daughters.

Pike and his company looked at the hobbit girls, smiling lecherously. Yes, assuredly, the amusement promised to be first-class.

Impatientia Vanderbeck, Hildebrandt’s niece, normally called by the pet name ‘Impi’, approached the hedge on the other side of the highway. She was a very pretty girl. The bandits’ smiles became even more lecherous and revolting.

‘Well, shorty,’ Pike hurried him, ‘hand over the penny to the royal army, give us your vittles, give us your horses, and lead the cows from the cowshed. We aren’t going to stand here till sundown. We must get round a few more villages today.’

‘Why must we pay and hand over our food?’ Rocco Hildebrandt’s voice trembled slightly, but determination and doggedness still resounded in it. ‘You say it’s for the army, that it’s for our defence. And who, I ask, will defend us against hunger? We’ve already paid the winter levy, and the geld, and the poll tax, and the land tax, and the animal tax, and the devil only knows what else! If that wasn’t enough, four halflings from this hamlet, my son included in that number, are coach drivers in the army convoys! And no one else but my brother-in-law, Milo Vanderbeck, known as Rusty, is a field surgeon, an important personage in the army. That means we’ve paid our acreage with interest. . . For what reason are we to pay more? Wherefore and what for? And why?’

Pike gave a long look at Incarvilia Hildebrandt, née Biberveldt, the halfling’s wife. At their plump daughters, Aloë and Yasmin. At the gorgeous Impi Vanderbeck, dressed in a green frock. At Sam Hofmeier and his grandfather, old grandpa Holofernes. At Granny Petunia, doggedly picking at a flowerbed with a hoe. At the other halflings from the hamlet, mainly womenfolk and youngsters, apprehensively peeping out from their households and from behind fences.

‘You ask why?’ he hissed, leaning over in the saddle and looking into the halfling’s terrified eyes. ‘I’ll tell you why. Because you’re a mangy halfling, a foreigner, a stranger, and whoever robs you, you repulsive brute, delights the gods. Whoever vexes you, non-human, is carrying out a good and paterotic deed. And also because I feel sick with the desire to send your non-human nest up in smoke. Because I feel a yen coming on to fuck your midget women. And because we’re five burly fellows, and you’re a handful of short-arsed wretches. Now do you know why?’

‘Now I know,’ said Rocco Hildebrandt slowly. ‘Off with you, Big Folk. Begone, you good-for-nothings. We shan’t give you anything.’

Pike straightened up, and reached for the short sword hanging from his saddle.

‘Have at them!’ he yelled. ‘Kill them!’

With a movement so fast it was almost imperceptible, Rocco Hildebrandt stooped down towards his barrow, took out a crossbow concealed under a rush mat, brought it to his cheek and sent a bolt straight into Pike’s mouth, which was wide open in a yell. Incarvilia Hildebrandt, née Biberveldt, swung her arm powerfully and a sickle spun through the air, slamming into Milton’s throat. The peasant’s son puked blood and somersaulted backwards over his horse’s rump, swinging his legs comically. Ograbek, moaning, tumbled beneath the horse’s hooves, with grandpa Holofernes’ secateurs buried in his belly up to the handles’ wooden facings. The strongman Klaproth aimed a club at the old man, but flew from the saddle, squealing inhumanly, caught right in the eye with the spike of a dibber flung by Impi Vanderbeck. Okultich reined his horse around and hoped to flee, but granny Petunia sprang at him and jabbed the teeth of her rake into his thigh. Okultich cried out and fell, his foot caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse dragged him across the sharp poles of the wattle fence. The brigand yelled and wailed as he was dragged and Granny Petunia – with her rake – and Impi – with her curved pruning knife – followed him like two she-wolves. Grandpa Holofernes blew his nose loudly.

The entire incident – from Pike’s shout to grandpa Holofernes blowing his nose – took more or less the same time it would to rapidly utter the sentence ‘Halflings are incredibly fast and can throw all sorts of missiles unerringly’.

Rocco sat down on the cottage steps. His wife, Incarvilia Hildebrandt, née Biberveldt, planted herself beside him. Their daughters, Aloë and Yasmin, went to help Sam Hofmeier finish off the wounded and strip the dead.

Impi returned in her green frock with the sleeves spattered up to the elbows with blood. Granny Petunia also returned, walking slowly, panting, grunting, leaning on her blood-spattered rake and holding her lower back. Oh, she’s getting old, our granny, thought Hildebrandt.

‘Where should we bury the brigands, Mr Rocco?’ asked Sam Hofmeier.

Rocco Hildebrandt put his arm around his wife and looked up at the sky.

‘In the birch copse,’ he said. ‘Next to the other ones.’

The sensational adventure of Mr Malcolm Guthrie of Braemore took the pages of many newspapers by storm. Even The Daily Mail of London devoted several lines to it in its column ‘Bizarre’. However, because very few of our readers read the press south of the Tweed, and if they do, then only newspapers more serious than The Daily Mail, let us remind you what happened. On the day of the 10th March last year Mr Malcolm Guthrie went fishing to Loch Glascarnoch. While there Mr Guthrie happened upon a young woman with an ugly scar on her face (sic!), riding a black mare (sic) in the company of a white unicorn (sic), who were emerging from the fog and darknes (sic). The girl spoke to the dumbstruck Mr Guthrie in a language which Mr Guthrie was so kind as to describe as, we quote: ‘probably French, or some other dialect from the continent’. Because Mr Guthrie does not speak French or any other dialect from the continent, a conversation was not possible. The girl and the accompanying menagerie vanished, to quote Mr Guthrie again: ‘like a golden dream’.

Our comment: Mr Guthrie’s dream was undoubtedly as golden as the colour of the single malt whisky Mr Guthrie customarily drinks, as we learned, drinking often and in such quantities that would explain the seeing of white unicorns, white mice and monsters from lochs. And the question we would like to pose runs thusly: What did Mr Guthrie think he was doing with a fishing rod by Loch Glascarnoch four days before the [angling] season began?

The Inverness Weekly, 18 March 1906 [edition]

CHAPTER SEVEN

Along with the intensifying wind the sky darkened from the west, and the clouds, approaching in waves, extinguished the constellations one after the other. The Dragon went out, the Winter Maiden went out and the Seven Goats went out. The Eye, which shines brightest and longest, went out.

The edge of the horizon lit up with a short-lived flashes of lightning. Thunder rolled with a dull rumble. The wind abruptly intensified, blowing dust and dry leaves into their eyes.

The unicorn neighed and sent a mental signal. Ciri understood immediately what he wanted to say.

There’s no time to lose. Our only hope is in a quick escape. To the right place, and the right time. We must hurry, Star—Eye.

I am the Master of Worlds, she recalled. I am of the Elder Blood, I have power over time and place.

I am of Lara Dorren’s blood.

Ihuarraquax neighed, urged them on. Kelpie echoed him with a long-drawn-out snort. Ciri put on her gloves.

‘I’m ready,’ she said.

A buzzing in her ears. A flash and brightness. And then darkness.

*

The water in the lake and the early-evening silence bore the curses of the Fisher King, who sat on his boat jerking and tugging the line, trying to free a lure caught on the lake bottom. A dropped oar thudded.

Nimue cleared her throat impatiently. Condwiramurs turned away from the window, and then bent over the etchings. One of the boards in particular caught her eye. A girl with windswept hair, riding a black mare rearing up. Beside her a white unicorn, also rampant, its mane blown around like the girl’s.

‘I think that’s the only fragment of the legend that historians have never quibbled about,’ commented the novice, ‘unanimously regarding it as a fabrication and a fairy-tale embellishment, or a delirious metaphor. And painters and illustrators, spiting the scholars, took a liking to the episode. Look, prithee: each picture is Ciri and the unicorn. What do we have here? Ciri and the unicorn on a cliff above a sea beach. And here, if you please: Ciri and the unicorn in a landscape like something from a drug-induced trance, at night, beneath two moons.’

Nimue said nothing.

‘In a word—’ Condwiramurs tossed the boards onto the table ‘—everywhere it’s Ciri and the unicorn. Ciri and the unicorn in the labyrinth of the worlds, Ciri and the unicorn in the abyss of times—’

‘Ciri and the unicorn,’ interrupted Nimue, looking at the window, at the lake, at the boat and the Fisher King thrashing around in it. ‘Ciri and the unicorn emerge from nothingness like apparitions, suspended over some lake or other . . . And perhaps it’s constantly the same lake, one that spans times and places like a bridge, at once different, but nonetheless the same?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Apparitions.’ Nimue wasn’t looking at her. ‘Visitors from other dimensions, other planes, other places, other times. Apparitions that change someone’s life. That also change their own life, their own fate . . . Unbeknownst to them. For them it’s simply . . . another place. Not that place, not that time . . . Once again, one more time in a row, not that time—’

‘Nimue,’ Condwiramurs interrupted with a forced smile. ‘It’s me who’s the dream—reader, let me remind you. I’m the expert on dream visions and oneiroscopy. And all of a sudden you begin to prophesy. As though you saw what you’re talking about . . . in a dream.’

The Fisher King, judging by the sudden intensity of his voice and his cursing, had failed to unhitch the lure and the line had snapped. Nimue said nothing, and looked at the engravings. At Ciri and the unicorn.

‘I really have seen in a dream what I’ve been talking about,’ she finally said, very calmly. ‘I saw it many times in my dreams. And once while awake.’

*

As it is known, the journey from Człuchów to Malbork may in certain conditions take even five days. And since the letters from the Człuchów Commander to Winrych von Kniprode, Grand Master of the Order, had without fail to reach the addressee no later than on the day of Pentecost, the knight Heinrich von Schwelborn didn’t delay and set off the day after Sunday Exaudi Domine, in order to travel peacefully and with no risk of being late. Langsam, abersicher. The knight’s attitude greatly pleased his escort, which consisted of six mounted crossbowmen, commanded by Hasso Planck, a baker’s son from Cologne. The crossbowmen and Planck were more accustomed to noble gentlemen who swore, yelled, urged and ordered them to gallop at breakneck speed, and afterwards, when they didn’t make it in time anyway, put all the blame on the poor infantry, by lying in a way unbefitting a knight, not to mention one from a religious military order.

It was warm, though overcast. It drizzled from time to time, and the ravines were enveloped in fog. The hills, overgrown by lush greenery, reminded Sir Heinrich of his native Thuringia, his mother, and the fact that he hadn’t had a woman for over a month. The crossbowmen riding at the rear were languidly singing a ballad by Walther von der Vogelweide. Hasso Planck was dozing in the saddle.

Wer guter Fraue Liebe hat

Der schämt sich aller Missetat . . .

The journey was proceeding peacefully and who knows, perhaps it would have been peaceful all the way, had Sir Heinrich not noticed the glistening surface of a lake down below around noon. And because the following day was Friday and it behove them to get in holy-day food in advance, the knight ordered his men to ride down to the water and look around for a fisherman’s homestead.

The lake was large, and there was even an island on it. No one knew its name, but it was probably called Holy Lake. In this pagan land – as if in mockery – every second lake was called ‘holy’.

Their horseshoes crunched on the shells lying on the shore. Fog hung over the lake, but it was obvious it was uninhabited. There was no sign of a boat, nor a net, nor any living soul. We’ll have to search elsewhere, thought Heinrich von Schwelborn. And if not, too bad. We’ll eat what we have in our saddlebags, even if that means smoked bacon, and in Malbork we’ll make our confession, the chaplain will demand a penance and the sin will be absolved.

He was about to issue an order when something buzzed in his head under his helmet, and Hasso Planck yelled horrifyingly. Von Schwelborn looked and was struck dumb. And crossed himself.

He saw two horses: one white and the other black. A moment later, though, he noticed in horror that the white horse had a spirally twisted horn on its domed forehead. He also saw that a girl was sitting on the black, her ashen hair combed so as to obscure her cheek. The group apparition seemed not to be touching either the ground or the water – it looked as though it were suspended above the fog trailing over the surface of the lake.

The black horse neighed.

‘Whoops . . .’ said the girl with the grey hair quite distinctly, ‘Ire lokke, ire tedd! Squaess’me.’

‘Saint Ursula, O my patron . . .’ mumbled Hasso, white as a sheet. The crossbowmen froze open-mouthed, and made the sign of the cross.

Von Schwelborn also crossed himself, after which with a trembling hand he drew a sword from a scabbard strapped under his saddle flap.

‘Heilige Maria, Mutter Gottes!’ he roared. ‘Steh mir bei!’

That day Sir Heinrich didn’t shame his valiant ancestors, the von Schwelborns, including Dietrich von Schwelborn, who had fought bravely at Damietta and was one of the few not to run away when the Saracens conjured up and set a demon on the crusaders. After spurring his horse and having recalled his fearless forebear, Heinrich von Schwelborn charged the apparition among the freshwater mussels splashing up from under his horse’s hooves.

‘For the Order and Saint George!’

The white unicorn reared up like a heraldic emblem, the black mare danced, and the girl was alarmed, it was clear at first glance. Heinrich von Schwelborn rode on. Who knows how it all would have ended if the fog hadn’t suddenly been blown towards him and the image of the strange group dissolved, disintegrating into a myriad of colours like a stained-glass window smashed by a stone. And everything vanished. Everything. The unicorn, the black horse and the strange girl . . .

Heinrich von Schwelborn’s steed rode into the lake with a splash, stopped, tossed its head, neighed, and ground its teeth on the bit.

Hasso Planck, struggling to control his unruly horse, rode over to the knight. Von Schwelborn was huffing and puffing, almost wheezing, goggled-eyed like a fast-day fish.

‘On the bones of Saint Ursula, Saint Cordula and all the eleven thousand virgin martyrs of Cologne . . .’ Hasso Planck stammered out. ‘What was it, noble Herr Ritter? A miracle? A revelation?’

‘Teufelswerk!’ von Schwelborn grunted, only now blanching horrifyingly and chattering his teeth. ‘Schwarze Magie! Zauberey! A damned, pagan, devilish matter . . .’

‘We ought to get out of here, sire. As quickly as possible . . . It’s not far from Pelplin, anything to get within the sound of church bells . . .’

Sir Heinrich looked back for the last time on a rise just outside the forest. The wind had blown away the fog and the shining surface of the lake had grown dull and rippled in the places not obscured by the wall of trees.

A great osprey circled above the water.

‘Godless, pagan land,’ muttered Heinrich von Schwelborn. ‘Much, much work, much hardship and labour await us before the Order of the Teutonic Knights will finally drive the Devil from this nest of Slavs.’

*

‘Little Horse,’ said Ciri, reproachfully and sneeringly at once. ‘I don’t want to be intrusive, but I’m in a bit of a hurry to get back to my world. My friends and family need me, you know that, don’t you? And first we end up by some lake with a ridiculous boor in chequered clothes, then run into a pack of filthy, yelling shaggy heads with clubs, and finally on a madman with a black cross on his cloak. They’re the wrong times, the wrong places! Please, do try a bit harder. I beg you.’

Ihuarraquax neighed, nodded his horned head and communicated something to her, a clever thought. Ciri didn’t quite understand. She didn’t have time to ponder, since the inside of her skull was filled with cool brightness, her ears buzzed and her nape tingled.

And black and very soft nothingness engulfed her again.

*

Nimue, laughing joyously, dragged the man by the hand. The two of them ran down to the lake, winding their way among the young birches and alders, among stumps and blown down trees. After running onto the sandy beach, Nimue threw off her sandals, lifted up her dress and splashed around in bare feet in the water by the shore. The man also took off his boots, but was in no hurry to enter the water. He removed his cloak and spread it out on the sand.

Nimue ran over, threw her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoes to kiss it. The man had to lean over a long way in any case. Not without reason was Nimue called Squirt – but now that she was eighteen and was a novice of the magical arts, the privilege of using that epithet was exclusively reserved for her closest friends. And some men.

The man, his mouth clamped on Nimue’s, put his hand down the front of her dress.

It moved fast after that. The two of them ended up on the cloak spread out on the sand, Nimue’s dress up above her waist, her thighs powerfully gripping the man’s hips, and her hands digging into his back. When he took her – too impatiently as usual – she clenched her teeth, but quickly caught up with him in excitement, drew level, and kept up with him. She was skilled.

The man was uttering amusing sounds. Nimue observed fantastic shapes of the cumuli slowly gliding across the sky over his shoulder.

Something rang, as a bell submerged at the bottom of the ocean rings. There was a sudden buzzing in Nimue’s ears. Magic, she thought, turning her head, freeing herself from under the cheek and shoulder of the man lying on her.

A white unicorn stood by the lake shore – literally suspended above the surface. Beside it was a black horse. And in the saddle of the black horse was sitting . . .

But I know that legend, the thought flashed through Nimue’s head. I know that fairy tale! I was a child, a little child, when I heard that tale. The wandering storyteller, the beggar Pogwizd, had told it to her. The witcher Ciri . . . with a scar on her cheek . . . The black mare Kelpie . . . Unicorns . . .The land of the elves . . .

The movements of the man, who hadn’t noticed the phenomenon at all, became more and more urgent, and the sounds he was uttering more and more amusing.

‘Whooops,’ said the girl on the black mare. ‘Another mistake! It’s not this place, not this time. And what’s more, I see, it’s a bad time. I’m sorry.’

The image blurred and shattered, as painted glass shatters, suddenly fell to pieces, disintegrated into a rainbow-coloured twinkling of sparkles, gleaming and gold. And then all of it vanished.

‘No!’ screamed Nimue. ‘No! Don’t disappear! I don’t want you to go!’

She straightened her knees and tried to free herself from under the man, but she could not – he was stronger and heavier than her. The man groaned and moaned.

‘Oooooh, Nimue . . . Ooooh!’

Nimue screamed and dug her teeth into his shoulder.

They lay on his sheepskin coat, quivering and hot. Nimue looked at the lake shore, at the caps of foam whipped up by the waves. At the reeds bent over by the wind. At the colourless, hopeless void, the void left by the disappearing legend.

A tear trickled down the novice’s nose.

‘Nimue . . . Is something the matter?’

‘Yes.’ She cuddled up to him, but carried on looking at the lake. ‘Don’t say anything. Hold me and don’t say anything.’

The man smiled proudly.

‘I know what happened,’ he said boastfully. ‘Did the earth move?’

Nimue smiled sadly.

‘Not just the earth,’ she replied after a moment’s silence. ‘Not just the earth.’

*

A flash. Darkness. The next place.

*

The next place was tenebrous, baleful and foul.

Ciri involuntarily hunched over in the saddle, shaken – both in the literal and the metaphorical sense of the term. For Kelpie’s horseshoes had thudded against something as painfully hard, flat and unyielding as rock. After a long time of gliding in very soft limbo, the impression of hardness was so astonishing and unpleasant that the mare neighed and suddenly lunged aside, beating out a staccato rhythm on the ground that made Ciri’s teeth chatter.

The second shock, the metaphorical one, was supplied by the smell. Ciri groaned and covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve. She felt her eyes immediately filling with tears.

All around rose a sour, acrid, thick and glutinous stench, a smell of burning both choking and dreadful, impossible to define, resembling nothing Ciri had ever smelled. It was – she was certain of it – the stench of decay, a corpselike reek of final degradation and degeneration, the odour of disintegration and destruction; in addition, there was the impression that whatever was decaying hadn’t smelled any more pleasantly when it was alive. Not even when it had been in its salad days.

She bent over in a nauseous reflex she was unable to control. Kelpie snorted and shook her head, contracting her nostrils. The unicorn, which had materialised beside them, leaned back on his haunches, jumped up and kicked. The hard ground answered with a shock and a loud echo.

All around was the night, the dark and filthy night, muffled by the sticky and reeking tatters of darkness.

Ciri glanced upwards, searching for the stars, but there was nothing above her, only an abyss, lit up in places by an indistinct, red glow, like a distant fire.

‘Whooops,’ she said and grimaced, feeling the sour and rotten mist settling on her lips. ‘Yuuuckk! Not this place, not this time! Under no circumstances!’

The unicorn snorted and nodded his head, his horn describing a short and dynamic arc.

The ground grinding beneath Kelpie’s hooves was rock, but strange, unnaturally smooth, emitting an intensive stench of burning and dirty ash. It took some time for Ciri to realise that what she was looking at was a road. She had had enough of that unpleasant and annoying hardness. She guided the mare to the side of the road, marked by something that had once been trees, but were now hideous and naked skeletons. Corpses hung with shreds of rags, quite like the remains of rotten shrouds.

The unicorn gave a warning by neighing and sending a mental signal. Too late.

Just beyond the strange road and the dead trees a heap of scree began, and further away, at its edge, a steep slope running downwards, almost a precipice. Ciri yelled, stuck her heels into the sides of the mare as she slipped down. Kelpie jerked, crushing whatever the heap was made of under her hooves. And it was waste. Mostly some kind of strange pots. The vessels didn’t crumble under the horseshoes, didn’t crunch, but burst repulsively softly and stickily, like great fishes’ bladders. Something squelched and gurgled, and the odour belching forth almost knocked Ciri from the saddle.

Kelpie, neighing wildly, trampled through the rubbish dump, struggling back upwards towards the road. Ciri, choking from the stench, grabbed the mare’s neck.

They managed to get up. And greeted the weird road’s disagreeable hardness with joy and relief.

Ciri, trembling all over, looked down onto the rubbish dump which ended in a black lake filling the bottom of the basin. The surface of the lake was lifeless and gleaming, as it wasn’t water but solidified pitch. Beyond the lake, beyond the rubbish dumps, the piles of ash and heaps of cinders, the sky was red from distant glows, and was marked by trails of smoke.

The unicorn snorted. Ciri was about to wipe her watering eyes with her cuff, when she suddenly noticed her entire sleeve was covered in dust. The flecks of dust also covered her thighs, the pommel of her saddle and Kelpie’s mane and neck.

The stench was stifling.

‘Disgusting,’ she muttered. ‘Repulsive . . . I feel like I’m sticky all over. Let’s get out of here . . . Let’s get out of here with all haste, Little Horse.’

The unicorn pricked up his ears and snorted.

Only you can make it happen. Act.

‘Me? All alone? Without your help?’

The unicorn nodded his horned head.

Ciri scratched her head, sighed and shut her eyes. She focused.

At first there was only disbelief, resignation and fear. But a cool brightness – the brightness of knowledge and power – quickly came over her. She had no idea where the knowledge and power were coming from, where their roots and source originated. But she knew she could do it. That she would do it if she wanted.

Once more she cast a glance at the hardened and lifeless lake, the smoking heap of refuse and the skeletons of trees. The sky was lit up by a distant glow.

‘I’m glad it’s not my world.’ She leaned over and spat. ‘Very glad!’

The unicorn neighed meaningfully. She understood what he wanted to say.

‘Even if it’s mine,’ she wiped her eyes, mouth and nose with a handkerchief, ‘it’s at once not mine, because it’s far away in time. It’s the past, or—’

She broke off.

‘The past,’ she repeated softly. ‘I deeply believe it’s the past.’

*

They greeted the heavy rain, the proper downpour they fell under in the next place, as a blessing. The rain was warm and aromatic, smelling of summer, weeds, mud and compost. The rain washed the filth from them, purged them. The rain was quite simply a catharsis.

Like any catharsis, it also became monotonous, excessive and unbearable after a short while. After some time, the water she was washing herself in began to wet her annoyingly, run down her neck and chill her unpleasantly. So they got out of that rainy place.

For it wasn’t that place either. Or that time.

*

The next place was very warm, the weather very hot, so Ciri, Kelpie and the unicorn dried off and steamed like three kettles. They found themselves on some sweltering moors at the edge of a forest. At once it could be deduced it was a very large forest, quite simply a dense, wild and inaccessible wilderness. Hope that it might be Brokilon Forest thumped in Ciri’s heart, the hope that at last it might be a familiar and appropriate place.

They rode slowly along the edge of the forest. Ciri was looking out for something that might serve as a sign. The unicorn snorted, raised his head and horn, and looked around. It was anxious.

‘Do you think, Little Horse,’ she asked, ‘that they might be following us?’

A snort – comprehensible and unambiguous even without telepathy.

‘We haven’t managed to flee far enough away yet?’

She didn’t understand what he telepathically told her in answer. There was no far or near? A spiral? What spiral?

She didn’t understand what he was talking about. But the anxiety infected her.

The scorching moors weren’t the right place or the right time.

They understood it in the early evening, when the heat eased off, and instead of one, two moons rose in the sky above the forest. One large, the other small.

*

The next place was a seashore, a steep cliff, from which they saw breakers crashing against strangely-shaped rocks. They smelled the sea wind, and terns, black-headed gulls and petrels screeched, covering the ledges of the cliff in a restless white layer.

The sea reached all the way to the dark, cloudy horizon.

Down below, on the rocky beach, Ciri suddenly noticed the skeleton of a gigantic fish with a horrendously huge head partly buried in the shingles. Its great teeth, bristling in its sun-bleached jawbones, were at least three spans long, and it seemed one could have ridden a horse into its maw and easily paraded under the portals of its ribs without knocking one’s head against its spine.

Ciri wasn’t certain if fish like that existed in her world and her time.

They rode along the edge of the cliff, and the seagulls and albatrosses weren’t frightened at all, reluctantly moving out of their way. Why, they even tried hard to peck and pinch the feathers on Kelpie and Ihuarraquax’s fetlocks! Ciri instantly understood that the birds had never seen a human or a horse. Or a unicorn.

Ihuarraquax snorted, shook his head and horn, clearly anxious. It turned out he had reason to be.

Something creaked, just like canvas being torn. The terns rose with a cry and a fluttering, for a moment covering everything in a white cloud. The air above the cliff suddenly vibrated and became blurred like glass with water spilled over it. And then it shattered like glass. And darkness poured out of the rupture, while riders spilled out of the darkness. Around their shoulders fluttered cloaks whose vermilion-amaranth-crimson colour brought to mind the glow of a fire in a sky lit up by the blaze of the setting sun.

Dearg Ruadhri. The Red Horsemen.

Even before the crying of birds and the neighing of the unicorn had died away, Ciri had reined her mare around and spurred her into a gallop. But the air also ruptured in another place, and from the rupture, cloaks fluttering like wings, rushed out more horsemen. The semicircle of the noose closed, pressing them against the cliff. Ciri cried out, jerking Swallow out of its scabbard.

The unicorn summoned her with a sharp signal that penetrated her brain like a needle. She understood at once this time. He was showing her the way. A gap in the circle. He meanwhile reared up, neighed piercingly and charged at the elves with his horn lowered menacingly.

‘Little Horse!’

Save yourself, Star—Eye! Don’t let them catch you!

She pressed herself against Kelpie’s mane.

Two elves barred her way. They had lassos, nooses on long shafts. They tried to throw them over Kelpie’s neck. The mare nimbly twisted her head out of reach of one, but didn’t slow her gallop for a second. Ciri severed the other noose with a single flourish of her sword, and urged Kelpie with a cry to run quicker. The mare flew like a hurricane.

But others were now hard on their heels. She could hear their cries, the thud of their hooves, the flapping of their cloaks. What about Little Horse, she thought, what have they done to him?

There was no time for reflection. The unicorn was right; she couldn’t let them capture her again. She had to dive into space, hide, and lose herself in the labyrinth of places and times. She focused, sensing with horror that all she had in her head was a void and a strange, ringing, quickly growing hubbub.

They’re casting a spell on me, she thought. They want to beguile me with witchcraft. Over my dead body! Spells have a range. I won’t let them get close to me.

‘Run, Kelpie!’

The black mare stuck out her neck and flew like the wind. Ciri flattened herself on her neck to minimise air resistance.

The cries from behind her back, a moment earlier still loud and dangerously close, faded, drowned out by the screaming of frightened birds. Then they became harder and harder to make out. Remote.

Kelpie flew like a hurricane. So fast the sea wind howled in her ears.

A note of fury sounded in the distant shouts of the pursuers. They understood they couldn’t keep up. That they had no chance of catching up with the black mare, who was running without any sign of fatigue, as light, soft and supple as a cheetah.

Ciri didn’t look back. But she knew they continued to pursue her for a long time, even though it was futile. Until the moment their own horses began to wheeze and rasp, stumble and lower their foaming muzzles almost to the ground, teeth bared. Only then did they quit, sending after her nothing but curses and impotent threats she could no longer hear.

Kelpie flew like a gale.

*

The place she fled to was dry and windy. The keen, howling wind quickly dried the tears on her cheeks.

She was alone. Alone again. All alone.

A wanderer, a permanent vagabond, a sailor lost on the boundless sea among the archipelago of places and times.

A sailor losing hope.

The gale whistled and howled, rolling balls of dried weeds over the cracked earth.

The gale dried her tears.

*

Inside her skull cool lucidity, in her ears a buzzing, a monotonous buzzing, like from the twisted interior of a sea conch. A tingling in her nape. Black and very soft nothingness.

A new place. Another place.

An archipelago of places.

*

‘This night,’ said Nimue, wrapping herself up in a fur, ‘will be a good night. I sense it.’

Condwiramurs didn’t comment, although she had already heard similar assurances a good few times. For it wasn’t the first evening they had sat on the terrace, the lake blazing with the sunset in front of them, and behind them the magical looking glass and magical tapestry.

The curses of the Fisher King reached them from the lake, multiplied by the echo rolling across the water. The Fisher King was often in the habit of using vivid language to emphasise dissatisfaction with his angling failures – the unsuccessful strikes, plays, landings and other techniques he used. It had gone particularly badly that evening, judging from the strength and repertoire of the oaths.

‘Time,’ said Nimue, ‘has neither a beginning nor an end. Time is like the serpent Ouroboros, which bites its own tail with its teeth. Eternity is hidden in every moment. And eternity consists of the moments that create it. Eternity is an archipelago of moments. You may sail through that archipelago, although navigation is very difficult, and it is dangerous to get lost. It’s good to have a lighthouse whose light can guide you. It’s good to be able to hear someone calling among the fog . . .’

She fell silent for a while.

‘How does the legend that interests us end? It seems to us – to you and me – that we know how it ends. But Ouroboros is still grasping its own tail in its teeth. Yes, how the legend ends is being settled now. At this moment. The ending of the legend will depend on whether and when the sailor lost among the archipelago of moments sees the lamp of the lighthouse. If she hears the calling.’

A curse, a splash and the banging of oars in the rowlocks could be heard from the lake.

‘It will be a good night tonight. The last before the summer solstice. The moon is getting smaller. The sun is passing from the Third to the Fourth House, to the sign of the Goat-Fish. The best time for divination . . . The best time . . . Focus, Condwiramurs.’

Condwiramurs, as so many times before, obediently focused, slowly entering a state close to a trance.

‘Search for her,’ said Nimue. ‘She is somewhere among the stars, among the moonlight. Among the places. She is there. She is awaiting help. Let’s help her, Condwiramurs.’

*

Concentration, fists at her temples. A buzzing in her ears, as though from the inside of a conch. A flash. And abruptly soft and black nothingness.

*

There was a place where Ciri saw burning pyres. The women bound by chains to stakes howled wildly and horrifyingly for mercy, and the crowd gathered around roared, laughed and danced. There was a place where a great city was burning, roaring with fire and bursting with flames from collapsing roofs, and black smoke hooded the whole sky. There was a place where enormous two-legged lizards fought one another, and garish blood gushed from beneath fangs and claws.

There was a place where hundreds of identical white windmills threshed the sky with their slender sails. There was a place where hundreds of snakes hissed and squirmed on stones, scraping and rustling their scales.

There was a place where there was darkness, and in the darkness voices, whispers and terror.

There were even more places. But none of them was the right one.

*

She was finding moving from place to place so easy that she began to experiment. One of the few places she wasn’t afraid of was those warm moors at the edge of the wild forest above which two moons rose. Calling forth in her memory the sight of those moons and repeating in her mind what she wanted, Ciri focused, strained and plunged into the nothingness.

She succeeded at the second attempt.

Now encouraged, she decided to attempt an even more daring experiment. It was obvious that aside from places, she also visited times. Vysogota had talked about that, as had the elves, and the unicorns had mentioned it. Why, she had managed – albeit unwittingly – to do it before! When she had been wounded in the face she had escaped from her persecutors into time, jumped forward four days, and then Vysogota couldn’t account for those days. Nothing added up for him . . .

Perhaps that was her chance? A leap into time?

She decided to try. The burning city, for example, couldn’t be burning permanently, could it? And if she were to get there before the fire? Or after it?

She landed almost in the centre of the fire, scorching her eyebrows and eyelashes and arousing horrendous panic amongst the victims of the fire fleeing from the blazing city.

She escaped to the friendly moors. It probably wasn’t worth taking a risk like that, she thought, the devil only knows how it might end. I do better with places, so I’ll stick to places. Let’s try to get to places. Familiar places, ones I remember well. And ones I have pleasant associations with.

She began with the Temple of Melitele, imagining the gate, the building, the grounds and the workshop, the novices’ dormitory, and the rooms where Yennefer lived. She concentrated with her fists against her temples, evoking in her memory the faces of Nenneke, Eurneid, Katje and Iola the Second.

Nothing came of it. She found herself in some swamps shrouded in mist and swarming with mosquitoes, resounding with the whistling of turtles and the deafening croaking of frogs.

She tried in turn – with no better result – Kaer Morhen, the Isles of Skellige, and the bank in Gors Velen where Fabio Sachs worked. She didn’t dare to try Cintra, knowing that the city was occupied by Nilfgaardians. Instead of that she tried Vizima, the city where she and Yennefer used to go shopping.

*

Aarhenius Krantz, sage, alchemist, astronomer and astrologer, fidgeted on a hard stool with his eye stuck to the eyepiece of a telescope. The comet of great size and power, which it had been possible to observe in the sky for almost a week, merited observation and research. A comet like that, as Aarhenius Krantz knew, with a fiery red tail, usually heralded great wars, conflagrations and massacres. Now, to tell the truth, the comet had been a bit late with its prophecy, because the war with Nilfgaard was well underway, and one could already have prophesied conflagrations and massacres correctly, without hesitation, for not a day went by without them. Aarhenius Krantz, who was familiar with the movements of heavenly bodies, was however hoping to calculate when, in how many years or centuries, the comet would appear again, announcing another war, which, who knows, it would perhaps be possible to prepare for better than the present one.

The astronomer stood up, massaged his backside and went to relieve his bladder. From the terrace, through the small balustrade. He always pissed straight from the terrace onto a bed of peonies, not caring at all about the housekeeper’s reprimands. It was quite simply too far to the privy. Wasting time walking a long way to relieve himself bore the risk of the loss of valuable reflections, which no scholar could afford to do.

He stood by the balustrade and undid his trews, looking at the lights of Vizima reflected in the lake. He sighed with relief and raised his eyes heavenwards.

Stars, he thought, and constellations. The Winter Maiden, the Seven Goats, the Pitcher. According to some theories, they aren’t just little twinkling lights, but worlds. Other worlds. Worlds from which time and space separate us . . . I believe deeply, he thought, that one day journeys to those other places, to those other times and universes, will be possible. Yes, it will certainly be possible one day. A way will be found. But it will demand utterly new thinking, a new, original idea that will tear apart the rigid corset called rational cognition that restricts it today . . .

Ah, he thought, hopping, if only it could be achieved . . . If only one could experience inspiration. If there could be one, unique opportunity . . .

Something flashed below the terrace, the darkness of the night ruptured like a starburst, and a horse emerged from the flare. With a rider on its back. The rider was a girl.

‘Good evening,’ she greeted him politely. ‘I’m sorry if it’s a bad time. May one know what place this is? And what time?’

Aarhenius Krantz swallowed, opened his mouth and mumbled.

‘The place,’ the girl repeated patiently and clearly. ‘The time.’

‘Errrm . . . Iiii . . . Ummm . . .’

The horse snorted. The girl sighed.

‘Well, it must be the wrong place again. The wrong place, the wrong time. But answer me, fellow! With at least one comprehensible word. For I can’t be in a world where people have forgotten articulate speech!’

‘Errr . . .’

‘One little word . . .’

‘Ummm . . .’

‘Then bugger you, you stupid old goat,’ said the girl.

And vanished. Along with the horse.

Aarhenius Krantz closed his mouth. He stood for a while by the balustrade, staring into the night, at the lake and the distant lights of Vizima reflected in it. Then he buttoned up his trousers and returned to his telescope.

The comet swiftly flashed across the sky. One ought to observe it, not let the eyepiece and eye lose sight of it. Track it until it disappeared into the chasms of the universe. It was an opportunity, and a scholar cannot waste such an opportunity.

*

Perhaps I could try from another direction, she thought, staring at the two moons above the moor, now visible as two crescents, one small, the other large and less crescent. Perhaps not imagine places or faces, she thought, but strongly desire . . . Strongly wish for something, very strongly, right from my belly . . .

What harm is there in trying?

Geralt. I want to go to Geralt. I very much want to go to Geralt.

*

‘Oh, no,’ she cried. ‘Where have I bloody ended up now?’

Kelpie confirmed that she thought the same by whinnying, belching steam from her nostrils and scraping her snowbound hooves.

The blizzard whistled and moaned, blinding them. Sharp snowflakes stung her cheeks and hands. The cold chilled her to the marrow, nipped her joints like a wolf. Ciri trembled, hunching her shoulders and hiding her neck in the meagre, non-existent protection of her turned-up collar.

To the left and right rose majestic, menacing peaks, grey, glazed monuments whose summits vanished somewhere high up in the fog and blizzard. A swift, very swollen river, dense with frazil and lumps of ice, sped along the bottom of the valley. It was white all around. And cold.

So much for my abilities, thought Ciri, feeling the inside of her nose freezing. So much for my power. A fine Master of the Worlds, well, well. I wanted to go to Geralt, and I ended up in the middle of some bloody wilderness, winter and blizzard.

‘Come on, Kelpie, move, or you’ll go numb!’ She grabbed the reins with fingers paralysed by the frost. ‘Gee up, gee up, girl! I know it’s not the place it’s meant to be, I’ll soon get us out of here, we’ll soon return to our warm moor. But I have to concentrate, and that may take some time. So move yourself! Come on, ride!’

Kelpie belched steam from her nostrils.

The strong wind blew. Snow stuck to her face, melting on her eyelashes. The freezing snowstorm howled and whistled.

*

‘Look!’ called Angoulême, outshouting the blizzard. ‘Look there! There are tracks. Someone rode that way!’

‘What are you saying?’ Geralt unwrapped the shawl he had wrapped around his head to protect his ears from frostbite. ‘What are you saying, Angoulême?’

‘Tracks! Hoof prints!’

‘A horse, here?’ Cahir also had to shout. The blizzard intensified, and the River Sansretour, it seemed, whooshed and roared even louder. ‘How could a horse get here?’

‘Look for yourselves!’

‘Indeed,’ commented the vampire, the only member of the company who wasn’t displaying symptoms of being utterly frozen, since he was for obvious reasons just as insensitive to low as to high temperatures. ‘Hoof prints. But are they a horse’s?’

‘It’s impossible for it to be a horse.’ Cahir massaged his cheeks and nose hard. ‘Not in the middle of nowhere. The tracks must have been left by some wild animal. Most probably a moufflon.’

‘Moufflon yourself!’ yelled Angoulême. ‘When I say a horse, I mean a horse!’

Milva, as usual, preferred practice to theory. She dismounted and bent over, pushing her fox-fur kalpak back on her head.

‘The pup’s right,’ she decided after moment. ‘It’s a horse. I think it’s even shod, but it’s hard to say, the blizzard has covered the tracks. It rode over there, into that ravine.’

‘Ha!’ Angoulême banged her arms together briskly. ‘I knew it! Somebody lives here! In the vicinity! Let’s follow the trail, perhaps we’ll find some warm cottage or other? Perhaps they’ll let us get warm? Perhaps they’ll treat us to something?’

‘For certain,’ said Cahir with a sneer. ‘Most probably a crossbow bolt.’

‘It would be most sensible to keep to our plan and the river,’ Regis decided in his most omniscient tone. ‘Then we won’t be at risk of getting lost. And further down the Sansretour there was meant to be a trapper’s manufactory, there’s a greater likelihood they’ll put us up there.’

‘Geralt? What do you say?’

The Witcher said nothing, and fixed his eyes on the snowflakes swirling in the blizzard.

‘We’ll follow the tracks,’ he finally decided.

‘Actually—’ began the vampire, but Geralt immediately interrupted him.

‘Follow the hoof prints! Ride!’

They spurred their steeds, but didn’t get very far. They ventured not more than a quarter of a furlong into a gorge.

‘That’s it.’ Angoulême stated a fact, looking at the quite smooth and virginal snow. ‘Now you see it, now you don’t. Like an elven circus.’

‘What now, Witcher?’ Cahir turned around in the saddle. ‘The tracks have ceased. They’ve been covered up by the blizzard.’

‘No they haven’t,’ Milva said. ‘The blizzard doesn’t reach here, in the canyon.’

‘What happened to the horse then?’

The archer shrugged, huddled up in the saddle, pulling her head into her shoulders.

‘Where’s that horse?’ Cahir wasn’t giving up. ‘Did it vanish? Evaporate? Or perhaps we imagined it? Geralt? What do you say?’

The gale howled above the ravine, whipping up and swirling the snow.

‘Why,’ asked the vampire, scrutinising the Witcher intently, ‘did you order us to follow those tracks, Geralt?’

‘I don’t know,’ he confessed a moment later. ‘I . . . I felt something. Something touched me. Never mind what. You were right, Regis. Let’s go back to the Sansretour and keep by the river, without any excursions or diversions that might end badly. According to what Reynart said, the real winter and bad weather only begin in the Malheur pass. When we get there we’ll have to be sound in body. Don’t just stand there, we’re turning around.’

‘Without having cleared up what happened to that strange horse?’

‘What’s there to explain?’ the Witcher said bitterly. ‘The tracks were swept away, and that’s that. Anyway, maybe it really was a moufflon?’

Milva looked at him strangely, but refrained from comment.

When they returned to the river the mysterious tracks were no longer there either, for they had been covered up by wet snow. Frazil was floating densely, pieces of pack ice were swirling and turning around in the tin-grey current of the Sansretour.

‘I’ll tell you something,’ Angoulême piped up. ‘But promise you won’t laugh.’

They turned around. In her woollen pompom hat pulled down over her eyes, with cheeks and nose red from the cold, wearing a shapeless sheepskin coat, the girl looked funny, a dead ringer for a small, plump kobold.

‘I’ll tell you something about those tracks. When I was with Nightingale, in the hanza, they said that during the winter the Mountain King, leader of the ice demons, rides on an enchanted horse in the passes. To meet him face to face is certain death. What do you say to that, Geralt? Is it possible that—’

‘Anything,’ he interrupted her. ‘Anything’s possible. On we go, company. Before us is the Malheur pass.’

The snow lashed and whipped, the wind blew, and ice demons whistled and wailed amidst the blizzard.

*

Except the moor she’d landed on wasn’t the one she knew, Ciri realised at once. She didn’t even have to wait until evening, she was sure she wouldn’t see the two moons.

The forest along whose edge she rode was as wild and inaccessible as the other one, but differences could be seen. Here, for example, there were more birches and fewer beeches. She hadn’t heard or seen any birds there, while there were great numbers of them here. There had only been sand and moss between the clumps of heather; here whole carpets of green clubmoss sprawled. Even the grasshoppers running from under Kelpie’s hooves were somehow different here. Somehow familiar. And then . . .

Her heart began beating harder. She saw a track, overgrown and neglected. Leading into the forest.

Ciri looked around carefully and made sure the strange track didn’t go on any further, that it ended here. That it didn’t lead to the forest, but from it or through it. Without deliberating for long, she prodded the mare’s sides with her heels and rode between the trees. I’ll ride south, she thought. If I don’t come across anything to the south, I’ll turn around and ride in the opposite direction, beyond the moor.

She trotted beneath a canopy of boughs, looking around attentively, trying hard not to overlook anything important. Because of that she didn’t overlook an old man peeping out from behind an oak tree.

The old man, who was very short, but not at all stooped, was dressed in a linen shirt and trews made from the same material. On his feet he had huge and very funny-looking bast slippers. In one hand he held a gnarled stick and in the other a wicker basket. Ciri couldn’t see his face precisely, for it was hidden by the frayed and drooping brim of a straw hat, from under which protruded a sunburnt nose and a tangled grey beard.

‘Fear not,’ she said. ‘I won’t do you any harm.’

The grey-bearded man shifted his weight from one foot to the other and removed his hat. He had a round face flecked with liver spots, ruddy and not very wrinkled, thin eyebrows, and a small and very receding chin. His long grey hair was tied up on his nape in a queue, but the top of his head meanwhile was completely bald, as yellow and shiny as a pumpkin.

She saw him looking at her sword, at the hilt extending above her shoulder.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ she repeated.

‘Ho, ho!’ he said, mumbling a little. ‘Ho, ho, my young maiden. Forest Gramps isn’t afraid. He ain’t one of those fearful types, oh no.’

He smiled. He had large, very protruding teeth, because of a bad occlusion and receding jaw. It was because of that that he mumbled so much.

‘Forest Gramps ain’t afraid of wanderers,’ he repeated. ‘Or even brigands. Forest Gramps is poor, he’s a poor thing. Forest Gramps is peaceful, he doesn’t disturb no one. Hey!’

He smiled again. When he smiled he seemed to be all front teeth.

‘And you, young lass, aren’t you afraid of Forest Gramps?’

Ciri snorted.

‘I’m not, just imagine. I’m not the fearful kind either.’

‘Hey, hey, hey! Well I never!’

He took a pace towards her, resting on his stick. Kelpie snorted. Ciri tugged on the reins.

‘She doesn’t like strangers,’ she warned. ‘And she bites.’

‘Hey, hey! Forest Gramps knows. Bad, unruly mare! Where are you riding from, miss? And where are you heading, may I ask?’

‘It’s a long story. Where does this road lead?’

‘Don’t you know that, miss?’

‘Don’t answer questions with questions, if you don’t mind. Where will that road take me? What place is this, in any case? And what . . . time is it?’

The old man stuck his teeth out again, moving them like a coypu.

‘Hey, hey!’ he mumbled. ‘Well I never. What time, you ask, miss? Oh, I see you’ve travelled from far away, from far away to Forest Gramps, miss!’

‘From quite far away, indeed,’ she nodded indifferently. ‘From other—’

‘Places and times,’ he completed her sentence. ‘Gramps knows. Gramps guessed.’

‘What?’ she asked, excited. ‘What did you guess? What do you know?’

‘Forest Gramps knows much.’

‘Speak!’

‘Miss must be hungry?’ he stuck out his teeth. ‘Thirsty? Fatigued? If you want, miss, Forest Gramps will take you to his cottage, feed you, give you drink. Take you in.’

For a long time Ciri hadn’t had the time or the peace of mind to think about rest or food. Now the words of the strange old man tightened up her stomach, knotted up her guts, and tied up her tongue. The old man observed her from under the brim of his hat.

‘Forest Gramps,’ he mumbled, ‘has meat in his cottage. Has spring water. And has hay for the mare, the bad mare that wanted to bite good old Gramps! Hey! Everything is in Forest Gramps’ cottage. And we’ll be able to talk about other places and times . . . It’s not far at all, oh no. Will the young traveller avail herself? Won’t disdain a visit to poor old Gramps?’

Ciri swallowed.

‘Lead on.’

Forest Gramps turned around and shambled down a barely visible path among the thicket, measuring off the road with energetic swings of his stick. Ciri rode behind him, dipping her head under branches and reining Kelpie back. The mare was indeed determined to bite the old man, or at least eat his hat.

In spite of his assurances it wasn’t near at all. When they got there, to a clearing, the sun was almost at its zenith.

Gramps’ cottage turned out to be a picturesque shack on stilts, with a roof that had clearly often been patched up using whatever happened to be to hand. The shack’s walls were covered with hides resembling pigskin. In front of the cottage there was a wooden construction shaped like a gallows, a low table and a chopping stump with an axe stuck in it. Behind the cottage was a hearth made of stones and clay with a large, blackened cauldron on it.

‘This is Forest Gramps’ home,’ the old man indicated with his stick, not without pride. ‘Forest Gramps lives here. He sleeps here. He cooks vittles here. Should he have something to cook. It’s a hardship, a severe hardship to get vittles in the forest. Does miss wanderer like pearl barley?’

‘She does,’ Ciri swallowed again. ‘She likes everything.’

‘With a bit of meat? With some grease? With scratchings?’

‘Mhm.’

‘And it don’t look,’ Gramps shot her an appraising glance, ‘that miss has lately tasted meat and scratchings often, oh no. You’re skinny, miss, skinny. Skin and bones! Hey, hey! And what’s that? Behind your back, miss?’

Ciri looked around, taken in by the oldest and most primitive trick in the book. A terrible blow of the gnarled stick caught her right in the temple. Her reflexes helped only in that she raised her arm, and her hand partly cushioned a blow capable of smashing her skull like an egg. But in any case, Ciri ended up on the ground, stunned, bewildered and completely disorientated.

Gramps, grinning, leaped at her and struck her again with the stick. Ciri once again managed to shield her head with her hands, with the result that both flopped down inertly. The left one was definitely injured, the metacarpals probably shattered.

Gramps, leaping forward, attacked from the other side and whacked her in the stomach with his stick. She screamed, curling up into a ball. Then he stooped on her like a hawk, turned her over face downwards and pinned her down with his knees. Ciri tensed up, kicked back hard, missing, then delivered a vicious blow with her elbow, this time hitting the target. Gramps roared furiously and smashed her in the back of the head with his fist, so powerfully she lurched face-first into the sand. He seized her by the hair on her nape and pressed her mouth and nose against the ground. She felt herself suffocating. The old man kneeled on her, still pressing her head against the ground, tore the sword from her back and cast it aside. Then he began to fiddle with his trousers. He found the buckle and unfastened it. Ciri howled, choking and spitting sand. He pushed her down harder, immobilising her, entangling her hair in his fist. He tore her trousers off her with a powerful tug.

‘Hey, hey,’ he mumbled, wheezing. ‘And hasn’t Gramps got a nice bit of stuff. Ooh, ooh, Gramps hasn’t had one like this for a long, long time.’

Ciri, feeling the repulsive touch of his dry, claw-like hand, yelled with her mouth full of sand and pine needles.

‘Lie still, miss,’ she heard him slavering, kneading her buttocks. ‘Gramps isn’t as young as he was, not right away, slowly . . . But never fear, Gramps will do what’s to be done. Hey, hey! And then Gramps will eat his fill, hey, his fill! Lavishly—’

He broke off, roared, and squealed.

Feeling that his grip had eased off, Ciri kicked, jerked and leaped up like a spring. And saw what had happened.

Kelpie, creeping up noiselessly, had seized Forest Gramps in her teeth by his queue and almost lifted him into the air. The old man howled and squealed, struggled, kicked and wriggled his legs, finally managing to tear himself free, leaving the long, grey lock of hair in the mare’s teeth. He tried to grab his stick, but Ciri kicked it out of range of his hands. She was about to treat him to another kick where he deserved it, but her movements were hindered by her trousers being halfway down her thighs. Gramps made good use of the time it took her to pull them up one-handed. He was by the stump in a few bounds and jerked the axe from it, driving the determined Kelpie away with a swing. He roared, stuck out his awful teeth and attacked Ciri, raising the axe to strike.

‘Gramps is going to fuck you, miss!’ he howled wildly. ‘Even if Gramps has to chop you up into pieces first. It’s all the same to Gramps if you’re in one piece, or in portions.’

She thought she’d cope with him easily. After all he was a decrepit old geezer.

She was very much mistaken.

In spite of his enormous slippers he jumped like a spinning top, hopped like a rabbit, and swung the axe with the bent handle like a butcher. After the dark and sharpened blade had literally grazed her several times Ciri realised that the only thing that could save her was to run away.

But she was rescued by a coincidence. Stepping back, she knocked her foot against her sword. She picked it up in a flash.

‘Drop the axe,’ she panted, drawing Swallow from the scabbard with a hiss. ‘Drop the axe onto the ground, you lecherous old man. Then, who knows, perhaps I’ll spare your life. And not cut you into pieces.’

He stopped. He was panting and wheezing, and his beard was disgustingly covered in saliva. He didn’t drop his weapon, though. She saw savage fury in his eyes.

‘Very well!’ she swung her sword in a hissing moulinet. ‘Make my day!’

For a moment he looked at her, as though not understanding, then he stuck out his teeth, goggled, roared and lunged at her. Ciri had had enough of fooling around. She dodged him with a swift half-turn and cut from below across both his raised arms, above the elbows. Gramps released the axe from his bloodied hands, but immediately jumped at her again. She leaped aside and slashed him in the nape of the neck. More out of mercy than need; he would soon have bled to death from his two severed brachial arteries.

He lay, fighting unbelievably hard not to give up his life, still writhing like a worm in spite of his cloven vertebrae. Ciri stood over him. The last grains of sand were still grating in her teeth. She spat them out straight onto his back. He was dead before she finished spitting.

*

The strange construction in front of the cottage resembling a gallows was equipped with iron hooks and a block and tackle. The table and chopping block were worn smooth, sticky with grease and reeked horribly.

Like a shambles.

In the kitchen, Ciri found a cauldron of the pearl barley he had offered her, swimming in grease, full of pieces of meat and mushrooms. She was very hungry, but something told her not to eat it. She only drank some water from a wooden pail and nibbled a small, wrinkled apple.

Behind the shack she found a cellar with steps, deep and cool. In the cellar stood pots of lard. Something was hanging from the ceiling. The remains of a side of meat.

She ran out of the cellar, stumbling on the steps, as though devils were pursuing her. Then fell over in some nettles, jumped up, and ran tottering over to the cottage, grabbing with both hands one of the stilts supporting it. Although she had almost nothing in her stomach, she vomited very spasmodically for a very long time.

The side of meat hanging in the cellar belonged to a child.

*

Led by the strong smell, she found a water-filled hollow in the forest, into which the prudent Forest Gramps would throw scraps of what it wasn’t possible to eat. Looking at the skulls, ribs and pelvises sticking out of the ooze, Ciri realised with horror that she was only alive thanks to the ghastly old man’s lecherousness, only owing to the fact that he had felt like frolicking. Had his hunger been more powerful than his despicable sexual urges he would have hit her treacherously with the axe, not the stick. Suspended by the legs from the wooden gallows he would have disembowelled and skinned her, dressed and divided her on the table, chopped her up on the chopping block . . .

Although she was unsteady on her feet from giddiness, and her left hand was swollen and pain was shooting through it, she dragged the corpse to the hollow in the forest and pushed it into the stinking slime, among the bones of his victims. She returned, covered up the entrance to the cellar with branches and twigs, and the yard and entire smallholding with brushwood. Then she meticulously set fire to it all from four sides.

She only rode away once it had thoroughly caught fire, when the fire was raging and roaring satisfactorily. When she was certain that no rain showers would interfere with all traces of that place being obliterated.

*

Her hand wasn’t in such bad shape. It was swollen, indeed, it hurt awfully, but probably no bones were broken.

As evening approached only one moon indeed rose. But somehow, strangely, Ciri didn’t feel like considering this world hers.

Nor staying in it longer than need be.

*

‘It’ll be a good night tonight,’ murmured Nimue. ‘I can sense it.’

Condwiramurs sighed.

The horizon blazed gold and red. There was a stripe of the same colour on the lake, from the horizon to the island.

They sat in armchairs on the terrace, with the looking glass in the ebony frame and the tapestry depicting the old castle hugging a rock wall behind them, looking at themselves in the mountain lake.

How many evenings, thought Condwiramurs, how many evenings have we sat like this until dusk has fallen and later, in the dark? Without any results? Just talking?

It was getting cool. The sorceress and the novice covered themselves with furs. From the lake they heard the creaking of the rowlocks of Fisher King’s boat, but they couldn’t see it – it was obscured by the brilliance of the sunset.

‘I quite often dream,’ Condwiramurs returned to their interrupted conversation, ‘that I’m in an icy wasteland, where there’s nothing but the white of the snow and mounds of ice, glistening in the sun. And there’s a silence, a silence ringing in the ears. An unnatural silence. The silence of death.’

Nimue nodded, as though to indicate she knew what was meant. But she didn’t comment.

‘Suddenly,’ continued the novice, ‘suddenly I feel I can hear something. That I feel the ice tremble beneath my feet. I kneel down, rake aside the snow. The ice is as transparent as glass, as in some clear, mountain lakes, when the pebbles at the bottom and the fish swimming can be seen through a layer two yards thick. In my dream I can also see, although the layer of ice is dozens or perhaps hundreds of yards thick. It doesn’t stop me seeing . . . and hearing . . . people calling for help. At the bottom, deep beneath the ice . . . is a frozen world.’

Nimue didn’t comment this time either.

‘Of course I know what the source of that dream is,’ continued the novice. ‘Ithlinne’s Prophecy, the infamous White Frost, the Time of Frost and the Wolfish Blizzard. The world dying among the snows and ice, in order, as the prophecy says, to be born again centuries later. Cleansed and better.’

‘I believe deeply,’ said Nimue softly, ‘that the world will be born again. Whether into something better, not particularly.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Didn’t I mishear? Nimue, the White Frost has already been prophesied thousands of times. Every time the winter is severe it’s been said that it has come. Right now even children don’t believe that any winter is capable of endangering the world.’

‘Well, well. Children don’t believe. But I, just imagine, do.’

‘Based on any rational premises?’ asked Condwiramurs with a slight sneer. ‘Or only on a mystical faith in the infallibility of elven predictions?’

Nimue said nothing for a long while, picking at the fur she was draped in.

‘The earth,’ she finally began in a slightly sermonising tone, ‘has a spherical shape and orbits the sun. Do you agree with that? Or perhaps you belong to one of those fashionable sects that try to prove something utterly different.’

‘No. I don’t. I accept heliocentrism and I agree with the theory of the spherical shape of the earth.’

‘Excellent. You are sure then to agree with the fact that the vertical axis of the globe is tilted at an angle, and the path of the earth around the sun doesn’t have the shape of a regular circle, but is elliptical?’

‘I learned about it. But I’m not an astronomer, so—’

‘You don’t have to be an astronomer, it’s enough to think logically. The earth circles the sun in an elliptical-shaped orbit, and so during its revolution sometimes it’s closer and sometimes further away. The further the earth is from the sun, the colder it is on it; that must be logical. And the less the world’s axis deviates from the perpendicular the less light reaches the northern hemisphere.’

‘That’s also logical.’

‘Both those factors, I mean the ellipticalness of the orbit and the degree of tilt of the world’s axis, are subject to changes. As can be observed, cyclical ones. The ellipse may be more or less elliptical, that is stretched out and elongated, and the earth’s axis may be less or more tilted. Extreme conditions, as far as climate is concerned, are caused by a simultaneous occurrence of the two phenomena: the maximum elongation of the ellipse and only an insignificant deviation of the axis from the vertical. The earth orbiting the sun receives very little light and heat at the aphelium, and the polar regions are additionally harmed by the disadvantageous angle of tilt of the axis.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Less light in the northern hemisphere means the snow lies longer. White and shining snow reflects sunlight, the temperature falls even more. The snow lies even longer because of that, it doesn’t melt at all in greater and greater stretches or only melts for a short time. The more snow and the longer it lies, the greater the white and shining reflective surface . . .’

‘I understand.’

‘The snow’s falling, it’s falling and falling and there’s more and more of it. So observe that masses of warm air drift with the sea currents from the south, which condense over the frozen northern land. The warm air condenses and falls as snow. The greater the temperature differences, the heavier the falls. The heavier the falls, the more white snow that doesn’t melt for a long time. And the colder it is. The greater the temperature difference and the more abundant the condensation of the masses of air . . .’

‘I understand.’

‘The snow cover becomes heavy enough to become compacted ice. A glacier. On which, as we now know, snow continues to fall, pressing it down even more. The glacier grows, it’s not only thicker and thicker, but it spreads outwards, covering greater and greater expanses. White expanses . . .’

‘Reflecting the sun’s rays,’ Condwiramurs nodded. ‘Becoming colder, colder and even colder. The White Frost prophesied by Ithlinne. But is a cataclysm possible? Is there really a danger that the ice that has lain in the north forever will all of a sudden flow south, crushing, compressing and covering everything? How fast does the ice cap spread at the pole? A few inches annually?’

‘As you surely know,’ said Nimue, eyes fixed on the lake, ‘the only port in the Gulf of Praxeda that doesn’t freeze is Pont Vanis.’

‘Yes. I am aware.’

‘Enriching your knowledge: a hundred years ago none of the Gulf’s ports used to freeze. A hundred years ago – there are numerous accounts of it – cucumbers and pumpkins used to grow in Talgar, and sunflowers and lupins were cultivated in Caingorn. They aren’t cultivated now, since their growth is impossible; it’s simply too cold there. And did you know there were once vineyards in Kaedwen? The wines from those vines probably weren’t the best, because it appears from the surviving documents that they were very cheap. But local poets sung their praises anyway. Today vines don’t grow in Kaedwen at all. Because today’s winters, unlike the former ones, bring hard frosts, and a hard frost kills vines. It doesn’t just retard growth, it simply kills. Destroys.’

‘I understand.’

‘Yes,’ Nimue reflected. ‘What more is there to add? Perhaps that it snows in Talgar in the middle of November and drifts south at a speed of more than fifty miles a day. That at the end of December and the beginning of January snowstorms occur by the Alba, where still a hundred years ago snow was a sensation? And that every child knows that the snows melt and the lakes thaw in April in our region, don’t they? And every child wonders why that month is called April – the Opening. Didn’t it surprise you?’

‘Not especially,’ admitted Condwiramurs. ‘Anyway at home in Vicovaro we didn’t say April, but Falsebloom. Or in the elven: Birke. But I understand what you’re implying. The name of the month comes from ancient times when everything really did bloom in April . . .’

‘Those distant times are all a hundred, a hundred and twenty years ago. That’s virtually yesterday, girl. Ithlinne was absolutely right. Her prophecy will be fulfilled. The world will perish beneath a layer of ice. Civilisation will perish through the fault of the Destroyer, who could have, who had the opportunity, to open a path to hope. It is known from legend that she didn’t.’

‘For reasons that the legend doesn’t explain. Or explains with the help of a vague and naive moral.’

‘That’s true. But the fact remains a fact. The White Frost is a fact. The civilisation of the northern hemisphere is doomed to extinction. It will vanish beneath the ice of a spreading glacier, beneath permanent pack ice and snow. There’s no need to panic, though, because it’ll take some time before it happens.’

The sun had completely set and the blinding glare had disappeared from the surface of the lake. Now a streak of softer, paler light lay down on the water. The moon rose over Inis Vitre, as bright as a gold sovereign chopped in half.

‘How long?’ Condwiramurs asked. ‘How long, according to you, will it take? I mean, how much time do we have?’

‘A good deal.’

‘How much, Nimue?’

‘Some three thousand years.’

On the lake, the Fisher King banged his oar down in the boat and swore. Condwiramurs sighed loudly.

‘You’ve reassured me a little,’ she said after a while. ‘But only a little.’

*

The next place was one of the foulest Ciri had visited. It certainly appeared in the top ranking and at the top of that ranking.

It was a port, a port channel. She saw boats and galleys by jetties and posts, saw a forest of masts, saw sails, sagging heavily in the still air. Smoke, clouds of stinking smoke, were creeping and hanging all around.

Smoke also rose from behind crooked shacks by the channel. The loud, broken crying of a child could be heard from there.

Kelpie snorted, jerking her head sharply, and stepped back, banging her hooves on the cobbles. Ciri glanced down and noticed some dead rats. They were lying everywhere. Dead rodents contorted in agony with pale, pink paws.

Something’s not right here, she thought, feeling horror gripping her. Something’s wrong here. Get out of here. Run from here as quickly as possible.

A man in a gaping shirt was sitting under hanging nets and lines, his head resting on his shoulder. A few paces away lay another. They didn’t look as if they were asleep. They didn’t even twitch when Kelpie’s horseshoes clattered on the stones right next to them. Ciri bowed her head, riding under the rags hanging from washing lines and giving off an acrid odour of filth.

There was a cross on the door of one of the shacks painted in whitewash. Black smoke left a trail in the air behind the roof. The child was still crying, somebody shouted in the distance, somebody closer coughed and wheezed. A dog howled.

Ciri felt her hand itching. She looked down.

Her hand was flecked with the black dots of fleas, like caraway seeds.

She screamed at the top of her voice. Shaking all over in horror and revulsion, she began to brush herself off, waving her arms wildly. Kelpie, alarmed, burst into a gallop, and Ciri almost fell off. Squeezing the mare’s sides with her thighs she combed and ran her fingers through her hair, she shook her jacket and blouse. Kelpie galloped into a smoke-enveloped alleyway. Ciri screamed with terror.

She rode through hell, through an inferno, through the most nightmarish of nightmares. Among houses marked with white crosses. Among smouldering piles of rags. Among the dead lying singly and those who lay in heaps, one upon the other. And among living, ragged, half-naked spectres with cheeks sunken from pain, grovelling through dung, screaming in a language she didn’t understand, stretching out towards her bony arms, covered in horrible, bloody pustules . . .

Run! Run from here!

Even in the black nothingness, in the oblivion of the archipelago of places, Ciri could still smell that smoke and stench in her nostrils.

*

The next place was also a port. There was also a quay here, with a piled canal busy with cogs, launches and other craft, and above them a forest of masts. But here, in this place, above the masts, seagulls were cheerfully screeching, and it stank in a normal, familiar way: of wet wood, pitch, sea water, and also fish in all its three basic varieties: fresh, rotten and fried.

Two men were arguing on the deck of a cog, shouting over each other in raised voices. She understood what they were saying. It was about the price of herrings.

Not far away was a tavern. The odour of mustiness and beer, and the sound of voices, clanking and laughter belched from the open door. Someone roared out a filthy song, the same verse the whole time:

Luned, v’ard t’elaine arse

Aen a meath ail aen sparse!

She knew where she was. Before she had even read on the stern of one of the galleys: Evall Muire. And its home port. Baccalá. She knew where she was.

In Nilfgaard.

She fled before anyone could pay more close attention to her.

But before she managed to dive into nothingness, a flea, the last of the ones that had crawled all over her in the previous place, that had survived the journey in time and space nestled in a fold of her jacket, leaped a great flea leap onto the wharf.

That same evening the flea settled into the mangy coat of a rat, an old male, the veteran of many rat fights, testified to by one ear chewed off right by its skull. That same evening the flea and the rat embarked on a ship. And the next morning set sail on a voyage. On a barge; old, neglected and very dirty.

The barge was called Catriona. That name was to pass into history. But no one knew that then.

*

The next place – difficult though it was to believe – was a truly astonishingly idyllic scene. A thatched tavern grown over with wild vines, ivy and sweet peas stood among hollyhocks by a peaceful, lazy river flowing among willows, alders and oaks bent over the water, right beside a bridge connecting the banks with its elegant, stone arch. A sign with gilded letters on it swung over the porch. The letters were completely foreign to Ciri. But there was quite a well-executed picture of a cat, so she assumed it was The Black Cat tavern.

The scent of food drifting from the tavern was simply captivating. Ciri did not ponder for long. She straightened her sword on her back and entered.

It was empty inside. Only one of the tables was occupied, by three men with the appearance of peasants. They didn’t even look at her. Ciri sat down in the corner with her back to the wall.

The innkeeper, a corpulent woman in a perfectly clean apron and horned cap, approached and asked about something. Her voice sounded jangling, but melodic. Ciri pointed a finger at her open mouth, patted herself on the stomach, after which she cut off one of the silver buttons on her jacket and laid it on the table. Seeing a strange glance, she set to cutting off another button, but the woman stopped her with a gesture and a hissing, though nicely ringing, word.

The value of a button turned out to be a bowl of thick vegetable soup, an earthenware pot of beans and smoked bacon, bread and a jug of watered-down wine. Ciri thought she’d probably burst into tears at the first spoonful. But she controlled herself. She ate slowly. Delighting in the food.

The innkeeper came over, jingling questioningly, and laid her cheek on her pressed-together hands. Would she stay the night?

‘I don’t know,’ said Ciri. ‘Perhaps. In any case, thank you for the offer.’

The woman smiled and went out into the kitchen.

Ciri unfastened her belt and rested her back against the wall. She wondered what to do next. The place – particularly compared to the last few – was pleasant, and encouraged her to stay longer. She knew, though, that excessive trust could be dangerous, and lack of vigilance fatal.

A black cat, exactly like the one on the inn sign, appeared from nowhere and rubbed against her calf, arching its back. She stroked it, and the cat gently butted her palm, sat down and began licking the fur on its breast. Ciri gazed into space, her sight drifting elsewhere…

She saw Jarre sitting by the fireplace in a circle of some unattractive looking scruffs. They were all knocking over small vessels containing a red liquid.

‘Jarre?’

‘That’s what you should do,’ said the boy, looking into the flames of the fire. ‘I read about it in The History of Wars, a work written by Marshal Pelligram. You should do that when the motherland is in need.’

‘What should you do? Spill blood?’

‘Yes. Precisely. The motherland is calling. And partly for personal reasons.’

‘Ciri, don’t sleep in the saddle,’ says Yennefer. ‘We’re almost there.’

There are large crosses painted in whitewash on the houses of the town they are arriving in, on all the doors and gates. Thick, reeking smoke, smoke is billowing from pyres with corpses burning on them. Yennefer seems not to notice it.

‘I have to make myself beautiful.’

A small mirror is floating in front of her face, over the horse’s ears. A comb is dancing in the air, tugging through her black curls. Yennefer is using witchcraft, she doesn’t use her hands at all, because . . .

Because her hands are a mass of clotted blood.

‘Mummy! What have they done to you?’

‘Stand up, girl,’ says Coën. ‘Master your pain, get up and onto the comb! Otherwise fear will seize you. Do you want to be dying of fear all your life?’

His yellow eyes shine unpleasantly. He yawns. His pointed teeth flash white. It’s not Coën at all. It’s the cat. The black cat . . .

A column of soldiers many miles long are marching. A forest of spears and standards sways and undulates over them. Jarre also marches, he has a round helmet on his head, and a pike on his shoulder so long he has to clutch it tightly in both hands, otherwise it would overbalance him. The drums growl, and the soldiers’ song booms and rumbles. Crows caw above the column. A mass of crows . . .

A lake shore. On the beach whitecaps of whipped up foam, rotten reeds washed up. An island on the lake. A tower. Toothed battlements, a keep thickened by the protrusions of machicolations. Over the tower, in the darkening blue of the sky, the moon shines, as bright as a gold sovereign chopped in half. Two women wrapped in furs sit on the terrace. A man in a boat . . .

A looking glass and a tapestry.

Ciri jerks her head up. Eredin Bréacc Glas is sitting opposite, on the other side of the table.

‘You can’t not know,’ he says, showing his even teeth in a smile, ‘that you’re only delaying the inevitable. You belong to us and we’ll catch you.’

‘Like hell!’

‘You will return to us. You will roam a little around places and times, then you’ll reach the Spiral and we’ll catch you in it. You will never return to your world or time. It’s too late, in any case. There’s nothing for you to return to. The people you knew died long ago. Their graves are overgrown and have caved in. Their names have been forgotten. Your name also.’

‘You’re lying! I don’t believe you!’

‘Your beliefs are your private matter. I repeat, you’ll soon reach the Spiral, and I’ll be waiting there for you. You desire that secretly, don’t you, me elaine luned?’

‘You’ve got to be talking rubbish!’

‘We Aen Elle sense things like that. You were fascinated by me, you desired me and feared that desire. You desired me and you still desire me, Zireael. Me. My hands. My touch . . .’

Feeling a touch, she leaped up, knocking over a cup, which was fortunately empty. She reached for her sword, but calmed down almost at once. She was in The Black Cat inn, she must have dropped off, dozing on the table. The hand that had touched her hair belonged to the portly innkeeper. Ciri wasn’t fond of that kind of familiarity, but kindness and goodness simply radiated from the woman, which she couldn’t pay back with brusqueness. She let herself be stroked on the head, and listened to the melodic, jingling speech with a smile. She was weary.

‘I must ride,’ she said at last.

The woman smiled, jingling melodiously. How does it happen, thought Ciri, what can it be ascribed to, that in all worlds, places and times, in all languages and dialects that one word always sounds comprehensible? And always similar?

‘Yes. I must ride to my mamma. My mamma is waiting for me.’

The innkeeper led her out into the courtyard. Before she found herself in the saddle, the innkeeper suddenly hugged Ciri hard, pressing her against her plump breast.

‘Goodbye. Thank you for having me. Forward, Kelpie.’

She rode straight for the arched bridge over the tranquil river. When the mare’s horseshoes rang on the stones, she looked around. The woman was still standing outside the inn.

Concentration, fists at her temples. A buzzing in her ears, as though from the inside of a conch. A flash. And abruptly soft and black nothingness.

‘Bonne chance, ma fille!’ Thérèse Lapin, the innkeeper of the tavern Au Chat Noir in Pont-sur-Yonne cried after her by the highway running from Melun to Auxerre. ‘Have a pleasant journey!’

*

Concentration, fists at her temples. A buzzing in her ears, as though from the inside of a conch. A flash. And abruptly soft and black nothingness.

A place. A lake. An island. The moon like a sovereign hacked in half, its light lies down on the water in a luminous streak. In the streak a boat, on it a man with a fishing rod . . .

On the terrace of the tower . . . Two women?

*

Condwiramurs couldn’t bear it and screamed in amazement, immediately covering her mouth with her hand. The Fisher King dropped the anchor with a splash, swore gruffly, and then opened his mouth and froze like that. Nimue didn’t even twitch.

The surface of the lake, bisected by a streak of moonlight, vibrated and rippled as though having been struck by a gale. The night air above the lake ruptured, like a smashed stained-glass window cracks. A black horse emerged from the crack. With a rider on its back.

Nimue calmly held out her hands, chanting a spell. The tapestry hanging on the stand suddenly burst into flames, lighting up in an extravaganza of tiny multi-coloured lights. The tiny lights reflected in the oval of the looking glass, danced, teemed in the glass like coloured bees and suddenly flowed out like a rainbow-coloured apparition, a widening streak, making everything as bright as day.

The black mare reared up and neighed wildly. Nimue spread wide her arms violently, and screamed a formula. Condwiramurs, seeing the image forming and growing in the air, focused intently. The image gained in clarity at once. It became a portal. A gate beyond which was visible . . .

A plateau full of shipwrecks. A castle embedded in the sharp rocks of a cliff, towering over the black looking glass of a mountain lake . . .

‘This way!’ Nimue screamed piercingly. ‘This is the way you must take! Ciri, daughter of Pavetta! Enter the portal, take the road leading to your encounter with destiny. May the wheel of time close! May the serpent Ouroboros sink its teeth into its own tail!

‘Roam no more! Hurry, hurry to help your friends! This is the right way, O, witcher girl.’

The mare whinnied again, flailed the air with its hooves once more. The girl in the saddle turned her head, looking now at them, now at the image called up by the tapestry and the looking glass. She brushed her hair aside, and Condwiramurs saw the ugly scar on her cheek.

‘Trust me, Ciri!’ cried Nimue. ‘For you know me! You saw me once!’

‘I remember,’ they heard. ‘I trust you. Thank you.’

They saw the mare spurred on and running with a light and dancing step into the brightness of the portal. Before the image became blurred and dispersed, they saw the ashen-haired girl wave a hand, turned towards them in the saddle.

And then everything vanished. The surface of the lake slowly calmed, the streak of moonlight became smooth again.

It was so quiet they felt they could hear the Fisher King’s wheezing breath.

Holding back the tears welling up in her eyes, Condwiramurs hugged Nimue tightly. She felt the little sorceress tremble. They remained in an embrace for some time. Without a word. Then they both turned around towards the place where the Gate of the Worlds had vanished.

‘Good luck, witcher girl!’ they cried in unison. ‘Good luck!’

Close by that field where the fierce battle took place, where almost the whole force of the North clashed with almost the entire might of the Nilfgaardian invader, were two fishing villages. Old Bottoms and Brenna. Because, however, Brenna was burned down to the ground at that time, it caught on at first to call it the ‘Battle of Old Bottoms’. Today, nonetheless, no one says anything other than the ‘Battle of Brenna’, and there are two reasons for that. Primo, after being rebuilt Brenna is today a large and prosperous settlement, while Old Bottoms did not resist the ravages of time and all trace of it was covered over by nettles, couch grass and burdock. Secundo, somehow that name did not befit that famous, memorable and, at the same time, tragic battle. For, just ask yourself: here was a battle in which more than thirty thousand men laid down their lives, and if Bottoms was not enough, they had to be Old as well.

Thus in all the historical and military literature it became customary only to write the Battle of Brenna – both in the North, and in Nilfgaardian sources, of which, nota bene, there are many more than ours.

The Venerable Jarre of Ellander the Elder.

Annales seu Cronicae Incliti Regni Temeriae

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘Cadet Fitz-Oesterlen, fail. Please sit down. I wish to draw your attention to the fact that lack of knowledge about famous and important battles from the history of our fatherland is embarrassing for every patriot and good citizen, but in the case of a future officer is simply a scandal. I shall take the liberty of making one more small observation, Cadet Fitz-Oesterlen. For twenty years, that is since I’ve been a lecturer at this institution, I don’t recall a diploma exam in which a question about the Battle of Brenna hasn’t come up. Thus, ignorance in this regard virtually rules out any chances of a career in the army. Well, but if one is a baron, one doesn’t have to be an officer, one can try one’s luck in politics. Or in diplomacy. Which I sincerely wish for you, Cadet Fitz-Oesterlen. And let’s return to Brenna, gentlemen. Cadet Puttkammer!’

‘Present!’

‘Please come to the map. And continue. From the point where eloquence gave up on the lord baron.’

‘Yes sir. The reason Field Marshal Menno Coehoorn decided to execute a manoeuvre and a rapid march westwards were the reports from reconnaissance informing that the army of the Nordlings was coming to the relief of the besieged fortress of Mayena. The marshal decided to cut off the Nordlings’ progress and force them into a decisive battle. To this end he divided the forces of the Centre Army Group. He left some of his men at Mayena, and set off at a rapid march with the rest of his troops—’

‘Cadet Puttkammer! You aren’t a novelist. You’re to be an officer! What kind of expression is: “the rest of his troops”? Please give me the exact ordre de bataille of Marshal Coehoorn’s strike force. Using military terminology!’

‘Yes, Captain. Field Marshal Coehoorn had two armies under his command: The 4th Horse Army, commanded by Major General Markus Braibant, our school’s patron—’

‘Very good, Cadet Puttkammer.’

‘Damn toady,’ hissed Cadet Fitz—Oesterlen from his desk.

‘—and the 3rd Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Rhetz de Mellis-Stoke. The 4th Horse Army consisted of, numbering over twenty thousand soldiers: the Venendal Division, the Magne Division, the Frundsberg Division, the 2nd Vicovarian Brigade, the 3rd Daerlanian Brigade and the Nauzicaa and Vrihedd Divisions. The 3rd Army consisted of: the Alba Division, the Deithwen Division and . . . hmmm . . . and the . . .’

*

‘The Ard Feainn Division,’ stated Julia ‘Pretty Kitty’ Abatemarco. ‘If you haven’t ballsed anything up, of course. They definitely had a large silver sun on their gonfalon?’

‘Yes, Colonel,’ stated the reconnaissance commander firmly. ‘Without doubt, they did!’

‘Ard Feainn,’ murmured Pretty Kitty. ‘Hmmm . . . Interesting. That would mean that not only the horse army but also part of the 3rd are coming for us in those columns you supposedly saw. No, sir! Nothing on faith alone! I have to see it with my own eyes. Captain, during my absence you command the company. I order you to send a liaison officer to Colonel Pangratt—’

‘But, Colonel, is that wise, to go yourself—’

‘That’s an order!’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘It’s sheer lunacy, Colonel!’ the commander of the reconnaissance outshouted the rush of the gallop. ‘We might run into some elven patrol—’

‘Don’t talk! Lead on!’

The small troop galloped hard down the gorge, flashed like the wind down the stream’s valley and rushed into a forest. Here they had to slow down. The undergrowth impeded riding, and furthermore they were indeed in danger of suddenly happening upon reconnaissance troops or pickets, which the Nilfgaardians had undoubtedly sent. The party of mercenaries had admittedly stolen up on the enemy from the flank, not head on, but the flanks were certainly also guarded. The game was thus as risky as hell. But Pretty Kitty liked games like that. And there wasn’t a soldier in the entire Free Company who wouldn’t have followed her. All the way to hell.

‘It’s here,’ said the commander of the reconnaissance. ‘The tower.’

Julia Abatemarco shook her head. The tower was crooked, ruined, bristling with broken beams forming a latticework through which the wind, blowing from the west, played as though on a tin whistle. It wasn’t known who had built the tower here, in a wilderness, or why. But it was apparent it had been built a long time before.

‘It won’t collapse?’

‘Certainly not, Colonel.’

‘Sir’ wasn’t used among the mercenaries of the Free Company. Or ‘madam’. Only rank. Julia climbed to the top of the tower, almost running up. The reconnaissance commander only joined a minute later, panting like a bull covering a heifer. Leaning on the crooked railing, Pretty Kitty surveyed the valley using a telescope, sticking her tongue between her lips and sticking out her shapely rear. The reconnaissance commander felt a quiver of excitement at the sight. He quickly controlled himself.

‘Ard Feainn, there’s no doubt.’ Julia Abatemarco licked her lips. ‘I can also see Elan Trahe’s Daerlanians, there are also elves from the Vrihedd Brigade, our old friends from Maribor and Mayena . . . Aha! There are also the Death’s Heads, the famous Nauzicaa Brigade. I can also see the flames on the pennants of the Deithwen armoured division. And a white standard with a black alerion, the sign of the Alba Division . . .’

‘You recognise them,’ murmured the reconnaissance commander, ‘as though they were friends . . . Are you so well-informed?’

‘I’m a graduate of the military academy,’ Pretty Kitty cut him off. ‘I’m a qualified officer. Good, I’ve seen what I wanted to see. Let’s return to the company.’

*

‘The 4th and 3rd Horse are making for us,’ said Julia Abatemarco. ‘I repeat, the whole of the 4th Horse and probably the whole of the cavalry of the 3rd Army. A cloud of dust was rising into the sky behind the standards that I saw. By my reckoning, forty thousand horse are heading this way in those three columns. And maybe more. Perhaps—’

‘Perhaps Coehoorn has divided up the Centre Army Group,’ finished Adam ‘Adieu’ Pangratt, leader of the Free Company. ‘He only took the 4th Horse and the cavalry from the 3rd, without infantry, in order to move quicker . . . Ha, Julia, were I in the place of Constable Natalis or King Foltest—’

‘I know,’ Pretty Kitty’s eyes flashed. ‘I know what you’d do. Have you sent runners to them?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Natalis is nobody’s fool. Perhaps, tomorrow—’

‘Perhaps.’ Adieu didn’t let her finish. ‘And I even think that will happen. Spur your horse, Julia. I want to show you something.’

They rode a few furlongs, quickly, pulling a long way ahead of the rest of the soldiers. The sun was almost touching the hills in the west, the wetland forests cloaked the valley in a long shadow. But enough could be seen for Pretty Kitty to guess at once what Adieu Pangratt had meant to show her.

‘Here,’ Adieu confirmed her speculation, standing up in the stirrups. ‘I would engage the enemy here tomorrow. If the command of the army were mine.’

‘Nice terrain,’ agreed Julia Abatemarco. ‘Level, hard, smooth . . . There’s room to form up . . . Hmmm . . . From those hills to those fishponds there . . . It’ll be some three miles . . . That hill, there, is a perfect command position . . .’

‘You’re right. And there, look, in the centre, there’s one more small lake or fishpond. It’s sparkling over there. It can be taken advantage of . . . That little river is suitable for a border, because although it’s small, it’s marshy . . . What’s that river called, Julia? We rode that way yesterday, didn’t we? Do you remember?’

‘I’ve forgotten. I think it’s the Halter. Or something like that.’

*

Whoever knows those parts can easily imagine the whole thing, while to those who are less well travelled I shall reveal that the left wing of the royal army reached the place where today the settlement of Brenna is located. At the time of the battle there was no settlement, for the year before it had been sent up in smoke by the Squirrel elves and had burned down to the ground. For there, on the left wing, stood the Redanian royal corps, which the Count of Ruyter was commanding. And there were eight thousand foot and frontline horse in that corps.

The centre of the royal formation stood beside a hill later to be named Gallows Hill. There, on the hill, stood with their detachment King Foltest and Constable Jan Natalis, having a prospect of the whole battlefield from high up. Here the main forces of our army were gathered – twelve thousand brave Temerian and Redanian infantrymen formed in four great squares, protected by ten cavalry companies, standing right at the northern end of the fishpond, called Golden Pond by local folk. The central formation, meanwhile, had a reserve regiment in the second line – three thousand Vizimian and Mariborian foot, over which Voivode Bronibor held command.

From the southern edge of Golden Pond, however, up to the row of fishponds and a bend in the River Chotla, to the marches a mile wide, stood the right wing of our army, the Volunteer Regiment formed of Mahakam dwarves, eight companies of light horse and companies of the eminent Free Mercenary Company. The condottiero Adam Pangratt and dwarf Barclay Els commanded the right wing.

Field Marshal Menno Coehoorn deployed the Nilfgaardian Army opposite them, about a mile or two away, on a bare field beyond the forest. Iron—hard men stood there like a black wall, regiment by regiment, company by company, squadron by squadron, endless it seemed, as far as the eye could see. And, from the forest of standards and spears, one could deduce that it was not just a broad but a deep array. For it was an army of six and forty thousand, which few knew about at that time, and just as well, because at the sight of that Nilfgaardian might many hearts sank somewhat.

And hearts started to beat beneath the breastplates of even the bravest, started to beat like hammers, for it became patent that a heavy and bloody battle would soon begin and many of those who stood in that array would not see the sunset.

Jarre, holding his spectacles which were sliding off his nose, read the entire passage of text once again, sighed, rubbed his pate, and then picked up a sponge, squeezing it a little and rubbing out the last sentence.

The wind soughed in the leaves of a linden tree and bees buzzed. The children, as children will, tried hard to outshout another.

A ball which had rolled across the grass came to rest against the foot of the old man. Before he managed to bend over, clumsy and ungainly, one of his grandchildren flashed past like a little wolf cub, grabbing the ball in full flight. He knocked the table, which began to rock, and Jarre saved the inkwell from falling over with his right hand, holding down the sheets of paper with the stump of his left.

The bees buzzed, heavy with tiny yellow balls of acacia pollen.

Jarre took up his writing again.

The morning was cloudy, but the sun broke through the clouds and its height clearly signalled the passing of the hours. A wind got up; pennants fluttered and flapped like flocks of birds taking flight. And Nilfgaard stood on, stood on, until everyone began to wonder why Marshal Menno Coehoorn did not give his order to march forward . . .

*

‘When?’ Menno Coehoorn raised his head from the maps and turned his gaze on his commanders. ‘When, you ask, will I give the order to begin?’

No one said anything. Menno quickly looked his commanders up and down. The most anxious and nervous seemed to be those who were going to remain in reserve – Elan Trahe, commander of the 7th Daerlanian, and Kees van Lo of the Nauzicaa Brigade. Ouder de Wyngalt, the marshal’s aide-de—camp, who had the least chance of active involvement in the fighting, was also nervous.

Those who were to strike first looked composed, why, even bored. Markus Braibant was yawning. Lieutenant General Rhetz de Mellis-Stoke kept sticking his little finger in his ear, pulling it out and looking at it, as though really expecting to find something worthy of his attention. Oberst Ramon Tyrconnel, the young commander of the Ard Feainn Division, whistled softly, fixing his gaze on a point on the horizon known only to him. Oberst Liam aep Muir Moss of the Deithwen Division turned the pages of his ever-present slim volume of poetry. Tibor Eggebracht of the Alba Heavy Lancers scratched the back of his neck with the end of a riding crop.

‘We shall begin the attack,’ said Coehoorn, ‘as soon as the patrols return. Those hills to the north trouble me, gentlemen. Before we strike I must know what is behind them.’

*

Lamarr Flaut was afraid. He was terribly afraid, and the fear was creeping over his innards. It seemed to him he had at least twelve slimy eels covered in stinking mucus in his intestines, doggedly searching for an opening they would be able to escape through. An hour earlier, when the patrol had received its orders and set off, Flaut had hoped deep down that the cool of the morning would drive away the terror, hoped that routine, practised ritual, the hard and severe ceremony of service would quell the fear. He was disappointed. Only now, after an hour had passed and after travelling some five miles, far, dangerously far from his comrades, deep, hazardously deep in enemy territory, close, mortally close to unknown danger, had the fear showed what it was capable of.

They stopped at the edge of a fir forest, prudently not emerging from behind the large juniper bushes growing at the edge. A wide basin stretched out before them, beyond a belt of low spruces. Fog trailed over the tops of the grass.

‘No one,’ judged Flaut. ‘Not a soul. Let’s go back. We’re a little too far already.’

The sergeant looked at him askance. Far? We’ve barely ridden a mile. And crawling along like lame tortoises, at that.

‘It’d be worth,’ he said, ‘having a look beyond that hill, Lieutenant. I reckon the prospect will be better from there. A long way, over both valleys. If someone’s heading that way, we can’t not see them. Well then? Do we ride over, sir? It’s no more than a few furlongs.’

A few furlongs, thought Flaut. Over open ground, totally exposed. The eels squirmed, violently searching for a way out of his guts. At least one, Flaut felt clearly, was well on its way.

I heard the clank of a stirrup. The snorting of a horse. Over there, among the vivid green of young pines on a sandy slope. Did something move there? A figure?

Are they surrounding us?

A rumour was going around the camp that a few days earlier the mercenaries of the Free Company, having wiped out a patrol of the Vrihedd Brigade in an ambush, had taken an elf alive. It was said they’d castrated him, torn his tongue out and cut off all his fingers . . . And finally gouged out his eyes. Now, they had jeered, you won’t frolic with your elven whore in any fashion. And you won’t even be able to watch her when she frolics with others.

‘Well, sir?’ the sergeant cleared his throat. ‘Shall we nip up that hill?’

Lamarr Flaut swallowed.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We cannot dally. We’ve ascertained it: there’s no enemy here. We must give a dispatch on it to headquarters. Back we go!’

*

Menno Coehoorn listened to the dispatch and raised his head from the maps.

‘To your companies,’ he ordered briefly. ‘Mr Braibant, Mr Mellis-Stoke. Attack!’

‘Long live the Emperor!’ yelled Tyrconnel and Eggebracht. Menno looked at them strangely.

‘To your companies,’ he repeated. ‘May the Great Sun enlighten your glory.’

*

Milo Vanderbeck, halfling, field surgeon, known as Rusty, greedily breathed into his nostrils the heady blend of the smells of iodine, ammonia, alcohol, ether and magical elixirs hanging beneath the tent roof. He wanted to enjoy that aroma to the full now, while it was still healthy, pure, virginally uncontaminated and clinically sterile. He knew it wouldn’t stay like that for long.

He glanced at the operating table – also virginally white – and at the surgical instruments, at the dozens of tools which inspired respect and confidence by the cool and menacing dignity of their cold steel, the pristine cleanliness of the metal sheen, the order and aesthetics of their arrangement.

His staff – three women – busied themselves around the instruments. Rusty spat and made a correction in his thoughts. One woman and two girls. He spat again. One old, though beautiful and young-looking, grandmother. And two children.

A sorceress and healer, called Marti Sodergren. And the volunteers. Shani, a student from Oxenfurt. Iola, a priestess from the Temple of Melitele in Ellander.

I know Marti Sodergren, thought Rusty, I’ve already worked with that beauty more than once. A bit of a nymphomaniac, she’s also prone to hysteria, but that’s nothing, as long as her magic works. Anaesthetic, disinfectant and blood—staunching spells.

Iola. A priestess, or rather a novice. A girl with looks as plain and dull as linen, with long, strong peasant hands. The temple had prevented those hands from becoming tainted by the ugly mark of heavy and dirty slogging on the soil. But it hadn’t managed to disguise their descent.

No, thought Rusty, I’m not afraid for her, by and large. Those peasant woman’s hands are sure hands, trustworthy hands. Besides, girls from temples seldom disappoint, they don’t cave in at moments of despair, but seek comfort in religion, in their mystical faith. Interestingly, it helps.

He glanced at red-haired Shani, nimbly threading curved needles with catgut.

Shani. A child from reeking city backstreets, who made it to the Academy of Oxenfurt thanks to her own thirst for knowledge and the unimaginable sacrifices of her parents in paying her fees. A schoolgirl. A jester. A cheerful scamp. What does she know? How to thread needles? Put on tourniquets? Hold retractors? Ha, the question is: when will the little red—haired student faint, drop the retractors and tumble nose—first into the open belly of a patient being operated on?

People aren’t very hardy, he thought. I asked to be given an elf woman. Or somebody from my own race. But no. There’s no trust.

Not towards me either, as a matter of fact.

I’m a halfling. An unhuman.

A stranger.

‘Shani!’

‘Yes, Mr Vanderbeck?’

‘Rusty. I mean, to you it’s “Mr Rusty”. What’s this, Shani? And what’s it for?’

‘Are you testing me, Mr Rusty?’

‘Answer, girl!’

‘It’s a raspatory! For stripping the periosteum during amputations! So that the periosteum doesn’t crack under the teeth of the saw, to make the sawing clean and smooth! Satisfied? Did I pass?’

‘Quiet, girl, quiet.’

He raked his fingers through his hair.

Interesting, he thought. There are four of us doctors here. And each one’s ginger! Is it fate or what?

‘Please step outside the tent, girls,’ he beckoned.

They obeyed, though all of them snorted to themselves. Each in her own way.

Outside the tent sat a cluster of orderlies enjoying the last minutes of sweet idleness. Rusty cast a severe glance at them, and sniffed to check if they were already plastered.

A blacksmith, a huge fellow, was bustling around by his table which resembled a torture chamber, and organising his tools which served to pull the wounded out of suits of armour, mail shirts and bent visors.

‘In a moment, over there,’ began Rusty without introductions, indicating the field, ‘people will start slaughtering each other. And a moment after that moment the first casualties will appear. Everyone knows what they’re supposed to do, each one of us knows their duties and their place. If everyone obeys what they ought to obey nothing can go wrong. Clear?’

None of the ‘girls’ commented.

‘Over there,’ continued Rusty, pointing again, ‘almost a hundred thousand soldiers will begin to wound each other. In very elaborate ways. There are, including the other two hospitals, twelve of us doctors. Not for all the world will we manage to help all those that are in need. Not even a scanty percentage of those in need. No one expects that.

‘But we’re going to treat them. Because it is, excuse the banality, our raison d’être. To help those in need. So we shall banally help as many as we manage to help.’

Once again no one commented. Rusty turned around.

‘We won’t manage to do much more than we’re capable of,’ he said more quietly and more warmly. ‘But we shall all do our best to make sure it won’t be much less.’

*

‘They’ve set off,’ stated Constable Jan Natalis, and wiped his sweaty hand on his hip. ‘Your Majesty, Nilfgaard has set off. They’re heading for us!’

King Foltest brought his dancing horse, a grey in a trapping decorated with lilies, under control. He turned his beautiful profile, worthy of featuring on coins, towards the constable.

‘Then we must receive them with dignity. Constable, sir! Gentlemen!’

‘Death to the Black Cloaks!’ yelled the mercenary Adam ‘Adieu’ Pangratt and Graf de Ruyter in unison. The constable looked at them, then straightened up and breathed in deeply.

‘To your companies!’

From a distance the Nilfgaardian war drums thundered dully, crumhorns, oliphants and battle horns wailed. The ground, struck by thousands of hooves, shuddered.

*

‘Here they come,’ said Andy Biberveldt, a halfling and the leader of the convoy, brushing the hair from his small, pointed ear. ‘Any moment . . .’

Tara Hildebrandt, Didi “Brewer” Hofmeier and the other carters who were gathered around him nodded. They could also hear the dull, monotonous thud of hooves coming from behind the hill and forest. They could feel the trembling of the ground.

The roar suddenly increased, jumping a tone higher.

‘The archers’ first salvo.’ Andy Biberveldt was experienced, and had seen – or rather heard – many a battle. ‘There’ll be another.’

He was right.

‘Now they’ll clash!’

‘We’d beee . . . ttter, geee . . . ttt under the carts,’ suggested William Hardbottom, known as Momotek, fidgeting anxiously. ‘I’m ttttt . . . telling you.’

Biberveldt and the other halflings looked at him with pity. Under the carts? What for? Nearly a quarter of a mile separated them from the site of the battle. And even if a patrol turned up here, at the rear, by the convoys, would hiding under a cart save anyone?

The roaring and rumbling increased.

‘Now,’ Andy Biberveldt judged. And he was right again.

A distinct, macabre noise which made the hair on their heads stand up reached the ears of the victuallers from a distance of a quarter of a mile, from beyond the hill and the forest, through the roaring and the sudden thud of iron smashing against iron.

Squealing. The gruesome, desperate, wild squealing and shrieking of mutilated animals.

‘The cavalry . . .’ Biberveldt licked his lips. ‘The cavalry have impaled themselves on the pikes . . .’

‘I jjjjust,’ stammered out the pale Momotek, ‘ddddon’t know . . . how the horses are to blame . . . the whoresons.’

*

Jarre rubbed out another sentence with a sponge. God only knew how many that made. He squinted his eyes, recalling that day. The moment the two armies clashed. When the two armies, like determined mastiffs, went for each other’s throats, clenched in a mortal grip.

He searched for words he could use to describe it.

In vain.

*

The wedge of cavalry rammed into the square. Like the thrust of a gigantic dagger, the Alba Division crushed everything that was defending access to the living body of the Temerian infantry – the pikes, javelins, halberds, spears, pavises and shields. Like a dagger, the Alba Division thrust into the living body and drew blood. Blood, in which horses now splashed and slid. But the dagger’s blade, though thrust in deep, hadn’t reached the heart or any of the vital organs. The wedge of the Alba Division, instead of smashing and dismembering the Temerian square, thrust in and became stuck. Became lodged in the elastic horde of foot soldiers, as thick as pitch.

At first it didn’t look dangerous. The head and sides of the wedge were made up of elite heavily-armoured companies, and the landsknechts’ edges and blades rebounded from the shields and armour plate like hammers from anvils, and neither was there any way to get through the barding of the steeds. And although every now and then one of the armoured men would tumble from his horse or with his horse, the swords, battle-axes, hatchets and morning stars of the cavalrymen cut down the pressing infantrymen. Trapped in the throng, the wedge shuddered and began to drive in deeper.

‘Albaaa!’ Second Lieutenant Devin aep Meara heard the cry of Oberst Eggebracht soaring above the clanging, roaring, groaning and neighing. ‘Forward, Alba! Long live the Emperor!’

They set off, hacking, clubbing and slashing. Beneath the hooves of the squealing and kicking horses was the sound of splashing, crunching, grinding and snapping.

‘Aaalbaaa!’

The wedge became caught again. The landsknechts, although thinned out and bloodied, didn’t yield, but pressed forward and gripped the cavalry like pliers. Until they cracked. Under the blows of halberds, battle-axes and flails, the armoured troops of the front line caved in and broke. Jabbed by partizans and pikes, hauled from the saddle by the hooks of guisarmes and bear spears, mercilessly pounded by iron balls-and-chains and clubs, the cavalrymen of the Alba Division began to die. The wedge thrust into the square of infantry, which not long before had been menacing iron, cutting into a living body, was now like an icicle in a huge peasant fist.

‘Temeriaaaa! For the king, boys! Kill the Black Cloaks!’

But neither was it coming easily to the landsknechts. Alba didn’t let itself be broken up. Swords and battle-axes rose and fell, hacked and slashed, and the infantry paid a grim price in blood for every horseman knocked from the saddle.

Oberst Eggebracht, stabbed through a slit in his armour by a pike blade as thin as a bodkin, yelled and rocked in the saddle. Before anyone could help him, an awful blow of a flail swept him to the ground. The infantry teemed over him.

The standard with a black alerion bearing a gold perisonium on its chest wobbled and fell.

The armoured soldiers, including also Second Lieutenant Devlin aep Meara, rushed over to it, hacking, hewing, trampling and yelling.

I’d like to know, thought Devlin aep Meara, tugging his sword out of the cloven kettle hat and skull of a Temerian landsknecht. I’d like to know, he thought, deflecting with a sweeping blow the toothed blade of a gisarme which was stabbing at him.

I’d like to know what all this is for. What’s the point of it? And who’s the cause of it?

*

‘Errr . . . And then the convent of the great master sorceresses gathered . . . Our Esteemed Mothers . . . Errr . . . Whose memory will always live among us . . . For . . . Errr . . . the great master sorceresses of the First Lodge . . . decided to . . . Errr . . . Decided to . . .’

‘Novice Abonde. You are unprepared. Fail. Sit down.’

‘But I revised, really—’

‘Sit down.’

‘Why the hell do we have to learn about this ancient history?’ muttered Abonde, sitting down. ‘Who’s bothered about it today? And what use is it?’

‘Silence! Novice Nimue.’

‘Present, mistress.’

‘I can see that. Do you know the answer to the question? If you don’t, sit down and don’t waste my time.’

‘Yes I do.’

‘Go on.’

‘So, the chronicles teach us that the convent of master sorceresses gathered at Bald Mountain Castle to decide on how to end the damaging war that the emperor of the South was waging with the kings of the North. Esteemed Mother Assire, the holy martyr, said that the rulers would not stop fighting until they had lost a lot of men. And Esteemed Mother Philippa, the holy martyr, answered: “Let us then give them a great and bloody, awful and cruel battle. Let us bring about such a battle. Let the emperor’s armies and the kings’ forces run in blood in that battle, and then we, the Great Lodge, shall force them to make peace”. And this is precisely what happened. The Esteemed Mothers caused the Battle of Brenna to happen. And the rulers were forced to sign the Peace of Cintra.’

‘Very good, novice Nimue. I’d have given you a starred A grade . . . Had it not been for that “so” at the beginning of your contribution. We don’t begin sentences with “so”. Sit down. And now, who’ll tell us about the Peace of Cintra?’

The bell for the break rang. But the novices didn’t react with immediate uproar and the banging of desktops. They maintained a peaceful and dignified silence. They weren’t chits from the kindergarten now. They were third-formers! They were fourteen!

And that carried certain expectations.

*

‘Well, there’s not much to add here.’ Rusty assessed the condition of the first wounded man who was right then sullying the immaculate white of the table. ‘Crushed thighbone . . . The artery is intact, otherwise they would have brought us a corpse. It looks like an axe blow, and at the same time the saddle’s hard pommel acted like a woodcutter’s chopping block. Please look . . .’

Shani and Iola bent over. Rusty rubbed his hands.

‘As I said, nothing to add. All we can do is take away. To work. Iola! Tourniquet, tightly. Shani, knife. Not that one. The double-bladed one. For amputations.’

The wounded man couldn’t tear his restless gaze from their hands, tracked their movements with the eyes of a terrified animal caught in a snare.

‘A little magic, Marti, if you please,’ nodded the halfling, leaning over the patient so as to fill his entire field of vision. ‘I’m going to amputate, son.’

‘Nooooo!’ yelled the injured man, thrashing his head around and trying hard to escape from Marti Sodergren’s hands. ‘I don’t waant tooo!’

‘If I don’t amputate, you die.’

‘I’d rather die . . .’ The wounded man was speaking slower and slower under the effect of the healer’s magic. ‘I’d rather die than be a cripple . . . Let me die . . . I beg you . . . Let me die!’

‘I can’t.’ Rusty raised the knife, looked at the blade, at the still shining, immaculate steel. ‘I can’t let you die. For it so happens that I’m a doctor.’

He stuck the blade in decisively and cut deeply. The wounded man howled. For a human, inhumanly.

*

The messenger reined in his horse so hard that turf sprayed from its hooves. Two adjutants clutched the bridle and calmed down the foaming steed. The messenger dismounted.

‘From whom?’ shouted Jan Natalis. ‘From whom do you come?’

‘From Graf de Ruyter . . .’ the messenger panted. ‘We’ve held the Black Cloaks. . . But there are severe casualties . . . Graf de Ruyter requests reinforcements . . .’

‘There are no reinforcements,’ the constable replied after a moment’s silence. ‘You must hold out. You must!’

*

‘And here,’ Rusty indicated with the expression of a collector showing off his collection, ‘please look at the beautiful result of a cut to the belly . . . Someone has helped us somewhat by previously conducting an amateur laparotomy on the poor wretch. It’s good he was carried carefully, none of his more important organs have been lost . . . I mean, I assume they haven’t been. What’s up with him, Shani, in your opinion? Why such a face, girl? Have you only known men from the outside before today?’

‘The intestines are damaged, Mr Rusty . . .’

‘A diagnosis as accurate as it is obvious! One doesn’t even have to look, it’s enough to sniff. A cloth, Iola. Marti, there’s still too much blood, be so kind as to give us a little more of your priceless magic. Shani, clamp. Put on some arterial forceps, you can see it’s pouring, can’t you? Iola, knife.’

‘Who’s winning?’ suddenly asked the man being operated on, quite lucidly, although he mumbled a little, rolling his goggling eyes. ‘Tell me . . . who . . . is winning?’

‘Son.’ Rusty stooped over the open, bloody and throbbing abdominal cavity. ‘That really is the last thing I’d be worrying about in your shoes.’

*

. . . Cruel and bloody fighting then began on the left wing and the centre of the line, but here, though great was Nilfgaard’s fierceness and impetus, their charge broke on the royal army like an ocean wave breaks on a rock. For here stood the select soldiers, the valiant Mariborian, Vizimian and Tretorian armoured companies, and also the dogged landsknechts, the professional soldiers of fortune, whom cavalry could not frighten.

And thus they fought, truly like the sea against a rocky cliff, thus continued the battle in which you could not guess who had the upper hand, for although the waves endlessly beat against the rock, not weakening, and they only fell back to strike anew, the rock stood on, as it had always stood, still visible among the turbulent waves.

The battle unfolded in a different way on the right wing of the royal army.

Like an old sparrowhawk that knows where to stoop and peck its prey to death, so Field Marshal Menno Coehoorn knew where to aim his blows. Clenching in his iron fist his select divisions, the Deithwen lancers and the armoured Ard Feainn, he struck at the junction of the line above Golden Pond, where the companies from Brugge stood. Although the Bruggeans resisted heroically, they turned out to be more weakly accoutred, both in armour and in spirit, than their foes. They did not weather the Nilfgaardian advance. Two companies of the Free Company under the old condottiero Adam Pangratt went to their aid and held back Nilfgaard, paying a severe price in blood. But the awful threat of being surrounded stared the dwarves of the Volunteer Regiment standing on the right flank in the face, and the severing of the array imperilled the whole royal army.

Jarre dipped his quill pen in the inkwell. His grandchildren further away in the orchard were shouting, their laughter ringing like little glass bells.

Jan Natalis, nonetheless, attentive as a crane, had noticed the menacing danger, and understood in an instant which way the wind was blowing. And without delay sent a messenger to the dwarves with an order for Colonel Els . . .

*

In all his seventeen-year-old naivety, Cornet Aubry believed that to reach the right wing, deliver the order and return to the hill would take him ten minutes at most. Absolutely no more! Not on Chiquita, a mare as nimble and fleet as a hind.

Even before he had arrived at Golden Pond, the cornet had become aware of two things: there was no telling when he’d reach the right wing, and there was no way of telling when he’d manage to return. And that Chiquita’s fleetness would come in very handy.

Fighting was raging on the battlefield to the east of Golden Pond. The Black Cloaks and the Bruggean horse protecting the infantry array were smiting each other. In front of the cornet’s eyes figures in green, yellow and red cloaks suddenly shot out like sparks, like the glass of a stained-glass window, from the whirl of the battle, chaotically bolting towards the River Chotla. Nilfgaardians flooded like a black river behind them.

Aubry pulled his mare back hard, jerked the reins, ready to turn tail and flee, get out of the way of the fugitives and the pursuers. A sense of duty took the upper hand. The cornet pressed himself to his horse’s neck and galloped at breakneck speed.

All around was yelling and hoof beats, a kaleidoscopic twinkling of figures, the flashes of swords, clanging and thudding. Some of the Bruggeans who were pressed against the fishpond were putting up desperate resistance, herding together around a standard bearing an anchored cross. The Black Cloaks were slaughtering the scattered and exposed infantry.

The view was obscured by a black cloak with the symbol of a silver sun.

‘Evgyr, Nordling!’

Aubry yelled, and Chiquita, excited by the cry, give a truly deer-like bound, saving Aubry’s life by carrying him out of range of the Nilfgaardian sword. Arrows and bolts suddenly howled over his head, figures flickered before his eyes again.

Where am I? Where are my comrades? Where is the enemy?

‘Evgyr morv, Nordling!’

Thudding, clanking, neighing of horses, shouts.

‘Stand, you little shit! Not that way!’

A woman’s voice. A woman on a black stallion, in armour, with hair blown around, her face covered in spots of blood. Beside her armoured horsemen.

‘Who are you?’ The woman smeared the blood on her sword with a fist.

‘Cornet Aubry . . . Constable Natalis’ Flügel-Adjutant . . . With orders for Colonels Pangratt and Els—’

‘You have no chance of getting to where Adieu is fighting. We’ll ride to the dwarves. I’m Julia Abatemarco . . . To horse, dammit! They’re surrounding us! At the gallop!’

He didn’t have time to protest. There was no point anyway.

After some furious galloping, a mass of infantry emerged from the dust, a square, encased like a tortoise in a wall of pavises, like a pincushion bristling with spear blades. A great gold standard with crossed hammers fluttered over the square and beside it rose up a pole with horsetails and human skulls.

The square was being attacked by Nilfgaardians, who were darting forwards and jumping back like dogs worrying a beggar swinging a cane. The Ard Feainn Division, owing to the great suns on their cloaks, could not be mistaken for any other.

‘Fight, Free Company!’ yelled the woman, whirling her sword around in a moulinet. ‘Let’s earn our pay!’

The horsemen – and with them Cornet Aubry – charged the Nilfgaardians.

The clash only lasted a few moments. But it was terrible. Then the wall of pavises opened before them. They found themselves inside the square, in a crush, amongst dwarves in mail shirts, basinets and pointed chichak helmets, amongst the Redanian infantry, light Bruggean horse and armoured condottieri.

Julia Abatemarco – Pretty Kitty, condottiero, Aubry only now recognised her – dragged him in front of a pot-bellied dwarf in a chichak helmet decorated with a splendid plume, sitting awkwardly on an armoured Nilfgaardian horse, in a lancer’s saddle with large pommels, which he had clambered into to be able to see over the heads of the infantrymen.

‘Colonel Barclay Els?’

The dwarf nodded his plume-helmeted head, noticing with evident appreciation the blood with which the cornet and his mare were sprayed. Aubry blushed involuntarily. It was the blood of the Nilfgaardians whom the condottieri had hacked down just beside him. He himself hadn’t even managed to draw his sword.

‘Cornet Aubry . . .’

‘The son of Anzelm Aubry?’

‘His youngest.’

‘Ha! I know your father! What have you brought me from Natalis and Foltest, Cornet, my boy?’

‘You are threatened by a breach in the centre of the line . . . The constable orders the Volunteer Regiment to pull back the wing as soon as possible, and retreat to Golden Pond and the River Chotla . . . In order to reinforce—’

His words were drowned out by roaring, clanging and the squealing of horses. Aubry suddenly realised how absurd the orders he had brought were. What little significance those orders had for Barclay Els, for Julia Abatemarco, for that dwarven square under a gold standard with hammers fluttering over the surrounding black sea of Nilfgaard, attacking them from all sides.

‘I’m late . . .’ he whimpered. ‘I arrived too late . . .’

Pretty Kitty snorted. Barclay Els grinned.

‘No, little cornet, son,’ he said. ‘It was Nilfgaard that came too soon.’

*

‘Congratulations to you, ladies, and to me, on a successful segmentectomy of the small and large bowel, splenectomy, and a liver suture. I draw your attention to the time it took to remove the consequences of what was done to our patient in a split second during the battle. I recommend that as material for philosophical reflections. Miss Shani will sew up the patient.’

‘But I’ve never done it before, Mr Rusty!’

‘You have to start sometime. Red to red, yellow to yellow, white to white. Sew like that and it’s sure to be fine.’

*

‘What the hell?’ Barclay Els twisted his beard. ‘What are you saying, little cornet? Anzelm Aubry’s youngest son? That we’re just loafing around here? We didn’t even fucking budge in the face of the enemy! We didn’t budge an inch! It ain’t our fault the men from Brugge didn’t hold out!’

‘But the order—’

‘I don’t give a shit about the order!’

‘If we don’t fill the breaches,’ Pretty Kitty shouted over the commotion, ‘the Black Cloaks will break the front! They’ll break the front! Open the array, Barclay! I’m going to strike! I’ll get through!’

‘They’ll slaughter you before you get to the fishpond! You’ll perish senselessly!’

‘So what do you suggest?’

The dwarf swore, tore his helmet from his head and hurled it to the ground. His eyes were savage, bloodshot, dreadful.

Chiquita, frightened by the yells, danced beneath the cornet, as far as the crush permitted.

‘Summon Yarpen Zigrin and Dennis Cranmer! Pronto!’

It was apparent at first glance that the two dwarves had come from the heaviest fighting. They were both bespattered with blood. The steel spaulder of one of them bore the mark of a cut so powerful it had bent the edges of the metal plating outwards. The head of the other dwarf was wrapped in a rag oozing blood.

‘Everything in order, Zigrin?’

‘I wonder,’ panted the dwarf, ‘why everyone’s asking that?’

Barclay Els turned around, found the cornet’s gaze and stared hard at him.

‘So, Anzelm’s youngest son?’ he rasped. ‘The king and the constable have ordered us to go to them and support them? Well, keep your eyes wide open, little cornet. This’ll be worth seeing.’

*

‘Sod it!’ roared Rusty, springing back from the table and brandishing his scalpel. ‘Why? Blast it, why does it have to be like this?’

No one answered him. Marti Sodergren just spread her arms. Shani bowed her head and Iola sniffed.

The patient who had just died was looking upwards, and his eyes were unmoving and glazed.

*

‘Strike, kill! Confusion to the whoresons!’

‘Keep in line!’ Barclay Els roared. ‘Keep an even step! Hold the line! And keep close! Close!’

They won’t believe, thought Cornet Aubry. They’ll never believe me when I tell them about it. This square is fighting in a total encirclement . . . Surrounded on all sides by cavalry, being torn, hacked, pounded and stabbed . . . And the square is marching. It’s marching in line, serried, pavise by pavise. It’s marching, trampling and stepping over corpses, pushing the élite Ard Feainn Division in front of it . . . And it’s marching.

‘Fight!’

‘Even step! Even step!’ bellowed Barclay Els. ‘Hold the line! The song, for fuck’s sake, the song! Our song! Forward, Mahakam!’

Several thousand dwarven throats yelled the famous Mahakam battle song.

Hooouuuu! Hooouuu! Hou!

Just wait! Don’t be hasty!

Things will very soon get tasty!

This shambles will fall apart

Shaken to its very heart!

Hoooouuuu! Hooouuu! Hou!

‘Fight! Free Company!’ Julia Abatemarco’s high-pitched soprano cut into the throaty roar of the dwarves, like the thin, keen edge of a misericorde. The condottieri, breaking free of the line, counter-struck the cavalry attacking the square. It was a truly suicidal stroke, as the entire momentum of the Nilfgaardian offensive turned onto the mercenaries, now deprived of the protection of the dwarven halberds, pikes and pavises. The thudding, yelling and squealing of horses made Cornet Aubry cringe involuntarily in the saddle. Someone struck him in the back and he felt himself drift with his mare, stuck in the crush, towards the greatest confusion and the most terrible slaughter. He tightly gripped his sword hilt which suddenly seemed slippery and strangely unwieldy.

A moment later, carried in front of the line of pavises, he was already hacking around himself like a madman and yelling like a madman.

‘One more time!’ he heard the wild cry of Pretty Kitty. ‘One more shove! You’ll do it, boys! Fight, kill! For the ducat, as gold as the sun! To me, Free Company!’

A helmetless Nilfgaardian rider with a silver sun on his cloak penetrated the line, stood up in his stirrups, and with a terrible blow of his battle axe felled a dwarf along with his pavise, and cleaved open the head of another. Aubry turned in the saddle and hacked backhanded. A sizeable fragment bearing hair flew from the head of the Nilfgaardian, who tumbled to the ground. At the same time the cornet was also struck in the head and fell from the saddle. The crush meant he didn’t end up on the ground immediately, but hung for several seconds, screaming shrilly, between the sky, the earth and the sides of two horses. But although he had the fright of his life, he didn’t have time to experience pain. When he fell, his skull was almost immediately crushed by iron-shod hooves.

*

Sixty-five years later, when asked about that day, about Brenna Field, about the square marching towards Golden Pond over the bodies of friends and enemies, the old woman would smile, wrinkling up even more a face already as shrivelled and dark as a prune. Impatient – or perhaps pretending to be impatient – she waved a trembling, bony hand, grotesquely contorted by arthritis.

‘There was no way,’ she mumbled, ‘that either of the sides could gain the advantage. We were in the middle. In the encirclement. And they were on the outside. And we were simply killing one another. They us, and we them . . . Eck-eck-eeck . . . They us. We them . . .’

The old woman struggled to overcome a coughing fit. Those listeners who were closest saw on her cheek a tear, making its way with difficulty among the wrinkles and old scars.

‘They were just as brave as us,’ mumbled the old dear, who had once been Julia Abatemarco, Pretty Kitty of the Free Mercenary Company. ‘Eck-eck . . . We were all just as brave. Us and them.’

The old woman fell silent. For a long time. Her audience didn’t urge her on, seeing her smile at her recollections. At her glory. At the faces of those who gloriously survived, looming in the fog of oblivion, of forgetting. In order later to be shabbily killed by vodka, drugs and consumption.

‘We were all just as brave,’ finished Julia Abatemarco. ‘Neither of the sides had the strength to be braver. But we . . . We managed to be brave for a minute longer.’

*

‘Marti, I’d be very grateful if you could give us a little more of your wonderful magic! Just a little bit more, just a few ounces! The inside of this poor wretch’s belly is one great goulash, seasoned, additionally, by loads of metal rings from a mail shirt. I can’t do anything while he thrashes about like a fish being gutted! Shani, dammit, hold those retractors! Iola! Are you asleep, dammit? Clamp! Claaampp!’

Iola breathed out heavily, fighting to swallow the saliva filling her mouth. I’m going to faint soon, she thought. I can’t bear it, I can’t bear this any longer, this stench, this ghastly mixture of blood, puke, excrement, urine, the content of intestines, sweat, fear and death. I can’t bear these endless screams any longer, this moaning, these bloodied, slimy hands clinging to me as though I really was their hope, their escape, their life . . . I can’t bear the pointlessness of what we’re doing. Because it is pointless. It’s one great, enormous pointless pit of pointlessness.

I can’t bear the effort and the fatigue. They keep bringing new ones . . . And new ones . . .

I can’t stand it. I’m going to vomit. I’m going to faint. I’ll shame myself.

‘Dressing! Compress! Bowel clamp! Not that one! Soft clamp! Mind what you’re doing! Make another mistake and I’ll smack you in that ginger head! Do you hear? I’ll smack you in that ginger head!’

Great Melitele. Help me. Help me, O goddess.

‘There! Better already! One more clamp, priestess! Clamp on the artery! Good! Good, Iola, keep it up! Marti, mop his eyes and face. And mine too . . .’

*

Where does that pain come from? thought Constable Jan Natalis. What hurts so much?

Aha.

My clenched fists.

*

‘Let’s finish them off!’ yelled Kees van Lo, rubbing his hands. ‘Let’s finish them off, sir! The line’s breaking along the formation, let’s strike! Let’s strike without delay, and by the Great Sun, they’ll fall apart! They’ll scatter!’

Menno Coehoorn was nervously chewing a fingernail, realised they were watching, and quickly took his finger out of his mouth.

‘Let’s strike,’ repeated Kees van Lo calmly, now without emphasis. ‘Nauzicaa’s ready—’

‘Nauzicaa is to stand by,’ said Menno sharply. ‘The Daerlanians, too. Mr Faoiltiarna!’

The commander of the Vrihedd Brigade, Isengrim Faoiltiarna, called the Iron Wolf, turned his awful face – disfigured by a scar running across his forehead, brow, bridge of the nose and cheek – towards the marshal.

‘Strike,’ Menno pointed with his baton. ‘At the junction of Temeria and Redania. Over there.’

The elf saluted. His disfigured face didn’t even twitch, his large eyes didn’t change their expression.

Allies, thought Menno. Confederates. We’re fighting together. Against a common foe.

But I don’t understand them at all, those elves.

They’re somehow alien.

Different.

*

‘Interesting,’ Rusty tried to rub his face with his elbow, but his elbow was also covered in blood. Iola hurried to help him.

‘Curious,’ repeated the surgeon, pointing at the patient. ‘Stabbed by a pitchfork or some sort of two-pronged type of gisarme . . . One of the prongs punctured the heart, there, please look. The chamber undoubtedly perforated, the aorta almost severed. And he was still breathing for a while. Here, on the table. Gored right in the heart, he survived all the way to the table . . .’

‘Do you wish to state,’ a cavalryman from the light volunteer horse asked gloomily, ‘that he’s expired? We bore him from the battle in vain?’

‘Nothing is in vain.’ Rusty didn’t lower his eyes. ‘And for the sake of the truth, then yes, he’s dead, sadly. Exitus. Take him away . . . Oh, bloody hell . . . Take a look, girls.’

Marti Sodergren, Shani and Iola bent over the body. Rusty pulled back the corpse’s eyelid.

‘Ever seen anything like that?’

All three of them shuddered.

‘Yes,’ they all said at the same time. They glanced at each other, as though slightly surprised.

‘I have too,’ said Rusty. ‘It’s a witcher. A mutant. That would explain why he lived so long . . . Was he your comrade-at-arms, men? Or did you bring him here by chance?’

‘He was our comrade, Mr Medic,’ confirmed another volunteer gloomily, a beanpole with a bandaged head. ‘From our squadron, a volunteer like us. Eh, he was a master with a sword. They called him Coën.’

‘And he was a witcher?’

‘Aye. But he was a decent bloke otherwise.’

‘Ha,’ sighed Rusty, seeing four soldiers carrying another casualty on a blood-soaked cloak dripping with blood. He was very young, judging by how shrilly he was wailing.

‘Ha, pity. I would have gladly taken that otherwise decent witcher for a post-mortem. I’m consumed with curiosity, and a paper could be written if one could just take a look inside him . . . But there’s no time! Get the corpse off the table! Shani, water. Marti, disinfection. Iola, pass me . . . Hello, girl, are you shedding tears again? What’s it this time?’

‘Nothing, Mr Rusty. Nothing. Everything’s all right now.’

*

‘I feel,’ repeated Triss Merigold, ‘as though I’ve been robbed.’

Nenneke didn’t answer for a long time, and looked from the terrace towards the temple garden, where the priestesses and novices were busily engaged in their springtime work.

‘You made a choice,’ she finally said. ‘You chose your way, Triss. Your own destiny. Of your own free will. Now isn’t the time for regrets.’

‘Nenneke,’ the sorceress lowered her eyes. ‘I really can’t say anything more than what I’ve said. Believe me and forgive me.’

‘Who am I to forgive you? And what will you get from my forgiving you?’

‘But I can see how you’re glaring at me!’ Triss exploded. ‘You and your priestesses. I can see you asking me questions with your eyes. Like “What are you doing here, witch? Why aren’t you where Iola, Eurneid, Katje and Myrrha are? And Jarre?” ’

‘You’re exaggerating, Triss.’

The sorceress looked into the distance, at the forest, bluish beyond the temple wall, at the smoke of distant campfires.

Nenneke said nothing. She was also far away in her thoughts. Away where the fighting was raging and the blood was flowing. She thought about the girls she’d sent there.

‘They talked me out of it all,’ Triss said.

Nenneke said nothing.

‘They talked me out of it all,’ Triss repeated. ‘So wise, so sensible, so logical . . . How not to believe them when they explained that there are more and less important matters, that one ought to give up the less important ones without a second thought, sacrifice them for the important ones without a trace of regret. That there’s no point saving people you know and love, because they’re individuals, and the fate of individuals is meaningless against the fate of the world. That there’s no point fighting in the defence of virtue, honour and ideals, because they are empty notions. That the real battlefield for the fate of the world is somewhere else completely, that the fight will take place somewhere else. And I feel robbed. Robbed of the chance to commit acts of insanity. I can’t insanely rush to help Ciri, I can’t run and save Geralt and Yennefer like a madwoman. But that’s not all, in the war being waged, in the war to which you sent your girls . . . In the war to which Jarre fled, I’m even refused the chance to stand on the Hill. To stand on the Hill once more. This time with the awareness of a truly conscious and correct decision.’

‘Everybody has their own decision and their own Hill, Triss,’ said the high priestess softly. ‘Everybody. You can’t run away from yours either.’

*

There was a commotion in the entrance to the tent. Another casualty was being carried in, accompanied by several knights. One, in full plate armour, was shouting, giving orders and urging the carriers on.

‘Move, stretcher-bearers! Quicker! Put him here, here! Hey, you, medic!’

‘I’m busy.’ Rusty didn’t even look up. ‘Please put the wounded man on a stretcher. I’ll see to him when I finish.’

‘You’ll see to him immediately, stupid leech! For it is none other than the Most Honourable Count of Garramone!’

‘This hospital—’ Rusty raised his voice, angry, because the broken arrowhead stuck in the casualty’s guts had once again slipped out of his forceps ‘—this hospital has very little in common with democracy. They mainly bring in knights and upward. Barons, counts, marquises, and various others of that ilk. Somehow few care about wounded men of humbler birth. But there is some kind of equality here, nonetheless. That is, on my table.’

‘Eh? You what?’

‘It doesn’t matter—’ Rusty once again stuck a cannula and pair of forceps into the wound ‘—if this one here, from whose guts I’m removing bits of iron, is a peasant, a member of the minor gentry, old nobility or aristocracy. He’s lying on my table. And to me, as I hum to myself, a duke’s worth a jester. Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.’

‘You what?’

‘Your count will have to wait his turn.’

‘You confounded halfling!’

‘Help me, Shani. Take the other forceps. Look out for that artery! Marti, just a little more magic, if you would, we have serious haemorrhaging here.’

The knight took a step forward, teeth and armour grating.

‘I’ll have you hanged!’ he roared. ‘I’ll order you hanged, you unhuman!’

‘Silence, Papebrock,’ the wounded count said with difficulty, biting his lips. ‘Silence. Leave me and get back to the fighting—’

‘No, my lord! Never!’

‘That was an order.’

A thudding and clanging of iron, the snorting of horses and wild cries reached their ears from behind the tent flap. The wounded in the field hospital moaned in various keys.

‘Please look.’ Rusty raised his forceps, showing the splintered arrowhead he had finally extracted. ‘A craftsman made this trinket, supporting a large family thanks to its manufacture, furthermore contributing to the growth of small craftwork, and thus also to general prosperity and universal happiness. And the way this ornament clings to human guts is surely protected by a patent. Long live progress.’

He casually threw the bloody blade into the bin, and glanced at the casualty, who had fainted during the operation.

‘Sew him up and take him away,’ he nodded. ‘If he’s lucky, he’ll survive. Bring me the next in the queue. The one with the gashed head.’

‘That one,’ Marti Sodergren said calmly, ‘just gave up his place. A moment ago.’ Rusty sucked in and exhaled, moved away from the table without unnecessary comments and stood over the wounded count. Rusty’s hands were bloody, and his apron splashed with blood like a butcher. Daniel Etcheverry, the Count of Garramone, paled even more.

‘Well,’ panted Rusty. ‘It’s your turn, Your Grace. Put him on the table. What do we have here? Ha, nothing remains of that joint that could be saved. It’s porridge! It’s pulp! What do you whack each other with, Count, that you smash each other’s bones like that? Well, it’ll hurt a bit, Your Grace. It’ll hurt a bit. But please don’t worry. It’ll be just like it is in a battle. Tourniquet. Knife! We’re going to amputate, Your Grace!’

Daniel Etcheverry, the Count of Garramone, who had put a brave face on it until then, howled like a wolf. Before he clenched his jaws from the pain, Shani quickly slipped a peg of linden wood between his teeth.

*

‘Your Royal Highness! Lord Constable!’

‘Talk, lad.’

‘The Volunteer Regiment and the Free Company are holding the defile near Golden Pond . . . The dwarves and condottieri are holding fast, although they’re awfully bloodied . . . They say Adieu Pangratt’s dead, Frontino’s dead, Julia Abatemarco’s dead . . . All of them, all dead! The Dorian Company, which came to relieve them, is slaughtered . . .’

‘Reserves, my lord constable,’ Foltest said quietly, but clearly. ‘If you want to know my opinion, it’s time to send in the reserves. Have Bronibor throw his infantry at the Black Cloaks! Now! Forthwith! Otherwise they’ll dismember our lines, and that means the end.’

Jan Natalis didn’t answer, now observing the next liaison officer rushing towards them from a distance on a horse spraying flecks of foam.

‘Get your breath back, lad. Get your breath back and speak concisely!’

‘They’ve breached . . . the front . . . the elves of the Vrihedd Brigade. Graf de Ruyter informs Your Graces that . . .’

‘What does he inform us? Talk!’

‘That it’s time to save your lives.’

Jan Natalis raised his eyes heavenwards.

‘Blenckert,’ he said hollowly. ‘May Blenckert come now. Or may the night come.’

*

The ground around the tent trembled beneath hooves, and the tent walls, it seemed, billowed from the intensity of the cries and the neighing of horses. A soldier rushed into the tent, followed close behind by two orderlies.

‘People, flee!’ the soldier bellowed. ‘Save yourselves! Nilfgaard is vanquishing our army! Destruction! Destruction! Defeat!’

‘Clamp!’ Rusty withdrew his face before the stream of blood, a potent and vivid fountain squirting from an artery. ‘Clamp! And a compress! Clamp, Shani! Marti, do something, if you would, about that bleeding . . .’

Someone howled like an animal right beside the tent, briefly, stopping abruptly. A horse squealed, something hit the ground with a clank and a thud. A crossbow bolt punctured the canvas with a crack, hissed and flew out the other side, fortunately too high to threaten the wounded men lying on stretchers.

‘Nilfgaaaaaard!’ the soldier shouted again, in a high, trembling voice. ‘Gentlemen medics! Can’t you hear what I’m saying? Nilfgaard has breached the royal line, they’re coming and murdering! Fleeeee!’

Rusty took a needle from Marti Sodergren, and put in the first suture. The man being operated on hadn’t moved for a long time. But his heart was beating. Visibly.

‘I don’t want to diiiieee!’ yelled one of the conscious wounded. The soldier cursed, dashed for the exit, suddenly yelled, crashed backwards, splashing blood, and tumbled onto the dirt floor. Iola, kneeling by the stretchers, leaped to her feet, and stepped back.

It suddenly went quiet.

Not good, thought Rusty, seeing who was entering the tent. Elves. Silver lightning bolts. The Vrihedd Brigade. The notorious Vrihedd Brigade.

‘A field hospital,’ the first of the elves stated. He was tall, with a pretty, oval, expressive face with large, cornflower blue eyes. ‘Treating the wounded?’

No one said anything. Rusty felt his hands begin to tremble. He quickly handed the needle to Marti. He saw Shani’s forehead and the bridge of her nose pale.

‘So what’s this about?’ said the elf, drawling his words menacingly. ‘Why do we wound our foes over there on the battlefield? Over there in the fighting we inflict wounds so men will die from them. And you treat them. I observe an absolute lack of logic here. And a conflict of interests.’

He stooped over and thrust his sword almost without a swing into the chest of the casualty on the stretcher nearest the entrance. Another elf pinned another wounded man with a half-pike. A third casualty, conscious, tried hard to stop a thrust with his left arm and the heavily bandaged stump of his right.

Shani screamed. Shrilly, piercingly. Drowning out the heavy, inhuman groaning of the mutilated man being murdered. Iola, throwing herself onto a stretcher, covered the next casualty with her body. Her face blanched like the linen of a bandage and her mouth began to twitch involuntarily. The elf squinted his eyes.

‘Va vort, beanna!’ he barked. ‘Or I’ll run you through along with this Dh’oine!’

‘Get out of here!’ Rusty was beside Iola in three bounds, shielding her. ‘Get out of my tent, you murderer. Get back there to the battlefield. Your place is there. Among the other murderers. Murder each other there, if that is your will. But get out of here!’

The elf looked down at the pot-bellied halfling shaking with fear, the top of whose curly mop reached a little above his waist.

‘Bloede Pherian,’ he hissed. ‘Toady to humans! Get out of my way!’

‘Not a chance.’ The halfling’s teeth were chattering, but his words were distinct.

The second elf leaped forward and pushed the surgeon with the shaft of his half-pike. Rusty fell to his knees. The tall elf wrenched Iola away from the wounded man with a brutal tug and raised his sword.

And froze, seeing, on the rolled up cloak under the injured man’s head, the silver flames of the Deithwen Division. And the insignia of a colonel.

‘Yaevinn!’ screamed an elf woman with dark hair woven into a plait, rushing into the tent. ‘Caemm, veloe! Ess’evgyriad a’Dh’oine a’en va! Ess’ tedd!’

The tall elf looked at the wounded colonel for a moment, then at the eyes of the surgeon, which were watering in terror. Then he turned on his heel and left.

Once again the tramping of hooves, yelling and the clanging of iron could be heard from beyond the wall of the tent.

‘Have at the Black Cloaks! Murder!’ a thousand voices yelled. Someone howled like an animal, and the howling transformed into macabre wheezing.

Rusty tried to stand up, but his legs failed him. His arms weren’t much use either.

Iola, trembling with powerful spasms of suppressed tears, curled up by the stretcher of the wounded Nilfgaardian. In a foetal position.

Shani was crying, not trying to hide her tears. But still holding the retractors. Marti was calmly putting in sutures, only her mouth moving in a kind of mute, silent monologue.

Rusty, still unable to stand up, sat back down. He met the gaze of the orderly, huddled and squeezed into a corner of the tent.

‘Give me a swig of hooch,’ said Rusty with effort. ‘Just don’t say you don’t have any. I know you rascals. You always do.’

*

General Blenheim Blenckert stood up in his stirrups, stuck his neck out like a crane and listened to the sounds of the battle.

‘Draw out the array,’ he ordered his commanders. ‘And we’ll go at a trot at once behind that hill. From what the scouts say it appears that we’ll come out straight on the Black Cloaks’ right wing.’

‘And we’ll give them what for!’ one of the lieutenants, a whippersnapper with a silky and very spare little moustache, shouted shrilly. Blenckert looked askance at him.

‘A detachment with a standard at the head,’ he ordered, drawing his sword. ‘And in the charge cry “Redania!” Cry it at the top of your lungs! May Foltest and Natalis’ boys know that the relief is coming.’

*

Graf Kobus de Ruyter had fought in various battles, for forty years, since he was sixteen. Furthermore, he was an eighth-generation soldier, without doubt he had something in his genes. Something that meant that the roar and hubbub of battle, for everyone else simply a horrifying hullabaloo that drowned out everything else, was like a symphony, like a concert for a full orchestra, to Kobus de Ruyter. De Ruyter at once heard other notes, chords and tones.

‘Hurraaah, boys!’ he roared, brandishing his baton. ‘Redania! Redania is coming! The eagles! The eagles!’

From the north, from behind the hills, rolling towards the battle, came a mass of cavalry, over which an amaranth pennant and a great gonfalon with a silver Redanian eagle fluttered.

‘Relief!’ yelled de Ruyter. ‘The relief’s coming! Hurraaah! Death to the Black Cloaks!’

The eighth-generation soldier immediately noticed that the Nilfgaardian wing was wheeling around, trying to turn towards the charging relief with a disciplined, tight front. He knew he could not allow them to do that.

‘Follow me!’ he roared, wresting the standard from the standard-bearer’s hands. ‘Follow me! Tretogorians, follow me!’

They struck. They struck suicidally, dreadfully. But effectively. The Nilfgaardians of the Venendal Division fell into confusion and then the Redanian companies drove into them. A great shout rose into the sky.

Kobus de Ruyter didn’t see or hear it. A stray bolt from a crossbow had struck him straight in the temple. The nobleman sagged in the saddle and fell from his horse, the standard covering him like a shroud.

Eight generations of de Ruyters who had fallen fighting and were following the battle from the beyond nodded in acknowledgement.

*

‘It could be said, captain, that the Nordlings were saved by a miracle that day. Or a coincidence that no one could have predicted. Admittedly Restif de Montholon writes in his book that Marshal Coehoorn made a mistake in his assessment of the enemy’s strength and plans. That he took too great a risk, splitting up the Centre Army Group and setting off with a cavalry troop. That he took on a risky battle, not having at least a threefold advantage. And that he neglected reconnaissance, he didn’t uncover the Redanian Army arriving with reinforcements.’

‘Cadet Puttkammer! Mr de Montholon’s “work”, which is of doubtful quality, is not included in this school’s curriculum. And His Imperial Highness deigned to express himself extremely critically about the book. Thus you will not quote it here, Cadet. Indeed, it astonishes me. Until now your answers have been very good, positively excellent, and suddenly you begin to discourse about miracles and coincidences, while finally you take the liberty of criticising the leadership abilities of Menno Coehoorn, one of the greatest leaders the Empire has produced. Cadet Puttkammer – and all the rest of you cadets – if you’re seriously thinking about passing the final exam, you’ll listen and remember: at the Battle of Brenna no miracles or accidents were at work, but a conspiracy! Hostile saboteur forces, subversive elements, foul rabble-rousers, cosmopolites, political bankrupts, traitors and turncoats. A canker that was later burned out with white-hot iron. But before it came to that, those base traitors tangled up their own nation in spider webs and wove a snare of scheming! It was they who inveigled and betrayed Marshal Coehoorn then, deceived him and misled him! It was they; scoundrels without faith or honour . . .’

*

‘Whoresons,’ repeated Menno Coehoorn, without taking the telescope from his eye. ‘Common whoresons. But I’ll find you, just wait, I’ll teach you what reconnaissance means. De Wyngalt! You will personally find the officer who was on the patrol beyond the hills to the north. Have all of them, the entire patrol, hanged.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Ouder de Wyngalt, the marshal’s aide-de—camp, clicked his heels together. He could not know that right then Lamarr Flaut, the officer from the patrol, was dying, trampled by horses of the secret reserves of the Nordlings who were attacking the flanks, the reserves he hadn’t uncovered. Neither could de Wyngalt know that he only had two hours of life left.

‘How many of them are there, Mr Trahe?’ Coehoorn still didn’t take the telescope from his eye. ‘In your opinion?

‘At least ten thousand,’ replied the commander of the 7th Daerlanian dryly. ‘Mainly Redania, but I also see the chevron of Aedirn . . . The unicorn is also there, so we also have Kaedwen . . . With a detachment of at least a company . . .’

*

The company was galloping, sand and grit flew from beneath hooves.

‘Forward, you Duns!’ roared centurion Halfpot, drunk as usual. ‘Attack, kill! Kaedweeen! Kaedweeeen!’

Dammit, but I’m dying for a piss, thought Zyvik. I should have gone before the battle . . .

Now there might not be a chance.

‘Forward, you Duns!’

Always the Duns. Wherever things are going wrong, the Duns. Who did they send as an expeditionary force to Temeria? The Duns. Always the Dun Banner. I need a piss.

They arrived. Zyvik yelled, turned around in the saddle and slashed backhand, destroying the spaulder and shoulder of a horseman in a black cloak with an eight-pointed silver star.

‘The Duns! Kaedweeen! Fight, kill!’

The Dun Banner Standard struck Nilfgaard with a thud, a clatter and a clank, amidst the roars of soldiers and the squeals of horses.

*

‘De Mellis-Stoke and Braibant will cope with that relief,’ said Elan Trahe, the commander of the 7th Daerlanian Brigade calmly. ‘The forces are balanced, nothing has gone wrong yet. Tyrconnel’s division is counterbalancing the left wing, Magne and Venendal are managing on the right. And we . . . We can tip the scale, sir—’

‘By striking the line, going in after the elves,’ Menno Coehoorn understood at once. ‘By striking at the rear lines, sowing panic. That’s it! That’s what we shall do, by the Great Sun! To your companies, gentlemen! Nauzicaa and the 7th, your time has come!’

‘Long live the Emperor!’ yelled Kees van Lo.

‘Lord de Wyngalt.’ The marshal turned around. ‘Please muster the adjutants and the guard troop. Enough inactivity! We’re going to charge with the 7th Daerlanian.’

Ouder de Wyngalt paled slightly, but immediately regained control.

‘Long live the Emperor!’ he cried, and there was almost no tremor in his voice.

*

Rusty cut, and the wounded man wailed and scratched the table. Iola, bravely fighting giddiness, was taking care of the tourniquets and clamps. Shani’s raised voice could be heard from the entrance to the tent.

‘Where? Are you insane? The living are waiting to be saved here, and you’re marching in with corpses?’

‘But this is Baron Anzelm Aubry himself, Madam Medic! The company commander!’

‘It was the company commander! Now it’s a corpse. You only managed to bring him in one piece because his armour is watertight! Take him away. This is a field hospital, not a mortuary!’

‘But Madam Medic—’

‘Don’t block the entrance! Look there, they’re carrying one that’s still breathing. Or at least he looks like he’s still breathing. Because it might just be wind.’

Rusty snorted, but immediately afterwards raised an eyebrow.

‘Shani! Come here at once!

‘Remember, you chit,’ he said through clenched teeth, bending over the mutilated leg, ‘that a surgeon can only take the liberty of cynicism after ten years of experience. Will you remember that?’

‘Yes, Mr Rusty.’

‘Take the raspatory and strip off the periosteum . . . Blast, it would be worth anaesthetising him a little more . . . Where’s Marti?’

‘She’s puking outside the tent,’ said Shani without a trace of cynicism. ‘Puking her guts out.’

‘Sorcerers!’ Rusty took hold of a saw. ‘Instead of thinking up numerous awful and powerful spells they would be better thinking up one. One that would enable them to cast minor spells, for example anaesthetising ones, without difficulty. And without puking.’

The saw grated and crunched on bone. The wounded man moaned.

‘Tighten the tourniquet, Iola!’

The bone finally gave way. Rusty tidied it up with a small chisel and wiped his forehead.

‘Blood vessels and nerves,’ he said mechanically and needlessly, because before he had finished the sentence the girls were already putting in the sutures. He removed the severed leg from the table and threw it down onto a pile of other severed limbs. The wounded man hadn’t roared or moaned for some time.

‘Fainted or dead?’

‘Fainted, Mr Rusty.’

‘Good. Sew up the stump, Shani. Bring on the next one! Iola, go and find out if Marti has puked everything up.’

‘I wonder,’ said Iola very quietly, without raising her head, ‘how many years of experience you have, Mr Rusty. A hundred?’

*

After a quarter of an hour of strenuous marching and choking on dust, the yells of the centurions and decurions ceased and the Vizimian regiments spread out in a line. Jarre, gasping and gulping in air through his mouth like a fish, saw Voivode Bronibor strutting before the front on his beautiful armoured steed. The voivode himself was also in full plate armour. His armour was enamelled in blue stripes, making Bronibor look like a great steel—plated mackerel.

‘How are you, you dolts?’

The rows of pikemen answered with a rumbling growl like distant thunder.

‘You’re issuing farting sounds,’ the voivode noted, reining his armoured horse around and directing him to walk before the front. ‘That means you’re feeling good. When you’re feeling bad, you don’t fart in hushed tones, but you wail and howl like the damned. It’s clear from your expressions that you’re spoiling for a fight, that you’re dreaming of battle, that you can’t wait to get your hands on the Nilfgaardians! Right, you Vizimian brigands? Then I have good news for you! Your dream will come true in a short while. In a very short while.’

The pikemen muttered again. Bronibor, after riding to the end of the line, turned around, and spoke on, rapping his mace against the ornamented pommel of his saddle.

‘You stuffed yourselves with dust, infantry, marching behind the armoured troops. Up until now, instead of glory and spoils, you’ve been sniffing horses’ farts. And even today, when a great battle is upon us, you almost didn’t make it to the field. But you managed it, so I congratulate you with all my heart. Here, outside this village, whose name I’ve forgotten, you will finally show how much worth you have as an army. That cloud you see on the battlefield is the Nilfgaardian horse, which means to crush our army with a flanking strike, shove us and drown us in the bogs of this little river, whose name I have also forgotten. The honour of defending the breach that has arisen in our ranks has fallen to you, celebrated Vizimian pikemen, by the grace of King Foltest and Constable Natalis. You will close that breach, so to speak, with your breasts, you will stop the Nilfgaardian charge. You’re rejoicing, comrades, what? You’re bursting with pride, eh?’

Jarre, squeezing his pikestaff, looked around. There was nothing to indicate that the soldiers were rejoicing at the prospect of the imminent battle, and if they were bursting with pride by virtue of the honour of closing the breach, they were skilfully disguising it. Melfi, standing on the boy’s right, was mumbling a prayer under his breath. On his left, Deuslax, a hardened professional soldier, sniffed, swore and coughed nervously.

Bronibor reined his horse around and sat up straight in the saddle.

‘I can’t hear you!’ he roared. ‘I asked if you’re bursting with fucking pride?’

This time the pikemen, seeing no alternative, roared with one, great voice that they were. Jarre also roared. If everyone was he might as well too.

‘Good!’ The voivode reined back his horse before the front. ‘And now stand in an orderly array! Centurions, what are you waiting for, for fuck’s sake? Form a square! The first rank kneels, the second stands! Ground your pikes! Not that end, ass! Yes, yes, I’m talking to you, you horrible little man! Higher, hold your pikestaffs higher, you wretches! Close ranks, close up, close ranks, shoulder to shoulder! Well, now you look impressive! Almost like an army!’

Jarre found himself in the second rank. He pushed the butt of his pike into the ground and gripped the pikestaff in his hands, sweaty from fear. Melfi was muttering indistinctly, repeating various words over and over, mainly concerning the private lives of the Nilfgaardians, dogs, bitches, kings, constables, voivodes and all their mothers.

The cloud in the battlefield grew.

‘Don’t fart there, don’t chatter your teeth!’ roared Bronibor. ‘Thoughts of frightening the Nilfgaardian horses with those noises are misguided! Let no man deceive himself! What is heading for you are the Nauzicaa and 7th Daerlanian Brigades; splendid, valiant, superbly trained soldiers! They can’t be scared! They can’t be defeated! They have to be killed! Hold those pikes higher!’

From a distance the still soft but growing thud of hooves could now be heard. The ground began to shudder. Blades began to glint like sparks in the cloud of dust.

‘It’s your good fucking fortune, Vizimians,’ the voivode roared once more. ‘That the standard infantry pike of the new, modernised model is twenty-one feet long! And a Nilfgaardian sword is three-and-a-half feet long. Can you reckon? Know that they can too. But they are counting on your not holding out, that your true nature will emerge, that it will be confirmed and revealed that you are shitheads, cowards and mangy sheep shaggers. The Black Cloaks are counting on you to throw down your poles and start running, and they will pursue you across the battlefield and hack you on the backs, heads and necks, hack you comfortably and with no difficulty. Remember, you little shits, that although fear lends the heels extraordinary speed, you won’t outrun cavalrymen. Whoever wants to live, whoever wants glory and spoils, must stand! Stand firm! Stand like a wall! And close ranks!’

Jarre looked back. The crossbowmen standing behind the line of pikemen were already winding their cranks, and the interior of the square was bristling with the points of gisarmes, ranseurs, halberds, glaives, partizans, scythes and pitchforks. The ground trembled more and more distinctly and powerfully, and it was already possible to discern the shapes of horsemen in the black wall of cavalry hurtling towards them.

‘Mamma, dear mother,’ repeated Melfi through trembling lips. ‘Mamma, dear mother—’

‘—fucker,’ mumbled Deuslax.

The hoof beats intensified. Jarre wanted to lick his lips, but he couldn’t. His tongue had gone stiff. His tongue stopped behaving normally, it had stiffened strangely and was as dry as a bone. The hoof beats intensified.

‘Close ranks!’ roared Bronibor, drawing his sword. ‘Feel your comrade’s shoulder! Remember, none of you is fighting alone! And the only remedy for the fear you are feeling is the pike in your fist! Prepare to fight! Pikes aimed at the horses’ chests! What are we going to do, Vizimian brigands? I’m asking!’

‘Stand firm!’ roared the pikemen with one voice. ‘Stand like a wall! Close ranks!’

Jarre also roared. If everyone was he might as well too. Sand, grit and turf sprayed from beneath the hooves of the advancing wedge of cavalry. The charging horsemen yelled like demons, brandishing their weapons. Jarre leaned onto his pike, buried his head in his shoulders and shut his eyes.

*

Jarre shooed away a wasp circling above his inkwell with a violent movement of his stump, without interrupting his writing.

Marshal Coehoorn came to nothing. His flanking troop was stopped by the heroic Vizimian infantry under Voivode Bronibor, paying in blood for his heroism. And at the moment the Vizimians resisted, Nilfgaard fell into confusion on the left wing – some of them began to take flight, others to pull together and defend themselves in groups, surrounded on all sides. Soon after the same thing happened on the right wing, where the doggedness of the dwarves and condottieri finally overcame Nilfgaard’s assault. A single great cry of triumph went up along the entire front, and a new spirit entered the royal knights. And the spirit fell in the Nilfgaardians, their hands weakened, and our men began to shell them like peas so loudly it echoed.

And Field Marshal Menno Coehoorn understood that the battle was lost, saw the brigades perishing and falling into confusion around him.

And then his officers and knights ran to him, giving him a fresh horse, calling for him to flee and save his own life. But a fearless heart beat in the breast of the Nilfgaardian field marshal. ‘That will not do,’ he called, pushing away the reins held out towards him. ‘It will not do for me to flee like a coward from the field on which so many good men under my command have fallen for the emperor.’ And the doughty Menno Coehoorn added . . .

*

‘Besides, now there’s nowhere to fuck off to,’ Menno Coehoorn added calmly and soberly, looking around the battlefield. ‘They’re surrounding us on all sides.’

‘Give me your cloak and helmet, sir.’ Captain Sievers wiped blood and sweat from his face. ‘Take mine, sir! Dismount your steed, and take mine . . . Don’t protest! You must live, sir! You’re indispensable to the empire, irreplaceable . . . We Daerlanians will strike the Nordlings, we’ll draw them to us, you meanwhile try to break through down there, below the fishpond . . .’

‘You won’t get out of that alive,’ muttered Coehoorn, taking the reins being offered to him.

‘It’s an honour.’ Sievers straightened up in the saddle. ‘I’m a soldier! Of the 7th Daerlanians! To me! Have faith! To me!’

‘Good luck,’ mumbled Coehoorn throwing over his back a Daerlanian cloak with a black scorpion on the shoulder. ‘Sievers?’

‘Yes, sir, marshal, sir?’

‘Nothing. Good luck, lad.’

‘And may luck be on your side, sir. To horse, have faith!’

Coehoorn watched them ride off. For a long while. Until the moment Sievers’ small group rode with a bang, a yell and a thud into the condottieri. Into a troop considerably outnumbering them, to whose aid, indeed, other troops hurried at once. The Daerlanians’ black cloaks vanished among the greyness of the condottieri; all was lost in the dust.

The nervous coughing of de Wyngalt and the adjutants brought Coehoorn to his senses. The marshal adjusted the stirrup leathers and flaps. He brought the restless steed under control.

‘To horse!’ he commanded.

At first things went well for them. In the mouth of the valley leading to the riverlet a dwindling troop of survivors of the Nauzicaa Brigade was doggedly defending itself, forced into a circle bristling with blades, onto which the Nordlings had concentrated all their momentum and force, making a breach in the ring. Naturally, they didn’t get away totally unscathed – they had to hack their way through a row of light volunteer horse, probably Bruggean, judging by their insignia. The skirmish was very short, but furiously fierce. Coehoorn had already lost and discarded all remains and appearances of lofty heroism and now just wanted to survive. Not even looking back at his escort trading vicious blows with the Bruggeans, he rushed towards the stream with his adjutants, pressing himself to and hugging the horse’s neck.

The way was clear; beyond the little river, beyond the crooked willows, a barren plain spread out, on which no enemy troops could be seen. Ouder de Wyngalt, galloping beside Coehoorn, also saw it and yelled triumphantly.

Prematurely.

A meadow covered in bright-green knotgrass separated them from the sluggish, murky little river. When they charged into it at full gallop the horses suddenly plunged up to their bellies in the bog.

The marshal flew over his steed’s head and fell headfirst into the bog. All around, horses were neighing and kicking, and men covered in mud and green duckweed were yelling. Menno suddenly heard another sound amidst this pandemonium. A sound that meant death.

The hiss of fletchings.

He dashed for the current of the small river, wading up to his hips in the thick marsh. An adjutant forcing his way through beside him suddenly tumbled face first into the mud, and the marshal saw a bolt stuck into his back up to the fletchings. At that same moment he felt a terrible blow to the head. He staggered but didn’t fall, stuck in the mud and swamp. He wanted to scream, but only managed to splutter. I’m alive, he thought, trying to wriggle out of the clutch of the sticky slime. A horse struggling out of the marsh had kicked him in the helmet, and the deeply dented metal had shattered his cheek, knocked out some teeth and cut his tongue . . . I’m bleeding . . . I’m swallowing blood . . . But I’m alive . . .

Once again the slap of bowstrings, the hiss of fletchings, the thud and crack of arrowheads penetrating armour, yells, the neighing of horses, squelching, and blood splashing. The marshal looked back and saw bowmen on the bank; small, stocky, pot-bellied shapes in mail shirts, basinets and pointed chichaks. Dwarves, he thought.

The slap of bowstrings, the whistle of bolts. The squeal of horses threshing around. The yelling of men choking on water and mud.

Ouder de Wyngalt, turning towards the marksmen, cried in a high, squeaky voice that he was surrendering, asked for mercy and compassion, promised a ransom and begged for his life. Aware that no one understood his words, he raised his sword, held by the blade, above his head. He held the weapon out towards the dwarves in the international, outright cosmopolitan gesture of surrender. He wasn’t understood, or was misunderstood, for two bolts slammed into his chest with such force that the impact hurled him up out of the bog.

Coehoorn tore the dented helmet from his head. He knew the Common Speech of the Nordlings quite well.

‘I’m Marfal Coeoon . . .’ he mumbled, spitting blood. ‘Marfal Coeoon . . . I furrender . . . Merfy . . . Merfy . . .’

‘What’s he saying, Zoltan?’ one of the crossbowmen asked in surprise.

‘Bugger him and his chattering! Do you see the embroidery on his cloak, Munro?’

‘A silver scorpion! Haaaa! Wallop the whoreson, boys! For Caleb Stratton!’

‘For Caleb Stratton!’

Bowstrings clanged. One bolt hit Coehoorn straight in the chest, the second in the hip and the third in the collar bone. The Nilfgaardian field marshal fell over backwards in the watery mush, the knotgrass and swamp yielding under his weight. Who the bloody hell could Caleb Stratton be? he managed to think, I’ve never heard of any Caleb . . .

The murky, viscous, muddied and bloodied water of the River Chotla closed over his head and gushed into his lungs.

*

She went outside the tent to get some fresh air. And then she saw him, sitting beside the blacksmith’s bench.

‘Jarre!’

He raised his eyes towards her. There was emptiness in those eyes.

‘Iola?’ he asked, moving his swollen lips with difficulty. ‘How come you’re—’

‘What a question!’ she interrupted him at once. ‘You’d better tell me how you’ve ended up here!’

‘We’ve brought our commander . . . Voivode Bronibor . . . He’s wounded—’

‘You’re also wounded. Show me that hand. O goddess! But you’ll bleed to death, lad!’

Jarre looked at her, and Iola suddenly began to doubt whether he could see her.

‘It’s a battle,’ said the boy, teeth chattering slightly. ‘You must stand like a wall . . . Steady in the line. The lightly wounded are to carry the heavily wounded to the field hospital. It’s an order.’

‘Show me your hand.’

Jarre howled briefly, his clenching teeth snapping in a wild staccato. Iola frowned.

‘Oh my, it looks dreadful . . . Oh, dear, Jarre, Jarre . . . You’ll see, Mother Nenneke will be angry . . . Come with me.’

She watched him blanch when he saw it. When he smelled the stench hanging beneath the roof of the tent. He staggered. She held him up. She saw him looking at the bloodied table. At the man lying there. At the surgeon, a small halfling, who suddenly leaped up, stamped his feet, cursed foully and threw a scalpel on the ground.

‘Dammit! Fuck it! Why? Why is it like this? Why does it have to be like this?’

No one replied to the question.

‘Who was it?’

‘Voivode Bronibor,’ explained Jarre in a feeble voice, looking straight ahead with his empty gaze. ‘Our commander . . . We stood firm in the line. It was an order. Like a wall. And they killed Melfi . . .’

‘Mr Rusty,’ Iola asked. ‘This boy’s a friend of mine . . . He’s wounded . . .’

‘He’s on his feet,’ the surgeon assessed coldly. ‘And here there’s a dying man waiting for a trepanation. There’s no room here for any sentimental connections . . .’

At that moment Jarre – with excellent timing – fainted dramatically and fell down on the dirt floor. The halfling snorted.

‘Oh, very well, on the table with him,’ he commanded. ‘Oho, a nicely smashed arm. I wonder what’s holding it on. His sleeve, I think? Tourniquet, Iola! Tightly! And don’t you dare cry! Shani, give me a saw.’

The saw dug into the bone above the crushed elbow joint with a hideous crunching. Jarre came to and bellowed. Horribly, but briefly. For when the bone gave way he immediately fainted again.

*

And thus the might of Nilfgaard was reduced to dust on the Brenna battlefields, and an end was put to the march of the Empire northwards. Either by being killed or taken captive the Empire lost four and forty thousand men at the Battle of Brenna. The flower of the knighthood and the élite cavalry fell. Leaders of the stature of Menno Coehoorn, Braibant, de Mellis—Stoke, van Lo, Tyrconnel, Eggebracht and others whose names have not survived in our archives, fell, were taken prisoner or disappeared without trace.

Thus did Brenna become the beginning of the end. But it behoves me to write that that battle was but a small stone in the building, and superficial would have been its importance had the fruits of the victory not been wisely taken advantage of. It behoves us to recall that instead of resting on his laurels and bursting with pride, and awaiting honours and homage, Jan Natalis headed south almost without stopping. The cavalry troop under Adam Pangratt and Julia Abatemarco destroyed two divisions of the Third Army that had brought belated relief to Menno Coehoorn, routing them such that nec nuntius cladis. At news of this, the rest of the Centre Army Group took miserable flight and fled in haste to the far side of the Yaruga, and since Foltest and Natalis were on their heels, the imperial forces lost entire convoys and all their siege engines with which, in their hubris, they had meant to capture Vizima, Gors Velen and Novigrad.

And like an avalanche rolling down from the mountains, becoming covered in more and more snow and becoming greater, so also Brenna caused more and more severe results for Nilfgaard. Hard times came for the Verden Army under Duke de Wett, whom the corsairs from Skellige and King Ethain of Cidaris sorely vexed in a guerrilla war. When, meanwhile, de Wett learned about Brenna, when news reached him that King Foltest and Jan Natalis were marching briskly to him, he immediately ordered the trumpeting of the retreat and fled to Cintra, strewing the escape route with corpses, because at the news of the Nilfgaardian defeats an insurrection in Verden flared up anew. Only in the undefeated strongholds of Nastróg, Rozróg and Bodróg did powerful garrisons remain, for which reason only after the Peace of Cintra did they leave honourably and with their standards intact.

Whereas in Aedirn, the tidings about Brenna led to the feuding kings Demavend and Henselt shaking each other’s right hands and taking arms against Nilfgaard together. The East Army Group, which under the command of Duke Ardal aep Dahy marched towards the Pontar valley, did not manage to challenge the two allied kings. Strengthened by reinforcements from Redania and Queen Meve’s guerrillas, who had cruelly plundered Nilfgaard, Demavend and Henselt drove Ardal aep Dahy all the way to Aldersberg. Duke Ardal wanted to give battle, but by a strange twist of fate he suddenly fell ill, having eaten something. He came down with the colic and diarrhoea miserere, and thus in two days he died in great pain. And Demavend and Henselt, without delay, attacked the Nilfgaardians, also there at Aldersberg, evidently for the sake of historical justice, and they routed them in a decisive battle, though Nilfgaard still had a significant numerical advantage. Thus do spirit and artistry usually triumph over dull and brutal force.

It behoves me to write about one more thing: what exactly happened to Menno Coehoorn himself at the Battle of Brenna no one knows. Some say: he fell and his body, unrecognised, was buried in a common grave. Others say: he escaped with his life, but fearing imperial wrath did not return to Nilfgaard, but hid in Brokilon among the dryads, and there became a hermit, letting his beard grow down to the ground. And there shortly after expired amidst his worries.

A story circulates among simple folk that the marshal returned at night to the Brenna battlefield and walked among the burial mounds, wailing ‘Give me back my legions!’, until finally he hanged himself on an aspen spike on the hill, called Gibbet Hill because of that. And at night one can happen upon the ghost of the celebrated marshal among other apparitions that commonly haunt the battlefield.

‘Grandfather Jarre! Grandfather Jarre!’

Jarre raised his head from his papers and adjusted his spectacles, which were slipping down his sweaty nose.

‘Grandfather Jarre!’ his youngest granddaughter shouted in the upper register. She was a determined and bright six-year-old, who, thank the Gods, had taken more after her mother, Jarre’s daughter, than his lethargic son-in-law.

‘Grandfather Jarre! Grandmother Lucienne told me to tell you that that’s enough for today of that layabout scribbling and that tea’s on the table!’

Jarre meticulously assembled the written sheets and corked the inkwell. Pain throbbed in the stump of his arm. The weather’s changing, he thought. There’ll be rain.

‘Grandfather Jaaaaarre!’

‘I’m coming, Ciri. I’m coming.’

*

It was already well after midnight before they had dealt with the last casualties. They carried out the final operations by artificial light – first from an ordinary lamp and later using magic. Marti Sodergren recovered after the crisis she had undergone and, although as pale as death, stiff and as unnatural in her movements as a golem, used her magic competently and effectively.

The night was black when they exited the tent, and all four of them sat down, leaning against the canvas.

The plain was full of fires. Various fires – the stationary fires of camps and the moving flames of torches. The night resounded with distant song, chanting, shouts and cheers.

The night around them was also alive with the intermittent cries and groans of the wounded. The pleading and sighs of the dying. They didn’t hear it. They had become accustomed to the sounds of suffering and dying, and those sounds were ordinary, natural to them, as integrated into the night as the croaking of frogs in the marshes by the River Chotla or the singing of cicadas in the acacia trees by Golden Pond.

Marti Sodergren sat in lyrical silence resting on the halfling’s shoulder. Iola and Shani, indifferent, cuddling one another, snorted from time to time with completely nonsensical laughter.

Before they sat down against the tent they had each drunk a cup of vodka, and Marti had treated all of them with her last spell: a cheering charm, typically used when extracting teeth. Rusty felt cheated by this treatment – the drink, combined with the magic, instead of relaxing him had stupefied him; instead of reducing his exhaustion had increased it. Instead of giving oblivion, brought back memories.

It looks, he thought, as though the alcohol and magic have only acted as they were meant to on Iola and Shani.

He turned around and in the moonlight saw sparkling, silvery tracks of tears on the girls’ faces.

‘I wonder,’ he said, licking his numb, insensitive lips, ‘who won this battle. Does anybody know?’

Marti turned her face towards him, but remained silent. The cicadas were singing among the acacias, willows and alders by Golden Pond, and the frogs croaked. The wounded moaned, begged and sighed. And died. Shani and Iola giggled through their tears.

*

Marti Sodergren died two weeks after the battle. She began meeting an officer of the Free Company of Condottieri. She treated the affair light-heartedly. Unlike the officer. When Marti, who liked change, began fraternising with a Temerian cavalry captain, the condottiero – mad with jealousy – stabbed her with a knife. He was hanged for it, but it was impossible to save the healer.

Rusty and Iola died a year after the battle, in Maribor, during the largest outbreak yet of an epidemic of viral haemorrhagic fever, a disease also called the Red Death or – from the name of the ship it was brought on – Catriona’s Plague. All the physicians and most of the priests fled from Maribor then. Rusty and Iola remained, naturally. They treated the sick, because they were doctors. The fact that there was no cure for the Red Death was unimportant to them. They both became infected. He died in her arms, in the powerful, confidence-inspiring embrace of her large, ugly, peasant hands. She died four days later. Alone.

Shani died seventy-two years after the battle, as the celebrated and universally respected retired dean of the Department of Medicine at the University of Oxenfurt. Generations of future surgeons used to repeat her famous joke: ‘Sew red to red, yellow to yellow, white to white. It’s sure to be fine’.

Almost no one noticed how after delivering that witty anecdote the dean always wiped away a furtive tear.

Almost no one.

*

The frogs croaked and the cicadas sang among the willows by Golden Pond. Shani and Iola giggled through their tears.

‘I wonder,’ repeated Milo Vanderbeck, halfling, field surgeon, known as Rusty. ‘I wonder who won?’

‘Rusty,’ Marti Sodergren said lyrically. ‘Believe me, in your shoes it’s the last thing I’d be worrying about.’

Some of the flames were tall and strong, burning brightly and vividly, while others were tiny, flickering and quavering, and their light diminished and died. At the very end was but one tiny flame, so weak it barely flickered and glimmered, now struggling to flare up, now almost going out entirely.

‘Whose is the dying flame?’ asked the Witcher.

‘Yours,’ Death replied.

Flourens Delannoy, Fairy Tales and Stories

CHAPTER NINE

The plateau, extending almost all the way to the distant mountain peaks, greyish-blue in the fog, was like an actual stone sea, here undulating in a hump or a ridge, there bristling with the sharp fangs of reefs. The impression was enhanced by shipwrecks. Dozens of wrecks. Of galleys, galeases, cogs, caravels, brigs, holks and longships. Some of them looked as though they had ended up there not long before, others were piles of barely recognisable planks and ribs, clearly having lain there for decades – if not centuries.

Some of the ships were lying keel up, others, turned over on their sides, looked as though they had been tossed up by devilish squalls and storms. Still others gave the impression they were sailing, making away, amidst that stone ocean. They stood even and straight, the chests of their figureheads proudly stuck out, their masts pointing to the zenith, the remains of sails, shrouds and stays fluttering. They even had their own ghostly crews – skeletons jammed between rotten planks and entangled in ropes, dead sailors, busy forever with endless navigation.

Flocks of black birds flew up, cawing, from the masts, yards, ropes and skeletons alarmed by the appearance of the rider, frightened by the clack of hooves. For a moment they flecked the sky, circled in a flock over the edge of the cliff, at the bottom of which lay a lake, as grey and smooth as quicksilver. On the edge could be seen a dark and gloomy stronghold, whose towers partly overlooked the graveyard of ships, and were partly suspended over the lake, with its bastions embedded in the vertical rock. Kelpie danced, snorted, and pricked up her ears, alarmed by the wrecks, the skeletons, at the whole landscape of death. At the cawing black birds, which had already returned, alighting again on the broken masts and crosstrees, on the shrouds and skulls. But if anyone ought to have been afraid there, it was the rider.

‘Easy, Kelpie,’ said Ciri in a changed voice. ‘It’s the end of the road. This is the right place and the right time.’

*

She found herself outside a gate, God knows how, and emerged like an apparition from between the wrecks. The guards at the foot of the gate noticed her first, alarmed by the cawing of rooks, and now shouted, gesticulating and pointing at her, calling others.

When she rode to the gatehouse, there was already a crush there. An excited hubbub. They were all staring at her. The few who knew her and had seen her before, like Boreas Mun and Dacre Silifant, and the considerably more numerous of them who had only heard about her: newly recruited soldiers from Skellen, mercenaries, and ordinary marauders from Ebbing and the surroundings, who were now looking in amazement at the ashen-haired girl with the scar on her face and the sword on her back. At the splendid black mare, holding her head high, and snorting, her horseshoes ringing on the flagstones of the courtyard.

The hubbub died down. It became very quiet. The mare trotted, lifting her legs like a ballerina, her horseshoes ringing like a hammer on an anvil. This went on for a long time before her way was finally barred by crossed gisarmes and ranseurs. Someone reached out a hesitant and frightened hand towards the bridle. The mare snorted.

‘Take me to the lord of this castle,’ the girl said confidently.

Boreas Mun, not knowing himself why he was doing it, held her stirrup steady and offered his hand. Others held the stamping and snorting mare.

‘Do you recognise me, my lady?’ Boreas asked softly. ‘For we’ve already met.’

‘Where?’

‘On the ice.’

She looked him straight in the eye.

‘I didn’t look at your face then, sir,’ she said unemotionally.

‘You were the Lady of the Lake,’ he nodded seriously. ‘Why have you come here, girl? What for?’

‘For Yennefer. And to claim my destiny.’

‘Claim your death, more like,’ he whispered. ‘This is Stygga Castle. In your place I’d flee as far from here as you can.’

She looked again. And Boreas at once understood what she meant to say with that look.

Stefan Skellen appeared. He watched the girl for a long time, his arms crossed on his chest. Finally, he indicated with an energetic gesture that she was to follow him. She went without a word, escorted on all sides by armed men.

‘A strange wench,’ muttered Boreas. And shuddered.

‘Fortunately, she isn’t our concern now,’ said Dacre Silifant. ‘And I’m surprised at you for talking to her like that. It was she, the witch, who killed Vargas and Fripp, and later Ola Harsheim—’

‘Tawny Owl killed Harsheim,’ Boreas cut him off. ‘Not she. She spared our lives, there on the pack ice, though she could have slaughtered and drowned us like pups. All of us. Tawny Owl too.’

‘Very well.’ Dacre spat on the flags of the courtyard. ‘He’ll reward her for that mercy, together with the sorcerer and Bonhart. You’ll see, Mun, now they’ll gut her ceremonially. They’ll flay her in thin strips.’

‘I’m inclined to believe they’ll flay her,’ snapped Boreas. ‘Because they’re butchers. And we ain’t no better, since we serve under them.’

‘And do we have a choice? We don’t.’

One of Skellen’s mercenaries suddenly cried softly, and another followed suit. One man swore, another gasped. Someone pointed silently.

As far as the eye could see black birds were sitting on the battlements, on the corbels, on the roofs of the towers, on the cornices, on the window sills and gables, on the gutters, and on the gargoyles and mascarons. They had flown from the ships’ graveyard, noiselessly, without cawing, and now they were sitting in silence, waiting.

‘They scent death,’ mumbled one of the mercenaries.

‘And carrion,’ added a second.

‘We don’t have a choice,’ Silifant repeated mechanically, looking at Boreas. Boreas Mun looked at the birds.

‘Perhaps it’s time we did?’ he replied softly.

*

They climbed a great staircase with three landings, walked along a long corridor between an avenue of statues set in niches, and passed through a cloister surrounding a vestibule. Ciri walked boldly, feeling no anxiety; neither the weapons nor her escort’s murderous visages caused her fear. She had lied saying she couldn’t remember the faces of the men from the frozen lake. She did remember. She remembered seeing Stefan Skellen – the same man now leading her with a gloomy expression deeper into that huge, awful castle – as he shook, teeth chattering, on the ice.

Now, as he looked around and glared at her from time to time, she sensed he was still a little afraid of her. She breathed more deeply.

They entered a hall beneath a high star vault supported on columns, beneath great spidery chandeliers. Ciri saw who was waiting there for her. Fear dug its claw-like fingers into her guts, clenched its fist, tugged and twisted.

Bonhart was by her in three strides. He grabbed her by the front of her jerkin, lifted her up and pulled her towards him at the same time, bringing her face closer to his pale, fishy eyes.

‘Hell must indeed be dreadful,’ he roared, ‘if you’ve chosen me.’

She didn’t reply. She could smell alcohol on his breath.

‘And maybe hell didn’t want you, you little beast? Perhaps that devilish tower spat you out in disgust, after tasting your venom?’

He drew her closer. She turned aside and drew back her face.

‘You’re right,’ he said softly. ‘You’re right to be afraid. It’s the end of your road. You won’t escape from here. Here, in this castle, I’ll bleed you dry.’

‘Have you finished, Mr Bonhart?’

She knew at once who had spoken. The sorcerer Vilgefortz, who first of all had been a prisoner in manacles, and afterwards pursued her in the Tower of the Gull. He had been very handsome then, on the island. Now something in his face had changed, something that made it ugly and fearful.

‘Mr Bonhart—’ the sorcerer didn’t even move on his throne-like armchair ‘—let me assume the pleasant duty of welcoming to Stygga Castle our guest, Miss Cirilla of Cintra, the daughter of Pavetta, the granddaughter of Calanthe, the descendant of the famous Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal. Greetings. Please come closer.’

The derision hidden beneath the mask of civility slipped out from the sorcerer’s last words. There was nothing but a threat and an order in them. Ciri felt at once that she would be unable to resist that order. She felt fear. Ghastly fear.

‘Closer,’ hissed Vilgefortz. Now she noticed what was wrong with his face. His left eye, considerably smaller than his right, blinked, flickered and spun around like a mad thing in the wrinkled, grey-blue eye socket. The sight was gruesome.

‘A brave pose, a trace of fear in the face,’ said the sorcerer, tilting his head. ‘My acknowledgements. Assuming your courage doesn’t result from stupidity. I shall dispel any possible fantasies at once. You will not escape from here, as Mr Bonhart correctly observed. Neither by teleportation, nor with the help of your own special abilities.’

She knew he was right. Previously, she had persuaded herself that if it came to it she would always – even at the last moment – be able to flee and hide amidst times and places. Now she knew that was an illusory hope, a fantasy. The castle positively vibrated with strange, evil, hostile magic, and that magic was pervading, penetrating her. It crawled like a parasite over her innards, repulsively slithering over her brain. She could do nothing about it. She was in her enemy’s power. Helpless.

Too bad, she thought, I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was coming here for. The rest was really just fantasy. May what has to happen, happen.

‘Well done,’ said Vilgefortz. ‘An accurate assessment of the situation. What must happen, will happen. Or more precisely: what I decide will happen, will happen. I wonder if you’re also guessing, my splendid one, what I shall decide?’

She was about to answer, but before she could overcome the resistance of her tight, dry throat, he anticipated her by reading her thoughts.

‘Of course you know. Master of Worlds. Master of Times and Places. Yes, yes, my splendid one, your visit didn’t surprise me. Quite simply, I know where you escaped to from the lake and how you did it. I know how you got here. The one thing I don’t know is: was it a long way? And did it provide you with many thrills?

‘Oh,’ he smiled nastily, anticipating her once again. ‘You don’t have to reply. I know it was interesting and exciting. You see, I can’t wait to try it myself. I’m very envious of your talent. You’ll have to share it with me, my splendid one. Yes, “have to” are the right words. Until you share your talent with me I simply won’t let you out of my hands. I won’t let you out of my hands, neither by day nor by night.’

Ciri finally understood it wasn’t only fear squeezing her throat. The sorcerer was gagging and choking her magically. He was mocking her. Humiliating her. In front of everyone.

‘Let . . . Yennefer go.’ She coughed so hard she arched her back with the effort. ‘Let her go . . . And you can do what you want with me.’

Bonhart roared with laughter, and Stefan Skellen also laughed dryly. Vilgefortz poked the corner of his gruesome eye with his little finger.

‘You can’t be so slow-witted not to know that I can do what I want with you in any case. Your offer is pompous, and thus pathetic and ridiculous.’

‘You need me . . .’ She raised her head, although it cost her an enormous amount of strength. ‘To have a child with me. Everybody wants that, you too. Yes, I’m in your power, I came here by myself . . . You didn’t catch me, although you pursued me through half the world. I came here by myself and I’m giving myself up to you. For Yennefer. For her life. Is it so ridiculous to you? So try using violence and force with me . . . You’ll see, you’ll be over your desire to laugh in no time.’

Bonhart leaped at her and swung his scourge. Vilgefortz made an apparently careless gesture, just a slight movement of the hand, but even that was enough for the whip to fly from the hunter’s hand, and he staggered as though hit by a coal wagon.

‘I see Mr Bonhart still has difficulty understanding the responsibilities of a guest,’ said Vilgefortz, massaging his fingers. ‘Try to remember: when one is a guest, one doesn’t destroy the furniture or works of art, nor steal small objects, nor does one soil the carpets or inaccessible places. One doesn’t rape or beat other guests. The latter two not, at least, until the host has finished raping and beating, not until he gives the sign that one may now rape and beat. You too, Ciri, ought to be able to draw the appropriate conclusions from what I’ve said. You can’t? I’ll help you. You surrender yourself to me and humbly agree to everything, allow me to do anything I want with you. You think your offer highly generous. You’re mistaken. For the matter is that I shall do with you what I have to do, not what I’d like to do. An example: I’d like to gouge out at least one of your eyes as revenge for Thanedd, but I can’t, because I’m afraid you wouldn’t survive it.’

Ciri knew it was now or never. She spun around in a half-turn, and jerked Swallow from the scabbard. The entire castle suddenly whirled and she felt herself falling, painfully banging her knees. She bent over, her forehead almost touching the floor, fighting the urge to vomit. The sword slipped from her numb fingers. Someone lifted her up.

‘Yeees,’ Vilgefortz drawled, resting his chin on hands held together as if in prayer. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes, that’s right, your offer. Yennefer’s life and freedom in exchange . . . For what?’ For your voluntary surrender, willingly, without violence or compulsion? I’m sorry, Ciri. Violence and compulsion are simply essential to what I shall do to you.

‘Yes, yes,’ he repeated, watching with interest as the girl wheezed, spat and tried to vomit. ‘It simply won’t happen without violence or compulsion. You would never agree voluntarily to what I shall do to you, I assure you. So, as you must see, your offer, still pathetic and ridiculous, is furthermore worthless. So I reject it. Go on, take her. To the laboratory! At once.’

*

The laboratory didn’t differ much from the one Ciri knew from the Temple of Melitele in Ellander. It was also brightly lit, clean, with long metal-topped tables, laden with glass, large jars, retorts, flasks, test tubes, pipes, lenses, hissing and bubbling alembics and other strange apparatus. Here also, as in Ellander, it smelled strongly of ether, alcohol, formalin and something else, something that triggered fear. Even in the friendly temple, beside the friendly priestesses and a friendly Yennefer, Ciri had felt fear in the laboratory. And after all, in Ellander no one had dragged her to the laboratory by force, no one had brutally shoved her onto a bench, and no one had held her shoulders and arms in an iron grip. In Ellander there hadn’t been a dreadful steel chair whose purpose was quite sadistically obvious. There had been no shaven-headed characters dressed in white in the middle of the laboratory, no Bonhart, and no Skellen, excited, flushed and licking his lips. And neither was there Vilgefortz, with one normal eye and the other tiny and twitching hideously.

Vilgefortz turned around from the table, where he had spent a long time arranging some sinister-looking instruments.

‘Do you see, my splendid maiden,’ he began, walking towards her, ‘that you are the key to mastery and power? Not only over this world, a vanity of vanities, doomed in any case to early extinction, but over all worlds. Over the whole compass of places and times which have arisen since the Conjunction. You certainly understand me; you have already visited some of those places and times.

‘I’m ashamed to admit it,’ he continued a moment later, rolling up his sleeves, ‘but I’m terribly attracted by power. It’s crude, I know, but I want to be a ruler. A ruler before whom people will bow down, whom people will bless simply because I let them be, and whom they will worship as a god, if, let’s say, I decide to save their world from a cataclysm. Even if I only save it on a whim. Oh, Ciri, my heart is gladdened by the thought of how magnanimously I shall reward the faithful, and how cruelly I shall punish the disobedient and arrogant. The prayers that shall be offered up by whole generations to me and for me; for my love and my mercy will be balm and honey to my soul. Whole generations, Ciri, whole worlds. Listen out. Do you hear? Deliver us from the plague, hunger, war and wrath of Vilgefortz . . .’

He moved his fingers just in front of her face, then violently seized her by the cheeks. Ciri screamed and struggled, but she was held firmly. Her lips began to tremble. Vilgefortz saw it and sniggered.

‘The Child of Destiny,’ he laughed nervously, and white flecks of foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. ‘Aen Hen Ichaer, the sacred elven Elder Blood . . . Now all mine.’

He straightened up abruptly. And wiped his mouth.

‘Various fools and mystics,’ he now announced in his usually cold tone, ‘have tried to adapt you to fairy tales, legends and prophecies; have tracked the genes you carry, your inheritance from your ancestors. Mistaking the sky for stars reflected in the surface of a pond, they mystically supposed that a gene determining great potential would continue to evolve, that it would achieve the height of power in your child or the child of your child. And a charming aura grew around you, incense smoke trailed behind you. But the truth is much more banal, much more mundane. Organically mundane, I’d say. Your blood, my splendid one, is important. But in the absolutely literal, quite unpoetic sense of the word.’

He picked up from the table a glass syringe measuring about six inches. The syringe ended in a thin, slightly curved capillary. Ciri felt her mouth go dry. The sorcerer examined the syringe under the light.

‘In a moment,’ he declared coldly, ‘you will be undressed and placed on this chair, precisely this one, which you’re contemplating with such curiosity. You’ll spend some time in the chair, albeit in an uncomfortable position. With the help of this device, which also, as I see, is fascinating you, you will be impregnated. It won’t be so awful, for almost the whole time you’ll be befuddled by elixirs, which I shall give you intravenously, with the aim of implanting the foetal ovum properly and ruling out an ectopic pregnancy. You needn’t be afraid, I’m skilled; I’ve done this hundreds of times. Never, admittedly, to a chosen one of fate and destiny, but I don’t think the uteruses and ovaries of chosen ones differ so much from those of ordinary maids.

‘And now the most important thing.’ Vilgefortz savoured what he was saying. ‘It may worry you, or it may gratify you, but know that you won’t give birth to the infant. Who knows, perhaps it would also have been a great chosen one with extraordinary abilities, the saviour of the world and the king of nations? No one, however, is able to guarantee that, and I, furthermore, have no intention of waiting that long. I need blood. More precisely, placental blood. As soon as the placenta develops I shall remove it from you. The rest of my plans and intentions, my splendid one, will not, as you now comprehend, concern you, so there’s no point informing you about them, it would only be an unnecessary frustration.’

He fell silent, leaving a masterly pause. Ciri couldn’t control her trembling mouth.

‘And now,’ the sorcerer nodded theatrically, ‘I invite you to the chair, Miss Cirilla.’

‘It would be worth having that bitch Yennefer watching this.’ Bonhart’s teeth flashed beneath his grey moustaches. ‘She deserves it!’

‘Indeed she does.’ Small white balls of froth appeared again in the corners of Vilgefortz’s smiling mouth. ‘Impregnation is, after all, a sacred thing, solemn and ceremonial, a mystery at which one’s entire close family should assist. And Yennefer is, after all, your quasi-mother, and in primitive cultures the mother virtually takes an active part in her daughter’s consummation ceremony. Go on, bring her here!’

‘But regarding that impregnation . . .’ Bonhart bent over Ciri, whom the sorcerer’s shaven-headed acolytes had begun to undress. ‘Couldn’t one, Lord Vilgefortz, do it more normally? As nature intended?’

Skellen snorted, nodding his head. Vilgefortz frowned slightly.

‘No,’ he responded coolly. ‘No, Mr Bonhart. One couldn’t.’

Ciri, as though only now realising the gravity of the situation, uttered an ear-splitting scream. Once, and then a second time.

‘Well, well.’ The sorcerer grimaced. ‘We entered the lion’s den, bravely, with head and sword held high, and now we’re afraid of a small glass tube? For shame, young lady.’

Ciri, not caring about shame, screamed so loudly the laboratory vessels jingled.

And the whole of Stygga Castle suddenly responded with yelling and commotion.

*

‘There’ll be trouble, boys,’ repeated Zadarlik, scraping dried dung from between the stones of the courtyard with the metal-tipped butt of his ranseur. ‘Oh, you’ll see, there’ll be trouble for us poor wretches.’

He looked at his comrades, but none of the guards commented. Neither did Boreas Mun speak. He had remained with the guards at the gate, from choice, not because of orders. He could have, like Silifant, followed Tawny Owl, could have seen with his own eyes what would happen to the Lady of the Lake, what fate she would suffer. But Boreas didn’t want to watch it. He preferred to stay here, in the courtyard, beneath the open sky, far from the chambers and halls of the upper castle, where they had taken the girl. He was certain that not even her screams would reach here.

‘Those black birds are a bad sign.’ Zadarlik nodded at the rooks, still sitting on the walls and cornices. ‘That young wench who came here on a black mare is an evil omen. We’re serving Tawny Owl in an evil matter, I tell you. They’re saying, in truth, that Tawny Owl himself isn’t a coroner or important gentleman now, but an outlaw like us. That the emperor has it in cruelly for him. If he seizes us all, boys, there’ll be trouble for us poor wretches.’

‘Aye, aye!’ added another guard, with long moustaches, wearing a hat decorated with black stork feathers. ‘The noose is at hand! It’s no good when the emperor’s angry—’

‘Blow that,’ interjected a third, a new arrival to Stygga Castle with the last party of mercenaries recruited by Skellen. ‘The emperor might not have enough time for us. They say he has other concerns. They say there was a decisive battle somewhere in the north. The Nordlings beat the imperial forces, thrashed them soundly.’

‘In that case,’ said a fourth, ‘perhaps it isn’t so bad that we’re here with Tawny Owl? Always better to be with the victors.’

‘Certainly it’s better,’ said the new one. ‘Tawny Owl, it seems to me, will go far. And we’ll go far with him too.’

‘Oh, boys.’ Zadarlik leaned on his ranseur. ‘You’re as thick as pig shit.’

The black birds took flight with a deafening flapping and cawing. They darkened the sky, wheeling in a flock around the bastion.

‘What the fuck?’ groaned one of the guards.

‘Open the gate, please.’

Boreas Mun suddenly detected a powerful smell of herbs: sage, mint and thyme. He swallowed and shook his head. He closed and opened his eyes. It didn’t help. The thin, grey-haired elderly man resembling a tax collector who had suddenly appeared beside them had no intention of vanishing. He stood and smiled through pursed lips. Boreas’s hair almost lifted his hat up.

‘Open the gate, please,’ repeated the smiling elderly gentleman. ‘Without delay. It really will be better if you do.’

Zadarlik dropped his ranseur with a clank, stood stiffly and moved his mouth noiselessly. His eyes were empty. The remaining men went closer to the gate, striding stiffly and unnaturally, like automatons. They took down the bar. And opened the hasp and staple.

Four riders burst into the courtyard with a thudding of horseshoes.

One had hair as white as snow, and the sword in his hand flashed like lightning. Another was a fair-haired woman, bending a bow as she rode. The third rider, quite a young woman, carved open Zadarlik’s temple with a sweeping blow of a curved sabre.

Boreas Mun picked up the ranseur and shielded himself with the shaft. The fourth rider suddenly towered over him. There were wings of a bird of prey attached to both sides of his helmet. His upraised sword shone.

‘Leave him, Cahir,’ said the white-haired man sharply. ‘Let’s save time and blood. Milva, Regis, that way . . .’

‘No,’ mumbled Boreas, not knowing himself why he was doing it. ‘Not that way . . . That’s only a dead end. Your way is there, up that staircase . . . To the upper castle. If you wish to rescue the Lady of the Lake . . . then you must hurry.’

‘My thanks,’ said the white-haired man. ‘Thank you, stranger. Regis, did you hear? Lead on!’

A moment later only corpses remained in the courtyard. And Boreas Mun, still leaning on the pikestaff. Which he couldn’t release, because his legs were shaking so much.

The rooks circled, cawing, over Stygga Castle, covering the towers and bastions in a shroud-like cloud.

*

Vilgefortz listened with stoical calm and an inscrutable expression to the breathless report of the mercenary who had come running. But his restless and blinking eye betrayed him.

‘Last ditch reinforcements.’ He ground his teeth. ‘Unbelievable. Things like that don’t happen. Or they do, but only in crummy, vulgar pageants, and it comes to the same thing. Do me the pleasure, good fellow, of telling me you’ve made it all up for, shall we say, a lark.’

‘I’m not making it up!’ the hireling said in indignation. ‘I’m speaking the truth! Some horsemen have burst in . . . A whole hassa of them—’

‘Very well, very well,’ the sorcerer interrupted. ‘I was joking. Skellen, deal with this matter personally. It will be a chance to demonstrate how much your army, hired with my gold, is worth.’

Tawny Owl leaped up, nervously waving his arms.

‘Aren’t you treating this too lightly, Vilgefortz?’ he yelled. ‘You, it seems, don’t realise the gravity of the situation! If the castle is being attacked, it’s by Emhyr’s army! And that means—’

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ the sorcerer cut him off. ‘But I know what you have in mind. Very well, if the fact that you have me behind you will improve your morale, have it as you will. Let’s go. You too, Mr Bonhart.’

‘As far as you’re concerned—’ he fixed his terrible eye on Ciri ‘—don’t have any false hopes. I know who’s turned up here with these pathetic reinforcements worthy of a cheap farce. And I assure you, I shall turn this cheap farce into a nightmare.

‘Hey, you!’ he nodded at the servants and acolytes. ‘Shackle the girl in dimeritium, lock and bolt her in a cell, and don’t move an inch from the door. You’ll answer with your lives for her. Understood?’

‘Yes, sire.’

*

They rushed into the corridor, and from the corridor into a large hall full of sculptures; a veritable glyptothek. No one barred their way. They only saw a few lackeys who immediately fled on seeing them.

They ran up some stairs. Cahir kicked a door open, Angoulême rushed inside with a battle cry and with a blow of her sabre knocked off the helmet of a suit of armour she took for a guard standing by the door. She realised her mistake and roared with laughter.

‘Hee, hee, hee! Look at that . . .’

‘Angoulême!’ Geralt took her to task. ‘Don’t just stand there! Go on!’

A door opened in front of them. Shapes loomed in the doorway. Milva bent her bow and sent off an arrow without a second thought. Somebody screamed. The door was closed, Geralt heard a bolt thudding.

‘Go on, go on!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t just stand there!’

‘Witcher,’ said Regis. ‘This running is senseless. I’ll go off . . . I’ll fly off and do some reconnaissance.’

‘Fly.’

The vampire took off as though blown by the wind. Geralt had no time to be surprised.

Again they chanced upon some men, this time armed. Cahir and Angoulême jumped towards them with a yell, and the men bolted, mainly, it seemed, because of Cahir and his impressive winged helmet.

They dashed into the cloister, and the gallery surrounding the inner vestibule. Around twenty paces separated them from the portico leading into the castle when shapes appeared on the other side of the cloister. Loud shouts echoed out. And arrows whistled.

‘Take cover!’ the Witcher yelled.

Arrows rained down on them. Fletchings fluttered and arrowheads sent up sparks from the floor, chipping the mouldings from the walls and showering them in fine dust.

‘Get down! Behind the balustrade!’

They dropped down, hiding pell-mell behind spiral columns carved with leaves. But they didn’t get away with it entirely. The Witcher heard Angoulême cry out, and saw as she grabbed her arm, her sleeve, which immediately became blood-soaked.

‘Angoulême!’

‘It’s nothing! It passed through muscle!’ the girl shouted back in only a slightly trembling voice, confirming what he had seen. Had the arrowhead shattered the bone, Angoulême would have fainted from the shock.

The archers were shooting from the gallery without let-up and were shouting out, calling for reinforcements. Several of them ran off to the side, to fire at the pinned-down party from an acute angle. Geralt swore, assessing the distance separating them from the arcade. Things looked bad. But to stay where they were meant death.

‘Let’s make a run for it!’ he yelled. ‘Ready! Cahir, help Angoulême!’

‘They’ll slaughter us!’

‘Run for it! We have to!’

‘No!’ screamed Milva, standing up with bow in hand.

She straightened up, assumed a shooting position; a veritable statue, a marble Amazon with a bow. The marksmen on the gallery yelled.

Milva lowered her head.

One of the archers flew backwards, slamming against the wall, and a bloody splash resembling a huge octopus bloomed on the stone. A cry resounded from the gallery, a roar of anger, fury and horror.

‘By the Great Sun . . .’ groaned Cahir. Geralt squeezed his shoulder.

‘Let’s make a run for it! Help Angoulême!’

The marksmen on the gallery directed all their fire at Milva. The archer didn’t even twitch, although all around her it was dusty with plaster, chips of marble and splinters of shattering shafts. She calmly released the bowstring. Another yell, and another archer tumbled over like a ragdoll, splashing his companions with blood and brains.

‘Now!’ yelled Geralt, seeing the guards fleeing from the gallery, dropping to the floor, hiding from the deadly arrowheads. Only the three bravest were still shooting.

An arrowhead thudded against a pillar, showering Milva in a cloud of plaster dust. The archer blew on her hair, which was falling over her face, and bent her bow.

‘Milva!’ Geralt, Angoulême and Cahir had reached the arcade. ‘Leave it! Run!’

‘One more little shot,’ said the archer with the fletching of an arrow in the corner of her mouth.

The bowstring slapped. One of the three brave men howled, leaned over the balustrade and plummeted downwards onto the flags of the courtyard. At the sight, courage immediately deserted the others. They fell to the floor and pressed themselves against it. Those who had arrived were in no hurry to come out onto the gallery and expose themselves to Milva’s shooting.

With one exception.

Milva measured him up at once. Short, slim, swarthy. With a bracer on his left forearm rubbed to a shine and an archer’s glove on his right hand. She saw him lift a shapely composite bow with a profiled, carved riser, saw him tauten it smoothly. She saw the bowstring – tightened to its full draw – cross his swarthy face, saw the red-feathered fletching touch his cheek. She saw him aim carefully.

She tossed her bow up, tightened it smoothly, already aiming as she did so. The bowstring touched her face, the feather of the fletching the corner of her mouth.

*

‘Harder, harder, Marishka. All the way to your cheek. Twist the bowstring with your fingers, so the arrow doesn’t fall from the rest. Hand tight against your cheek. Aim! Both eyes open! Now hold your breath. Shoot!’

The bowstring, in spite of the woollen bracer, stung her left forearm painfully.

Her father was about to speak when he was seized by a coughing fit. A heavy, dry, painful coughing fit. He’s coughing worse and worse, thought Marishka Barring, lowering her bow. More and more horribly, and more and more often. He started coughing yesterday as he was aiming at a buck. And for dinner there was only boiled pigweed. I can’t stand boiled pigweed. I hate hunger. And poverty.

Old Barring sucked in air, wheezing gratingly.

‘Your arrow passed a span from the bull’s eye, lass! A whole span! And I’ve told you, ain’t I, not to twitch when you’re letting the bowstring go? And you’re hopping about like a slug’s crawled into your arse crack. And you take too long aiming. You’re shooting with a weary arm! That’s how you waste arrows!’

‘But I hit the target! And not a span at all, but half a span from the bull’s eye.’

‘Don’t talk back! How the Gods punished me by sending me a clod of a lass instead of a son!’

‘I ain’t a clod!’

‘We’ll soon find out. Shoot one more time. And mark what I told you. You’re to stand like you were sunk into the ground. Aim and shoot swiftly. Why are you making faces?’

‘Because you’re badmouthing me.’

‘It’s my fatherly right. Shoot.’

She drew back the bow, sullen and close to tears. He noticed.

‘I love you, Marishka,’ he said softly. ‘Always mind that.’

She released the bowstring when the fletching had barely touched the corner of her mouth.

‘Well done,’ said her father. ‘Well done, lass’

And coughed horribly, wheezingly.

*

The swarthy archer from the gallery died outright. Milva’s arrow struck him below his left armpit and penetrated deep, more than halfway up the shaft, shattering his ribs, pulverising his lungs and heart.

The swarthy archer’s red-feathered arrow, released a split second, earlier, struck Milva low in the belly and exited at the back, having shattered her pelvis and pulverised her intestines and arteries.

The archer fell to the floor as though rammed.

Geralt and Cahir shouted with one voice. Heedless that at the sight of Milva’s collapse the marksmen from the gallery had once again picked up their bows, they jumped out from the portico protecting them, grabbed the archer and dragged her back, scornful of the hail of arrows. One of the arrowheads rang against Cahir’s helmet. Another, Geralt would have sworn, parted his hair.

Milva left behind her a broad and glistening trail of blood. In the blink of an eye a huge pool had appeared in the place they laid her down. Cahir cursed, his hands shaking. Geralt felt despair overcoming him. And fury.

‘Auntie,’ howled Angoulême. ‘Auntie, don’t diiiiiieeeee!’

Maria Barring opened her mouth, coughed horrifyingly, spitting blood onto her chin.

‘I love you too, Papa,’ she said quite distinctly.

And died.

*

The shaven-headed acolytes couldn’t cope with the struggling and yelling Ciri, and lackeys rushed to help them. One, kicked between the legs, leaped back, bent over double, and fell to his knees, grabbing his crotch and gasping spasmodically for air.

But that only infuriated the others. Ciri was punched in the neck and slapped in the face. They knocked her over, someone kicked her hard in the hip and someone else sat down on her shins. One of the bald acolytes, a young character with evil green and gold eyes, kneeled on her chest, dug his fingers into her hair and tugged it hard. Ciri howled.

The acolyte also howled. And goggled. Ciri saw streams of blood gushing from his shaven head, staining his white laboratory coat with a macabre design.

The next second, hell broke loose in the laboratory.

Overturned furniture banged. The high-pitched cracking and crunching of breaking glass merged with the hellish moaning of people. The decocts, philtres, elixirs, extracts and other magical substances spilling over the tables and floor mixed up and combined, some of them hissing on contact and belching clouds of yellow smoke. The room was instantly filled with a pungent stench.

Amidst the smoke, through tears brought on by the smell of burning, Ciri saw to her horror a black shape resembling an enormous bat dashing around the laboratory at an incredible speed. She saw the bat in flight slashing the men and saw them falling over screaming. In front of her eyes a lackey trying hard to flee was picked up from the floor and flung onto a table, where he thrashed around, splashed blood, and finally croaked among smashed retorts, alembics, test tubes and flasks.

The mixture of spilled liquids splashed onto a lamp. It hissed, stinking, and flames suddenly exploded in the laboratory. A wave of heat dispersed the smoke. She clenched her teeth so as not to scream.

A slender, grey-haired man dressed elegantly in black was sitting on the steel chair meant for her. The man was calmly biting and sucking on the neck of the shaven-headed acolyte slumped over his knee. The acolyte squealed shrilly and twitched convulsively, his extended legs and arms jerking rhythmically.

Corpse-blue flames were dancing on the metal table-top. Retorts and flasks exploded with a thud, one after another.

The vampire tore his pointed fangs from his victim’s neck and fixed his agate-black eyes on Ciri.

‘There are occasions,’ he said in an explanatory tone, licking blood from his lips, ‘when it’s simply impossible not to have a drink.

‘Don’t fear,’ he smiled, seeing her expression. ‘Don’t fear, Ciri. I’m glad I found you. My name’s Emiel Regis. I am, although it may seem strange to you, a comrade of the Witcher Geralt. I came here with him to rescue you.’

An armed mercenary rushed into the blazing laboratory. Geralt’s comrade turned his head towards him, hissed and bared his fangs. The mercenary howled horrifyingly. The howling went on for a long time before it faded into the distance.

Emiel Regis threw the acolyte’s body, motionless and soft as a rag, from his knee, stood up and stretched just like a cat.

‘Who’d have thought it?’ he said. ‘Just some runt, and what good blood inside him! What hidden talents! Come with me, Cirilla, I’ll take you to Geralt.’

‘No,’ mumbled Ciri.

‘You don’t have to be afraid of me.’

‘I’m not,’ she protested, bravely fighting with her teeth which insisted on chattering. ‘That’s not what it’s about . . . But Yennefer is imprisoned here somewhere. I have to free her as quickly as possible. I’m afraid that Vilgefortz . . . Mr . . .’

‘Emiel Regis.’

‘Warn Geralt, good sir, that Vilgefortz is here. He’s a sorcerer. A powerful sorcerer. Geralt has to be on his guard.’

*

‘You’re to be on your guard,’ repeated Regis, looking at Milva’s body. ‘Because Vilgefortz is a powerful mage. Meanwhile, she’s setting Yennefer free.’

Geralt swore.

‘Come on!’ he yelled, trying to revive the low spirits of his companions with a shout. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Let’s go.’ Angoulême stood up and wipe away her tears. ‘Let’s go! It’s time to kick a few fucking arses!’

‘I feel such strength inside me I could probably lay waste to this entire castle,’ hissed the vampire, smiling gruesomely.

The Witcher glanced at him suspiciously.

‘Don’t go that far,’ he said, ‘But force your way through to the upper floor and make a bit of a racket to draw their attention away from me. I’ll try to find Ciri. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t good, vampire, that you left her alone.’

‘She demanded it,’ Regis explained calmly. ‘Using a tone and attitude that ruled out any discussion. She astonished me, I admit.’

‘I know. Go to the upper floor. Look after yourselves! I’ll try to find her. Her, or Yennefer.’

*

He found her, and quite quickly.

He ran into them all of a sudden, completely unexpectedly coming around a bend in a corridor. He saw. And the sight made the adrenaline prick the veins on the backs of his hands.

Several lackeys were dragging Yennefer along the corridor. The sorceress was dishevelled and shackled in chains, which didn’t stop her kicking and struggling and swearing like a trooper.

Geralt didn’t let the lackeys get over their astonishment. He only struck once, with one short thrust from the elbow. The man howled like a dog, staggered, smashed his head with a clank and a thud against a suit of plate armour standing in an alcove, and slid down it, smearing blood over the steel plates.

The remaining ones – there were three of them – released Yennefer and leaped aside. Apart from the fourth, who seized the sorceress by the hair and held a knife to her throat, just above her dimeritium collar.

‘Don’t come any closer!’ he howled. ‘I’ll slit her throat! I’m not joking!’

‘Neither am I.’ Geralt swung his sword around and looked the thug in the eyes. That was enough for him. He released Yennefer and joined his companions. All of them were now holding weapons. One of them wrenched an antique but menacing-looking halberd from a panoply on the wall. All of them, crouching, were vacillating between attack and defence.

‘I knew you’d come,’ said Yennefer straightening up proudly. ‘Geralt, show these scoundrels what a witcher’s sword can do.’

She raised her cuffed hands high, tautening the links of the chain.

Geralt grasped his sihill in both hands, tilted his head slightly and aimed. And smote. So swiftly no one saw the movement of the blade.

The links fell onto the floor with a clank. One of the servants gasped. Geralt grasped the hilt more tightly and moved his index finger under the cross guard.

‘Stand still, Yen. Head slightly to one side, please.’

The sorceress didn’t even flinch. The sound of metal being struck by the sword was very faint.

The dimeritium collar fell down beside the manacles. Only a single, tiny drop appeared on Yennefer’s neck.

She laughed, massaging her wrists. And turned towards the lackeys. None of them could endure her gaze.

The one with the halberd placed the antique weapon gingerly on the floor, as though afraid it would clank.

‘Let Tawny Owl,’ he mumbled, ‘fight someone like that himself. My life is dear to me.’

‘They ordered us,’ muttered another, withdrawing. ‘They ordered us . . . We were captive . . .’

‘After all, we weren’t rude to you, madam . . . in your prison . . .’ a third licked his lips. ‘Testify to that . . .’

‘Begone,’ said Yennefer. Freed from the dimeritium manacles, erect, with her head proudly raised, she looked like a Titaness. Her unruly black mane seemed to reach up to the vault.

The lackeys fled. Furtively and without looking back. Having shrunk to her normal dimensions, Yennefer fell on Geralt’s neck.

‘I knew you’d come for me,’ she murmured, searching for his mouth with hers. ‘That you’d come, whatever might happen.’

‘Let’s go,’ he said after a moment, gasping for air. ‘Now for Ciri.’

‘Ciri,’ she said. And a second later a menacing violet glow lit up in her eyes.

‘And Vilgefortz.’

*

A man with a crossbow came around the corner, yelled and shot, aiming at the sorceress. Geralt leaped as though propelled by a spring, brandished his sword and the deflected bolt flew right over the crossbowman’s head, so close he had to crouch. He didn’t manage to straighten up, though, for the Witcher leaped forward and filleted him like a carp. Two more were still standing in the corridor, also holding crossbows. They also fired, but their hands were shaking too much to find the target. The next moment the Witcher was upon them and they were both dead.

‘Which way, Yen?’

The sorceress focused, closing her eyes.

‘That way. Up those stairs.’

‘Are you sure it’s the right way?’

‘Yes.’

They were attacked by thugs just around the bend in the corridor, not far from a portal decorated with an archivolt. There were more than ten of them, and they were armed with spears, partizans and corseques. They were even determined and fierce. In spite of that it didn’t take long. Yennefer stabbed one of them in the centre of the chest at once with a fiery arrowhead shot from her hand. Geralt whirled in a pirouette and fell among the others, the dwarven sihill flashing and hissing like a snake. Once four had fallen the rest fled, the corridors echoing with their clanking and stamping.

‘Everything in order, Yen?’

‘Couldn’t be better.’

Vilgefortz stood beneath the archivolt.

‘I’m impressed,’ he said calmly and resonantly. ‘I really am impressed, Witcher. You’re naive and hopelessly stupid, but your technique is impressive.’

‘Your brigands,’ Yennefer replied just as calmly, ‘have just beaten a retreat, leaving you at our mercy. Hand Ciri over, and we’ll spare your life.’

‘Do you know, Yennefer, that that’s the second such generous offer I’ve had today?’ the sorcerer grinned. ‘Thank you, thank you. And here’s my answer.’

‘Look out!’ yelled Yennefer, jumping aside. Geralt also leaped aside. Just in time. The column of fire shooting from the sorcerer’s outstretched hands transformed the place they had been standing a moment earlier into black and fizzing mud. The Witcher wiped soot and the remains of his eyebrows off his face. He saw Vilgefortz extend a hand. He dived aside and flattened himself against the floor behind the base of a column. There was a boom so loud it hurt their ears, and the whole castle was shaken to its foundations.

*

Booming echoed through the castle, the walls trembled and the chandeliers jingled. A large oil portrait in a gilded frame fell with a great clatter.

The mercenaries who ran up from the vestibule had abject fear in their eyes. Stefan Skellen calmed them with a menacing look, and took them to task with his grim expression and voice.

‘What’s going on there? Talk!’

My Lord Coroner . . .’ wheezed one of them. ‘There’s horror there! There’s demons and devils there . . . They’re shooting unerringly. . . It’s a massacre . . . Death is there . . . It’s red with gore everywhere!’

‘Some ten men have fallen . . . Perhaps more . . . Over yonder . . . Do you hear, sir?’

There was another boom and the castle shook.

‘Magic,’ muttered Skellen. ‘Vilgefortz . . . Well, we shall see. We’ll find out who’s beating whom.’

Another hireling came running. He was pale and covered in plaster. For a long time he couldn’t utter a word, and when he finally spoke his hands trembled and his voice shook.

‘There’s . . . There’s . . . A monster . . . Lord Coroner . . . Like a great, black flittermouse . . . It was tearing people’s heads off before my very eyes . . . Blood was gushing everywhere! And it was darting around and laughing . . . It had teeth like this!’

‘We won’t escape with our lives . . .’ whispered a voice behind Tawny Owl’s back.

‘Lord Coroner.’ Boreas Mun decided to speak. ‘They are spectres. I saw . . . the young Graf Cahir aep Ceallach. But he’s dead.’

Skellen looked at him, but didn’t say anything.

‘Lord Stefan . . .’ mumbled Dacre Silifant. ‘Who are we to fight here?’

‘They aren’t men,’ groaned one of the mercenaries. ‘They are sorcerers and hellish devils! Human strength cannot cope against such as them . . .’

Tawny Owl crossed his arms on his chest and swept a bold and imperious gaze over the mercenaries.

‘So we shall not get involved in this conflict of hellish forces!’ he announced thunderously and emphatically. ‘Let demons fight with demons, witches with witches, and ghosts with corpses risen from the grave. We won’t interfere with them! We shall wait here calmly for the outcome of the battle.’

The mercenaries’ faces brightened up. Their morale rose perceptibly.

‘That staircase is the only way out,’ Skellen continued in a powerful voice. ‘We’ll wait here. We shall see who tries coming down it.’

A terrible boom resounded from above and mouldings fell from the vault with an audible rustle. There was a stench of sulphur and burning.

‘It’s too dark here!’ called Tawny Owl, thunderously and boldly, to raise his troops’ spirits. ‘Briskly, light whatever you can! Torches, brands! We have to see well whoever appears on those stairs! Fill those iron cressets with some fuel or other!’

‘What kind of fuel, sir?’

Skellen indicated wordlessly what kind.

‘Pictures?’ a mercenary asked in disbelief. ‘Paintings?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ snorted Tawny Owl. ‘Why are you looking like that? Art is dead!’

Frames were splintered and paintings shredded. The well-dried wood and canvas, saturated with linseed oil, caught fire immediately and flared up with a bright flame.

Boreas Mun watched. His mind completely made up.

*

There was a boom and a flash, and the column they had managed to jump away from at almost the last moment disintegrated. The shaft broke, the capital decorated with acanthus-leaves crashed to the floor, destroying a terracotta mosaic. A ball of lightning hurtled towards them with a hiss. Yennefer deflected it, screaming out a spell and gesticulating.

Vilgefortz walked towards them, his cloak fluttering like a dragon’s wings.

‘I’m not surprised at Yennefer,’ he said as he walked. ‘She is a woman and thus an evolutionary inferior creature, governed by hormonal chaos. But you, Geralt, are not only a man who is sensible by nature, but also a mutant, invulnerable to emotions.’

He waved a hand. There was a boom and a flash. A lightning bolt bounced off the shield Yennefer had conjured up.

‘In spite of your good sense—’ Vilgefortz continued to talk, pouring fire from hand to hand ‘—in one matter you demonstrate astounding and foolish perseverance: you invariably desire to row upstream and piss into the wind. It had to end badly. Know that today, here, in Stygga Castle, you have pissed into a hurricane.’

*

A battle was raging somewhere on the lower storeys. Someone screamed horribly, moaned, and wailed in pain. Something was burning. Ciri could smell smoke and burning, and felt a waft of hot air.

Something boomed with such force that the columns holding up the vault trembled and stuccoes fell off the walls.

Ciri cautiously looked around the corner. The corridor was empty. She walked along it quickly and silently, with rows of statues standing in alcoves on her right and left. She had seen those statues once.

In her dreams.

She exited the corridor. And ran straight into a man with a spear. She sprang aside, ready to dodge and somersault. And then she realised it wasn’t a man but a thin, grey-haired, stooped woman. And that it wasn’t a spear, but a broom.

‘A sorceress with black hair is imprisoned somewhere around here.’ Ciri cleared her throat. ‘Where?’

The woman with the broom was silent for a long time, moving her mouth as though chewing something.

‘And how should I know, treasure?’ she finally mumbled. ‘For I only clean here. Nothing else, just clean up after them,’ she repeated, not looking at Ciri at all. ‘And all they do is keep dirtying the place. Look for yourself, treasure.’

Ciri looked. There was a smudged zigzag streak of blood on the floor. The streak extended for a few paces and ended beside a corpse huddled up by the wall. Two more corpses lay further on, one curled up in a ball, the other positively indecently spread-eagled. Beside them lay crossbows.

‘They keep making a mess.’ The woman took a pail and rag, kneeled down and set about cleaning. ‘Dirt, nothing but dirt, all the time dirt. And I must clean and clean. Will there ever be an end to it?’

‘No,’ Ciri said softly. ‘Never. That’s what this world’s come to.’

The woman stopped cleaning. But didn’t raise her head.

‘I clean,’ she said. ‘Nothing more. But I’ll tell you, treasure, that you must go straight, and then left.’

‘Thank you.’

The woman bowed her head even lower and resumed her cleaning.

*

She was alone. Alone and lost in the maze of corridors.

‘Madam Yenneeefeeer!’

Up until then she had kept quiet, afraid of saddling herself with Vilgefortz’s men. But now . . .

‘Yeeneeeefeeer!’

She thought she’d heard something. Yes, for sure!

She ran into a gallery, and from there into a large hall, between slender pillars. The stench of burning reached her nostrils again.

Bonhart emerged like a ghost from a niche and punched her in the face. She staggered, and he leaped on her like a hawk, seized her by the throat, pinning her to the wall with his forearm. Ciri looked into his fishlike eyes and felt her heart drop downwards to her belly.

‘I wouldn’t have found you if you hadn’t called,’ he wheezed out. ‘But you called, and longingly, to cap it all off! Have you missed me so? My little darling?’

Still pinning her to the wall, he slipped his hand into the hair on her nape. Ciri jerked her head. The bounty hunter grinned. He ran his hand over her arm, squeezed her breast, and grabbed her roughly by the crotch. Then he released her and pushed her so that she slid down the wall.

And tossed a sword at her feet. Her Swallow. And she knew at once what he wanted.

‘I’d have preferred it in the ring,’ he drawled. ‘As the crowning achievement, as the grand finale of many beautiful performances. The witcher girl against Leo Bonhart! Eh, people would pay to see something like that! Go on! Pick up the weapon and draw it from the scabbard.’

She did as he said. But she didn’t draw the blade, just slung it across her back so the hilt would be within reach.

Bonhart took a step back.

‘I thought it would suffice me to gladden my eyes with the sight of that surgery Vilgefortz is preparing for you,’ he said. ‘I was mistaken. I must feel your life flowing down my blade. I defy witchcraft and sorcerers, destiny, prophecies, the fate of the world, I defy the Elder and Younger Blood. What do all these predictions and spells mean to me? What do I gain from them? Nothing! Nothing can compare with the pleasure—’

He broke off. She saw him purse his lips, saw his eyes flash ominously.

‘I’ll bleed you to death, witcher girl,’ he hissed. ‘And afterwards, before you cool off, we’ll celebrate our nuptials. You are mine. And you’ll die mine. Draw your weapon.’

A distant thud resounded and the castle shuddered.

‘Vilgefortz,’ Bonhart explained with an inscrutable expression, ‘is reducing your witcher rescuers to pulp. Go on, girl, draw your sword.’

Shall I run away, she thought, frozen in terror, flee to other places, to other times? If only I could get far from him, if only. She felt shame: how can I run away? Leave Yennefer and Geralt at their mercy? But good sense told her: I’m not much use to them dead . . .

She focused, pressing her fists to her temples. Bonhart knew immediately what she was planning and lunged for her. But it was too late. There was a buzzing in Ciri’s ears, something flashed. I’ve done it, she thought triumphantly.

And at once realised her triumph was premature. She realised it on hearing furious yelling and curses. The evil, hostile and paralysing aura of the place was probably to blame for the fiasco. She hadn’t travelled far. Not even out of eyeshot – only to the opposite end of the gallery. Not far from Bonhart. But beyond the range of his hands and his sword. Temporarily, at least.

Pursued by his roar, Ciri turned and ran.

*

She ran down a long, wide corridor, followed by the dead glances of the alabaster caryatids holding up the arcades. She turned once and then again. She wanted to lose and confuse Bonhart, and furthermore she was heading towards the noises of the battle. Her friends would be where the fighting was raging, she was sure.

She rushed into a large, round room, in the centre of which a sculpture portraying a woman with her face covered, most probably a goddess, stood on a marble plinth. Two corridors led away from the room, both quite narrow. She chose at random. Naturally she chose wrongly.

‘The wench!’ roared one of the thugs. ‘We have her!’

There were too many of them to be able to risk fighting, even in a narrow corridor. And Bonhart was surely nearby. Ciri turned back and bolted. She burst into the room with the marble goddess. And froze.

Before her stood a knight with a great sword, in a black cloak and helmet decorated with the wings of a bird of prey.

The town was burning. She heard the roar of fire, saw flames flickering and felt the heat of the conflagration. The neighing of horses and the screaming of the murdered were in her ears. The black bird’s wings suddenly flapped, covering everything . . . Help!

Cintra, she thought, coming to her senses. The Isle of Thanedd. He’s followed me all the way here. He’s a demon. I’m surrounded by demons, by nightmares from my dreams. Bonhart behind me, him in front of me.

The shouting and stamping of enemies coming running could be heard behind her.

The knight in the plumed helmet suddenly took a step forward. Ciri overcame her fear. She yanked Swallow from its scabbard.

‘You will not touch me!’

The knight moved forward and Ciri noticed in amazement that a fair-haired girl armed with a curved sabre was hiding behind his cloak. The girl flashed past Ciri like a lynx, sending one of the approaching lackeys sprawling with a slash of her sabre. And the black knight, astonishingly, rather than attacking Ciri, slit open another thug with a powerful blow. The remaining ones retreated into the corridor.

The fair-haired girl rushed for the door, but didn’t manage to close it. Although she was whirling her sabre menacingly and yelling, the lackeys shoved her back from the portal. Ciri saw one of them stab her with a pilum, saw the girl fall to her knees. Ciri leaped and slashed backhand with Swallow, while the Black Knight ran up on the other side, hacking terribly with his long sword. The fair-haired girl, still on her knees, drew an axe from her belt and hurled it, hitting one of the bruisers right in the face. Then she lunged for the door, slammed it and the knight bolted it.

‘Phew,’ said the girl. ‘Oak and iron! It’ll take them some time to chop their way through that!’

‘They won’t waste time, they’ll search for another way,’ commented the Black Knight soberly, after which his face suddenly darkened on seeing the girl’s blood-soaked trouser leg. The girl waved a hand dismissively.

‘Let’s be away.’ The knight removed his helmet and looked at Ciri. ‘I’m Cahir Mawr Dyffryn, son of Ceallach. I came here with Geralt. To rescue you, Ciri. I know it’s unbelievable.’

‘I’ve seen more unbelievable things,’ Ciri growled. ‘You’ve come a long way . . . Cahir . . . Where’s Geralt?’

He looked at her. She remembered his eyes from Thanedd. Dark blue and as soft as silk. Pretty.

‘He’s rescuing the sorceress,’ he answered. ‘That—’

‘Yennefer. Let’s go.’

‘Yes!’ said the fair-haired girl, putting a makeshift dressing on her thigh. ‘We still have to kick a few arses! For auntie!’

‘Let’s go,’ repeated the knight.

But it was too late.

‘Run away,’ whispered Ciri, seeing who was approaching along the corridor. ‘He’s the devil incarnate. But he only wants me. He won’t come after you . . . Run . . . Help Geralt . . .’

Cahir shook his head.

‘Ciri,’ he said kindly. ‘I’m surprised by what you’re saying. I came here from the end of the world to find you, rescue you and defend you. And now you want me to run away?’

‘You don’t know who you’re up against.’

Cahir pulled up his sleeve, tore off his cloak and wrapped it around his left arm. He brandished his sword and whirled it so fast it hummed.

‘I’ll soon find out.’

Bonhart, seeing the three of them, stopped. But only for a moment.

‘Aha!’ he said. ‘Have the reinforcements arrived? Your companions, witcher girl? Very well. Two less, two more. Makes no difference.’

Ciri had a sudden flash of inspiration.

‘Say farewell to your life, Bonhart!’ she yelled. ‘It’s the end of you! You’ve met your match!’

She must have overdone it and he caught the lie in her voice. He stopped and looked suspiciously.

‘The Witcher? Really?’

Cahir whirled his sword, standing in position. Bonhart didn’t budge.

‘This witch has more of a liking for younger men than I expected,’ he hissed. ‘Just look here, my young blade.’

He pulled his shirt open. Silver medallions flashed in his fist. A cat, a gryphon and a wolf.

‘If you are truly a witcher—’ he ground his teeth ‘—know that your own quack amulet will soon embellish my collection. If you’re not a witcher, you’ll be a corpse before you manage to blink. It would be wise, therefore, to get out of my way and take to your heels. I want this wench; I don’t bear a grudge against you.’

‘You talk big,’ Cahir said calmly, twirling the blade. ‘Let’s see if your bite’s worse than your bark. Angoulême, Ciri. Flee!’

‘Cahir—’

‘Run,’ he corrected himself, ‘and help Geralt.’

They ran. Ciri was holding up the limping Angoulême.

‘You asked for it.’ Bonhart squinted his pale eyes and moved forward, whirling his sword.

‘I asked for it?’ Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach repeated dully. ‘No. It’s what destiny wants!’

They leaped at each other, quickly engaged, surrounding each other with a frantic kaleidoscope of blades. The corridor filled with the clang of iron, seemingly making the marble sculpture tremble and rock.

‘You aren’t bad,’ rasped Bonhart when they came apart. ‘You aren’t bad, my young blade. But you’re no witcher. The little viper deceived me. You’re done for. Prepare for death.’

‘You talk big.’

Cahir took a deep breath. The clash had convinced him he had faint chance with the fishy-eyed man. This man was too fast and too strong for him. The only chance was that Bonhart was in a hurry to get after Ciri. And he was clearly irritated.

Bonhart attacked again. Cahir parried a cut, stooped, jumped, seized his opponent by the belt, shoved him against the wall and kneed him hard in the crotch. Bonhart caught him by the face, battered him powerfully on the side of the head with his sword pommel; once, twice, thrice. The third blow shoved Cahir back. He saw the flash of the blade. He parried instinctively.

Too slowly.

*

It was a strictly observed tradition in the Dyffryn family that all male members would hold a silent vigil lasting a whole day and night over the body of a fallen kinsman once he was inhumed in the castle armoury. The women – gathered in a remote wing of the castle so as not to disturb the men, not to distract them or disrupt their reflections – would sob, keen and faint. When brought round they sobbed and keened again. And da capo.

Sobbing and weeping, even among women, Vicovarian noblewomen, was an unwelcome faux pas and a great dishonour. But among the Dyffryns that and no other was the tradition and no one ever changed it. Or meant to change it.

The ten-year-old Cahir, the youngest brother of Aillil, who had fallen in Nazair and was then lying in the castle armoury, was not yet a man in terms of customs and traditions. He was not allowed to join the group of men gathered around the open coffin, and he was not permitted to sit in silence with his grandfather Gruffyd, his father Ceallach, his brother Dheran or the whole collection of uncles and cousins. Neither was he permitted, naturally, to sob and faint along with his grandmother, mother, three sisters and the whole collection of aunts and cousins. Cahir clowned about and made mischief on the castle walls along with the rest of his young relatives who had come to Darn Dyffra for the obsequies, funeral and wake. And he pummelled any boys who considered that the bravest of the brave in the fighting for Nazair were their own fathers and older brothers, but not Aillil aep Ceallach.

‘Cahir! Come here, my son!’

In the cloister stood Mawr, Cahir’s mother, and her sister, his aunt Cinead var Anahid. His mother’s face was red and so swollen from weeping that Cahir was terrified. It shocked him that weeping could make such a monster out of such a comely woman as his mother. He made a firm resolution never, ever, to cry.

‘Remember, son,’ Mawr sobbed, pressing the boy so hard to her breast he couldn’t catch his breath. ‘Remember this day. Remember who took the life from your dear brother Aillil. The damned Nordlings did it. Your foes, my son. You are ever to hate them. You are to hate that damned, murderous nation!’

‘I shall hate them, mother of mine,’ Cahir promised, somewhat surprised. Firstly, his brother Aillil had died the praiseworthy and enviable death of a warrior, in battle, with honour. What was one to shed tears over? Secondly, it was no secret that his grandmother Eviva – Mawr’s mother – was descended from Nordlings. Papa had more than once called his grandmother in anger ‘She-Wolf from the North’. Behind her back, naturally.

Well, but if mother is now ordering me . . .

‘I shall hate them,’ he pledged eagerly. ‘I already hate them! And when I’m big and have a real sword I’ll go to war and chop off their heads! You’ll see, ma’am!’

His mother took a breath and began sobbing. Aunt Cinead held her up. Cahir clenched his little fists and trembled with hatred. With hatred for those who had wronged his mamma, making her so ugly.

*

Bonhart’s blow clove his temple, cheek and mouth. Cahir dropped his sword and staggered, and the bounty hunter cut him between his neck and collar bone using the force of a half-turn. Cahir tumbled at the feet of the marble goddess, and his blood splashed the statue’s plinth, like a pagan sacrifice.

*

There was a boom, the floor trembled beneath feet and a shield fell with a thud from a wall panoply. Acrid smoke trailed and crept along the corridor. Ciri wiped her face. The fair-haired girl she was supporting weighed her down like a millstone.

‘Quick . . . We must run quicker . . .’

‘I can’t run any quicker,’ said the girl. And suddenly sat down heavily on the floor. Ciri saw with horror a red puddle begin to spill out and collect beneath the seated girl, beneath her blood-soaked trouser leg.

The girl was as white as a sheet.

Ciri threw herself on her knees beside her, pulled off her scarf and then her belt, trying to apply tourniquets. But the wound was too severe. And too near her groin. The blood kept dripping.

The girl grasped her by the hand, her fingers as cold as ice.

‘Ciri . . .’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Angoulême. I didn’t believe . . . I didn’t believe we’d find you. But I followed Geralt . . . Because it’s impossible not to follow him. Isn’t it?’

‘It is. That’s how he is.’

‘We found you. And rescued you. And Fringilla mocked us . . . Tell me . . .’

‘Don’t say anything. Please.’

‘Tell me . . .’ Angoulême was moving her lips slower and slower, and with greater difficulty. ‘Tell me. You’re a queen, aren’t you . . . In Cintra . . . We’ll be in your good graces, won’t we? Will you make me a . . . countess? Tell me. But don’t lie . . . Can you? Tell me!’

‘Don’t say anything. Save your strength.’

Angoulême sighed, suddenly leaned over forward and rested her brow against Ciri’s shoulder.

‘I knew . . .’ she said quite clearly. ‘I knew that a brothel in Toussaint would be a better fucking way of making a living.’

A long, long time passed before Ciri realised she was holding a dead girl in her arms.

*

She saw him as he approached, being led by the lifeless looks of the alabaster caryatids holding up the arcades. And suddenly understood that flight was impossible, that it was impossible to escape from him. That she would have to face him. She knew it.

But was still too afraid of him.

He drew his weapon. Swallow’s blade sang softly. She knew that song.

She retreated down the wide corridor, and he followed her, holding his sword in both hands. Blood trickled down the blade, heavy drops dripping from the cross guard.

‘Dead,’ he judged, stepping over Angoulême’s body. ‘Well and good. Your young blade has also fallen.’

Ciri felt desperation seizing her. Felt her fingers gripping the hilt so tightly it hurt.

She retreated.

‘You deceived me,’ drawled Bonhart, following her. ‘The young blade didn’t have a medallion. But something tells me somebody will be found in this castle who wears one. Someone like that will be found, old Leo Bonhart stakes his life on it, somewhere near the witch Yennefer. But first things first, viper. First of all, us. You and me. And our nuptials.’

Ciri got her bearings. Describing a short arc with Swallow she took up her position. She began to circle him, quicker and quicker, forcing the bounty hunter to move around on the spot.

‘Last time,’ he muttered, ‘that trick wasn’t much use to you. Well? Can’t you learn from your mistakes?’

Ciri speeded up. She deceived and beguiled, tantalised and hypnotised with flowing, soft movements of her blade.

Bonhart whirled his sword in a hissing moulinet.

‘That doesn’t work on me,’ he snarled. ‘And it bores me!’

He shortened the distance with two rapid strides.

‘Play, music!’

He leaped, cut hard. Ciri spun around in a pirouette, jumped, landed confidently on her left foot, and struck at once, without assuming a position. Before the blade had clanged on Bonhart’s parry she had spun past, smoothly moving in under the whistling blow. She struck again, without a back swing, using an unnatural, unorthodox bend of the elbow. Bonhart blocked, using the momentum of the parry to immediately slash from the left. She was expecting that, and all she needed was a slight bend of the knees and a sway of her trunk to move her whole body aside from under the blade. She countered and thrust at once. But this time he was waiting for her, and deceived her with a feint. Not meeting a parry, she almost lost her balance, saving herself with a lightning-fast leap, but his sword caught her arm anyway. At first she thought the blade had only cut through her padded sleeve, but a moment later she felt the warm liquid in her armpit and on her arm.

The alabaster caryatids observed them with indifferent eyes.

She drew back and he followed her, hunched, making wide, sweeping movements with his sword. Like the bony Death Ciri had seen on paintings in the temple. The dance of the skeletons, she thought. The Grim Reaper is coming.

She drew back. The warm liquid was now dripping down her forearm and hand.

‘First blood to me,’ he said at the sight of the drops splattering star-like on the floor. ‘Who’ll draw the second blood? My betrothed?’

She retreated.

‘Look around. It’s the end.’

He was right. The corridor ended in nothingness, in an abyss, at the bottom of which could be seen the dust-covered, dirty and smashed up floorboards of the lower storey. This part of the castle was destroyed, there was no floor at all. There was only a framework of load-bearing timbers: posts, ridges and a lattice of beams.

She didn’t hesitate for long. She stepped onto a beam and moved backwards along it, without taking her eyes off Bonhart, watching his every move. That saved her. For he suddenly charged her, running along the beam, slashing with rapid, diagonal blows, whirling his sword in lightning-fast feints. She knew what he was counting on. A wrong parry or mistake with a feint would have upset her balance, and then she would have fallen off the beam, onto the smashed up woodblocks of the lower floor.

This time Ciri didn’t let the feints deceive her. Quite the opposite. She spun around nimbly and feinted a blow from the right, and when for a split second he hesitated, cut with a right seconde, so quickly and powerfully that Bonhart rocked after parrying. And would have fallen if not for his height. He managed to hold on to a ridge by reaching up with his left hand, keeping his balance. But he lost concentration for a split second. And that was enough for Ciri. She lunged, hard, fully extending her arm and blade.

He didn’t even flinch as Swallow’s blade passed with a hiss across his chest and left arm. He immediately countered so viciously that had Ciri not turned a back somersault the blow would probably have cut her in half. She hopped onto the adjacent beam, dropping onto one knee with her sword held horizontally over her head.

Bonhart glanced at his shoulder and raised his left arm, already marked by a pattern of wavy crimson lines. He looked at the thick drops dripping downwards into the abyss.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You do know how to learn from your mistakes.’

His voice trembled with fury. But Ciri knew him too well. He was calm, composed and ready to kill.

He leaped onto her beam, whirling his sword, went for her like a hurricane, treading surely, without wobbling, or even looking at his feet. The beam creaked, raining down dust and rotten wood.

He pushed on, slashing diagonally. He forced her backwards. He attacked so quickly she couldn’t risk a leap or a somersault, so she had to keep parrying and dodging.

She saw a flash in his fishy eyes. She knew what was afoot. He was driving her against a post, to the truss beneath the ridge. He was pushing her back to a place from where there was no escape.

She had to do something. And she suddenly knew what.

Kaer Morhen. The pendulum.

You push off from the pendulum, you take its momentum, its energy. You take its momentum by pushing off. Do you understand?

Yes, Geralt.

All of a sudden, with the speed of a striking viper, she went from a parry to a cut. Swallow’s blade groaned, striking against Bonhart’s edge. Simultaneously Ciri pushed off and jumped onto the adjacent beam. She landed, miraculously keeping her balance. She took a few quick, light steps and leaped again, back onto Bonhart’s beam, landing behind his back. He spun around in time, made a sweeping cut, almost blindly, to where her leap should have carried her. He missed by a hair’s breadth, and the force of the blow made him stagger. Ciri attacked like a lightning strike. She lunged, dropping onto one knee. She struck powerfully and surely.

And she froze with her sword held out to the side. Watching calmly as the long, slanting, perfectly straight slit in his jacket began to well up and brim a dense red.

‘You . . .’ Bonhart staggered. ‘You . . .’

He came for her. He was already slow and sluggish. She eluded him by leaping backwards, and he lost his balance. He fell onto one knee but did not plant his other on the beam. And the wood was now wet and slippery. He looked at Ciri for a second. Then he fell.

She saw him tumble onto the parquet floor in a geyser of dust, plaster and blood, saw his sword fly several yards to one side. He lay motionless, spread out, huge and gaunt. Wounded and utterly defenceless. But still terrible.

It took some time but he finally twitched. Groaned. Tried to raise his head. He moved his arms. He moved his legs. He crept to a post and propped his back up against it. He groaned again, feeling his bloodied chest and belly with both hands.

Ciri leaped down. And fell beside him onto one knee. As softly as a cat. She saw his fishy eyes widen in fear.

‘You won . . .’ he wheezed, looking at Swallow’s blade. ‘You won, witcher girl. Pity it wasn’t in the arena . . . It would have been some spectacle . . .’

She didn’t reply.

‘It was I who gave you that sword, do you remember?’

‘I remember everything.’

‘Surely you won’t . . .’ he grunted. ‘Surely you won’t finish me off, will you? You won’t do it . . . You won’t finish off a beaten and defenceless man . . . I know you, after all, Ciri. You’re too . . . noble . . . for that.’

He looked long at her. Very long. Then she bent over. Bonhart’s eyes widened even more. But she just tore from his neck the medallions: the wolf, the cat and the gryphon. Then she turned around and walked towards the exit.

He lunged at her with a knife, sprang at her dishonourably and treacherously. And as silent as a bat. Only at the last moment, when the dagger was about to plunge up to the guard in her back, did he roar, putting all his hatred into the bellow.

She dodged the treacherous thrust with a swift half-turn and leap, swung her arm and struck quickly and widely, powerfully, with a full swing, increasing the power with a twist of the hips.

Swallow swished and cut, cut with the very tip of the blade. There was a hiss and a squelch and Bonhart grabbed his throat. His fishy eyes were popping out of his head.

‘Didn’t I tell you,’ Ciri said coldly, ‘that I remember everything?’

Bonhart goggled even more. And then fell. He overbalanced and tumbled over backwards, raising dust. And he lay like that, huge, as bony as the Grim Reaper, on the dirty floor, among broken woodblocks. He was still clutching his throat, tightly, with all his might. But although he squeezed hard, his life was draining away fast between his fingers, spreading out around his head in a great, black halo.

Ciri stood over him. Without a word. But allowing him to see her clearly. So as to take her image, her image alone, with him where he was going.

Bonhart glanced at her, his gaze growing dull and blurred. He was shivering convulsively, scraping his heels over the floorboards. Then he uttered a gurgle of the kind a funnel gives just before it empties.

And it was the last sound he made.

*

There was a bang, and the stained-glass windows exploded with a thud and a clink.

‘Look out, Geralt!’

They jumped aside just in time. A blinding flash of lightning ploughed up the floor, chips of terracotta and sharp shards of mosaic wailed in the air. Another flash of lightning hit the column the Witcher was hiding behind. The column broke into three parts. Half the arcade broke off the vault and crashed onto the floor with a deafening boom. Geralt, lying flat on the floor, shielded his head with his hands, aware of what poor protection they were against more than ten tons of rubble. He had prepared himself for the worst, but things were not too bad. He got up quickly, managed to see the glow of a magical shield above him and realised that Yennefer’s magic had saved him.

Vilgefortz turned towards the sorceress and pulverised the pillar she was sheltering behind. He roared furiously, sewing together a cloud of smoke and dust with threads of fire. Yennefer managed to jump clear, and retaliated, firing at the sorcerer her own flash of lightning, which, nonetheless, Vilgefortz deflected effortlessly and with sheer contempt. He replied with a blow that hurled Yennefer to the floor.

Geralt rushed at him, wiping plaster from his face. Vilgefortz turned his eyes towards him and a hand from which flames exploded with a roar. The Witcher instinctively shielded himself with his sword. The rune-covered dwarven blade protected him, astonishingly, cutting the stream of fire in half.

‘Ha!’ roared Vilgefortz. ‘Impressive, Witcher! And what say you to this?’

The Witcher said nothing. He flew as if he’d been rammed, fell onto the floor and shot across it, only stopping at the base of the column. The column broke up and fell to pieces, again taking a considerable part of the vault with it. This time Yennefer wasn’t quick enough to give him magical protection. A huge lump broken off from the arcade hit him in the shoulder. The pain paralysed him for a moment.

Yennefer, chanting spells, sent flash after flash of lightning towards Vilgefortz. None of them hit the target, all harmlessly bouncing off the magical sphere protecting the sorcerer. Vilgefortz stretched out his arms and suddenly spread them. Yennefer cried out in pain and soared up into the air, levitating. Vilgefortz twisted his hands, exactly as though he were wringing out a wet rag. The sorceress howled piercingly. And began to spin.

Geralt sprang up, overcoming the pain. But Regis was quieter.

The vampire appeared out of nowhere in the form of an enormous bat and fell on Vilgefortz with a noiseless glide. Before the sorcerer could protect himself with a spell, Regis had slashed him across the face with his claws, only missing his eye because of its tiny size. Vilgefortz bellowed and waved his arms. Yennefer, now released, tumbled down onto a heap of rubble with an ear-splitting groan, blood bursting from her nose onto her face and chest.

Geralt was now close, was already raising the sihill to strike. But Vilgefortz was not yet defeated and did not mean to surrender. He threw off the Witcher with a great surge of power and shot a blinding white flame at the attacking vampire, which sliced through a column like a hot knife through butter. Regis nimbly avoided the flame and materialised in his normal shape alongside Geralt.

‘Beware,’ grunted the Witcher, trying to see how Yennefer was. ‘Beware, Regis—’

‘Beware?’ yelled the vampire. ‘Me? I didn’t come here to beware!’

With an incredible, lightning-fast, tiger-like bound he fell on the sorcerer and grabbed him by the throat. His fangs flashed.

Vilgefortz howled in horror and rage. For a moment it seemed as though it would be the end of him. But that was an illusion. The sorcerer had a weapon in his arsenal for every occasion. And for every opponent. Even a vampire. The hands that seized Regis glowed like red-hot iron. The vampire screamed. Geralt also screamed, seeing the sorcerer literally tearing Regis apart. He leaped to his aid, but wasn’t fast enough. Vilgefortz pushed the mutilated vampire against a column and shot white fire at him from close up out of both hands. Regis screamed, screamed so horribly that the Witcher covered his ears with his hands. The rest of the stained-glass windows exploded with a roar and a smash. And the column simply melted. The vampire melted along with it, fusing into an amorphous lump.

Geralt swore, putting all his rage and despair into the curse. He leaped at Vilgefortz, raising his sihill to strike. But failed. Vilgefortz turned around and struck him with magical energy. The Witcher flew the whole length of the hall and slammed into the wall, sliding down it. He lay like a fish gasping for air, not wondering what was broken, but what was intact. Vilgefortz walked towards him. A six-foot iron bar materialised in his hand.

‘I could have reduced you to ashes with a spell,’ he said. ‘I could have melted you into clinker like I did to that monster a moment ago. But you, Witcher, ought to die differently. In a fight. Not a very honest one, perhaps, but still.’

Geralt didn’t believe he’d be able to stand. But he did. He spat blood from his cut lip. He gripped his sword more tightly.

‘On Thanedd—’ Vilgefortz came closer, whirled the bar in a moulinet ‘—I only broke you a little bit, sparingly, for it was meant to be a lesson. Since it wasn’t learned, this time I’ll break you thoroughly, into tiny little bones. So that no one will ever be able to stick you back together again.’

He attacked. Geralt didn’t run away. He took on the fight.

The bar flickered and whistled, the sorcerer circled around the dancing Witcher. Geralt avoided the blows and delivered his own, but Vilgefortz deftly parried, and then steel groaned mournfully as it struck steel.

The sorcerer was as quick and agile as a demon.

He tricked Geralt with a twist of his trunk and a feigned blow from the left, and slammed him in the ribs from below. Before the Witcher could get his balance and his breath back he was hit in the shoulder so hard he fell to his knees. He dodged aside, saving his skull from a blow from above, but could not avoid a reverse thrust from below, above the hip. He staggered and struck his back against the wall. He still had enough wits about him to fall to the floor. Just in time, because the iron bar grazed his hair and slammed into the wall, sending sparks flying.

Geralt rolled over, and the bar struck sparks on the floor right beside his head. The second blow hit him in the shoulder blade. There was shock, and paralysing pain; weakness flowed down to his legs. The sorcerer raised the bar. Triumph burned in his eyes.

Geralt clenched Fringilla’s medallion in his fist.

The bar fell with a clang, striking the floor a foot from the Witcher’s head. Geralt rolled away and quickly got up on one knee. Vilgefortz leaped forward and struck. The bar missed the target again by a few inches. The sorcerer shook his head in disbelief and hesitated for a second.

He sighed, suddenly understanding. His eyes lit up. He leaped, taking a swing. Too late.

Geralt slashed him hard across the belly. Vilgefortz screamed, dropped the bar, and staggered back, bent over. The Witcher was already upon him. He pushed him with his boot onto the stump of the broken column and cut vigorously, diagonally, from collarbone to hip. Blood gushed on the floor, painting an undulating pattern. The sorcerer screamed and fell to his knees. He lowered his head and looked down at his belly and chest. For a long time he could not tear his eyes away from what he saw.

Geralt waited calmly, in position, with the sihill ready to strike.

Vilgefortz groaned piercingly and raised his head.

‘Geraaalt . . .’

The Witcher didn’t let him finish.

It was very quiet for a long time.

‘I didn’t know . . .’ Yennefer said at last, scrambling out of a pile of rubble. She looked terrible. The blood trickling from her nose had poured all over her chin and cleavage. ‘I didn’t know you could cast illusory spells,’ she repeated, seeing Geralt’s uncomprehending gaze, ‘capable even of deceiving Vilgefortz.’

‘It’s my medallion.’

‘Aha.’ She looked suspicious. ‘A curious thing. But anyway, we’re only alive thanks to Ciri.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘His eye. He never regained full coordination. He didn’t always land his blow. But I mainly owe my life to . . .’

She fell silent, glanced at the remains of the melted column, in which the outline of a shape could be discerned.

‘Who was that, Geralt?’

‘A friend. I’m going to miss him.’

‘Was he a human?’

‘The epitome of humanity. How are you, Yen?’

‘A few broken ribs, concussion, twisted hip joint, bruised spine. Besides that, excellent. And yourself?’

‘More or less the same.’

She looked impassively at Vilgefortz’s head lying exactly in the centre of the floor mosaic. The sorcerer’s small eye, already glazed, looked at them with mute reproach.

‘That’s a nice sight,’ she said.

‘It is,’ he admitted a moment later. ‘But I’ve already seen enough. Will you be able to walk?’

‘With your help, yes.’

*

And they met, all three of them, in a place where the corridors came together, under the arcades. They met beneath the dead gazes of the alabaster caryatids.

‘Ciri,’ said the Witcher. And rubbed his eyes.

‘Ciri,’ said Yennefer, being held up by the Witcher.

‘Geralt,’ said Ciri.

‘Ciri,’ he replied, overcoming a sudden tightening of the throat. ‘Good to see you again.’

‘Madam Yennefer.’

The sorceress freed herself from the Witcher’s arm and straightened up with the greatest of effort.

‘What do you look like, girl?’ she said severely. ‘Just look at you! Tidy up your hair! Don’t stoop. Come here please.’

Ciri approached, as stiff as an automaton. Yennefer straightened and smoothed her collar, and tried to wipe the now dried blood from Ciri’s sleeve. She touched her hair. And uncovered the scar on her cheek. She hugged her tightly. Very tightly. Geralt saw her hands on Ciri’s back. Saw the deformed fingers. He didn’t feel anger, resentment or hatred. He felt only weariness. And a huge desire to be done with all of it.

‘Mamma.’

‘Daughter.’

‘Let’s go.’ He decided to interrupt them. But only after a long while.

Ciri sniffed noisily and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Yennefer shot an angry look at her, and wiped her eye, which something had probably got into. The Witcher looked down the corridor from where Ciri had exited, as though expecting somebody else to come out of it. Ciri shook her head. He understood.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he repeated.

‘Yes,’ said Yennefer. ‘I want see the sky.’

‘I’ll never leave you both,’ Ciri said softly. ‘Never.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he repeated. ‘Ciri, hold Yen up.’

‘I don’t need holding up!’

‘Let me, Mamma.’

In front of them was a stairway, a great stairway drowning in smoke, in the twinkling glow of torches and fire in iron cressets. Ciri shuddered. She had seen that stairway before. In dreams and visions.

Down below, far away, armed men were waiting.

‘I’m tired,’ she whispered.

‘Me too,’ admitted Geralt, drawing the sihill.

‘I’ve had enough of killing.’

‘Me too.’

‘Is there no other way out?’

‘No. There isn’t. Only this stairway. We must, girl. Yen wants to see the sky. And I want to see the sky, Yen and you.’

Ciri looked back, and glanced at Yennefer, who was resting on the balustrade in order not to fall down. She took out the medallions taken from Bonhart. She put the cat around her neck and gave Geralt the wolf.

‘I hope you know it’s just a symbol?’ he said.

‘Everything’s just a symbol.’

She removed Swallow from its scabbard.

‘Let’s go, Geralt.’

‘Let’s go. Keep close beside me.’

Skellen’s mercenaries were waiting at the bottom of the stairway, gripping their weapons in sweaty fists. Tawny Owl sent the first wave up the stairs. The mercenaries’ iron-shod boots thudded on the steps.

‘Slowly, Ciri. Don’t rush. Close to me.’

‘Yes, Geralt.’

‘And calmly, girl, calmly. Remember, without anger, without hatred. We have to get out and see the sky. And the men that are standing in our way must die. Don’t hesitate.’

‘I won’t hesitate. I want to see the sky.’

They got to the first landing without mishap. The mercenaries retreated before them, astonished and surprised by their calm. But after a moment three of them leaped towards them, yelling and whirling their swords. They died at once.

‘Swarm them!’ Tawny Owl bellowed from below. ‘Kill them!’

The next three leaped forward. Geralt quickly sprang out to meet them, deceived them with a feint, and cut one of them from below in the throat. He turned around, made way for Ciri under his right arm, and Ciri smoothly slashed the next soldier in the armpit. The third one tried to save his life by leaping over the balustrade. He was too slow.

Geralt wiped splashes of blood from his face.

‘Calmly, Ciri.’

‘I am calm.’

The next three. A flash of blades, screams, death.

Thick blood crawled downwards, dribbling down the steps.

A soldier in a brass-studded brigantine leaped towards them with a long pike. His eyes were wild from narcotics. Ciri shoved the shaft aside with a diagonal parry and Geralt slashed. He wiped his face. They walked on, not looking back.

The second landing was now close.

‘Kill them!’ yelled Skellen. ‘Have at them! Kiiiilll theeeem!’

Stamping and yelling on the stairs. The flash of blades, screams. Death.

‘Good, Ciri. But more calmly. Without euphoria. And close to me.’

‘I’ll always be close to you.’

‘Don’t cut from the shoulder if you can from the elbow. Take heed.’

‘I am.’

The flash of a blade. Screams, blood. Death.

‘Good, Ciri.’

‘I want to see the sky.’

‘I love you very much.’

‘I love you too.’

‘Take heed. It’s getting slippery.’

The flash of blades, moaning. They walked on, catching up with the blood pouring down the steps. They walked down, always down, down the steps of Stygga Castle.

A soldier attacking them slipped on a bloody step, fell flat on the ground right at their feet and howled for mercy, covering his head with both hands. They passed him without looking.

No one dared to bar their way until the third landing.

‘Bows,’ Stefan Skellen bellowed from below. ‘Fire the crossbows! Boreas Mun was meant to bring the crossbows! Where is he?’

Boreas Mun – which Tawny Owl couldn’t have known – was already quite far away. He was riding eastwards, with his forehead against his horse’s mane, squeezing as much gallop out of his steed as he could.

Only one of the men sent for the bows had returned.

The man who had decided to shoot had slightly shaking hands and eyes watering from fisstech. The first bolt barely grazed the balustrade. The second didn’t even hit the stairs.

‘Higher!’ yelled Tawny Owl. ‘Go higher, you fool! Shoot from up close.’

The crossbowmen pretended he hadn’t heard. Skellen cursed at great length, snatched the crossbow from him, leaped onto the stairway, kneeled down and took aim. Geralt quickly covered Ciri with his body. But the girl slipped out from behind him like lightning, so when the bowstring clanged she was already in position. She twisted her sword to the upper quarter and hit the bolt back so hard it somersaulted many times before it fell.

‘Very good,’ muttered Geralt. ‘Very good, Ciri. But if you ever do that again, I’ll tan your hide.’

Skellen dropped the crossbow. And suddenly realised he was alone.

All of his men were at the very bottom in a tight little group. None of them were too keen to go up the stairs. There seemed to be fewer than there were before. Once more several ran off somewhere. Probably to fetch crossbows.

And the Witcher and the witcher girl – not hurrying, but not slowing either – walked down, down the blood-covered stairway of Stygga Castle. Close to each other, shoulder to shoulder, tantalising and bamboozling their foes with fast movements of their blades.

Skellen walked backwards. And didn’t stop. Right down to the very bottom. When he found himself in the group of his own men he noticed that the retreat was continuing. He swore impotently.

‘Lads!’ he yelled, and his voice broke discordantly. ‘On you go! Have at them! En masse! Go on, have at them! Follow me!’

‘Go yourself, sir,’ mumbled one of them, raising a hand with fisstech to his nose. Tawny Owl punched him, covering the man’s face, sleeve and the front of his jacket in white powder.

The Witcher and the witcher girl passed another landing.

‘When they get to the very bottom we’ll be able to surround them!’ roared Skellen. ‘Go on, lads! Have at them! To arms!’

Geralt glanced at Ciri. And almost howled with fury, seeing streaks shining white as silver in her ashen hair. He controlled himself. It wasn’t the time for anger.

‘Be careful,’ he said softly. ‘Stay close to me.’

‘I’m always going to be close to you.’

‘It’ll be hot down there.’

‘I know. But we’re together.’

‘We’re together.’

‘I’m with you,’ said Yennefer, following them down the stairs, red and slippery with blood.

‘Form up! Form up!’ roared Tawny Owl.

Several of the men who had run to get crossbows returned. Without them. Very terrified.

The rumble of doors being forced by battle-axes, thudding, the clanking of iron and the sound of heavy steps resounded from all three corridors leading to the stairway. And suddenly soldiers in black helmets, armour and cloaks with the sign of a silver salamander marched out of all three corridors. On being shouted at thunderously and menacingly Skellen’s mercenaries threw their weapons on the floor, one after the other. Crossbows and the blades of glaives and bear spears were aimed at the more hesitant, and they were urged on by even more menacing shouts. Now all of them obeyed, for it was evident that the black-cloaked soldiers were extremely keen to kill somebody and were only waiting for a pretext. Tawny Owl stood at the foot of a column, arms crossed on his chest.

‘Miraculous relief?’ muttered Ciri. Geralt shook his head.

Crossbows and spear blades were also being aimed at them.

‘Glaeddyvan vort!’

There was no sense in resisting. Black-cloaked soldiers were swarming like ants at the bottom of the stairs, and the witchers were very, very weary. But they didn’t drop their swords. They placed them carefully on the steps. And then sat down. Geralt felt Ciri’s warm shoulder and heard her breath.

Yennefer descended, walking past corpses and pools of blood, showing the black-cloaked soldiers her unarmed hands. She sat down heavily beside them on a step. Geralt also felt the warmth against his other shoulder. It’s a pity it can’t always be like this, he thought. And he knew it couldn’t.

Tawny Owl’s men were tied up and escorted away one after the other. There were more and more soldiers in black cloaks bearing the salamander. Suddenly, high-ranking officers appeared among them, recognisable by the white plumes and silver edging on their suits of armour. And by the respect which the others showed in parting to let them pass.

The soldiers stood back with even greater respect before one of the officers, whose helmet was particularly sumptuously decorated with silver, bowing before him.

The man stopped in front of Skellen, who was standing at the foot of the column. Tawny Owl – it was very obvious even in the flickering light of the torches and the paintings burning out in the cressets – paled, becoming as white as a sheet.

‘Stefan Skellen,’ said the officer, in a resonant voice, a voice which sounded right up to the vault of the hall. ‘You will be tried in court. And punished for treason.’

Tawny Owl was led away, but his hands weren’t tied like the ordinary soldiers’ had been.

The officer turned around. A burning rag broke off from a tapestry up above. It fell, swirling like a huge fiery bird. The brightness shone on the silver-edged armour, on the visor extending halfway down the cheeks which was – like all the black-cloaked soldiers’ – shaped like horrendous toothed jaws.

Now our turn, thought Geralt. He wasn’t mistaken.

The officer looked at Ciri, and his eyes burned in the slits of the helmet, noticing and registering everything. The paleness. The scar on her cheek. The blood on her sleeve and hand. The white streaks in her hair.

Then the Nilfgaardian turned his gaze onto the Witcher.

‘Vilgefortz?’ he asked in his resonant voice. Geralt shook his head.

‘Cahir aep Ceallach?’

Another shake of the head.

‘A slaughter,’ said the officer, looking at the stairs. ‘A bloodbath. Well, he who lives by the sword . . . Furthermore, you’ve saved the hangmen work. You’ve travelled a long way, Witcher.’

Geralt didn’t comment. Ciri sniffed loudly and wiped her nose with her wrist. Yennefer gave her a scolding look. The Nilfgaardian also noticed that and smiled.

‘You’ve travelled a long way,’ he repeated. ‘You’ve come here from the end of the world. Following her and for her sake. Even if only for that reason you deserve something. Lord de Rideaux!’

‘Yes sir, Your Imperial Highness!’

The Witcher wasn’t surprised.

‘Please find a discreet chamber in which I shall be able to converse, completely undisturbed, with Sir Geralt of Rivia. During that time please offer all possible comforts and services to the two ladies. Under vigilant and unremitting guard.’

‘Yes, sir, Your Imperial Majesty.’

‘Sir Geralt, please follow me.’

The Witcher stood up. He glanced at Yennefer and Ciri, wanting to calm them and warn them not to do anything foolish. But it wasn’t necessary. They were both terribly tired. And resigned.

*

‘You’ve travelled a long way,’ repeated Emhyr var Emreis, Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd, the White Flame Dancing on the Barrows of his Enemies, removing his helmet.

‘I’m not sure,’ Geralt calmly replied, ‘if you haven’t travelled further, Duny.’

‘You’ve recognised me, well, well.’ The emperor smiled. ‘And they say the lack of a beard and my way of holding myself have changed me utterly. Many of the people who used to see me earlier in Cintra came to Nilfgaard later and saw me during audiences. And no one recognised me. But you only saw me once, and that was sixteen years ago. Did I become so embedded in your memory?’

‘I wouldn’t have recognised you, you have indeed changed greatly. I simply worked out who you were. Some time ago. I guessed – not without help and a hint from someone else – what role incest played in Ciri’s family. In her blood. I even dreamed about the most awful, the most hideous incest imaginable in a gruesome nightmare. And well, here you are, in person.’

‘You can barely stand,’ said Emhyr coldly. ‘And deliberate impertinence is making you even more unsteady. You may sit in the presence of the emperor. I grant you that privilege . . . until the end of your days.’

Geralt sat down with relief. Emhyr continued to stand, leaning against a carved wardrobe.

‘You saved my daughter’s life,’ he said. ‘Several times. I thank you for that. On behalf of myself and posterity.’

‘You disarm me.’

‘Cirilla will go to Nilfgaard.’ Emhyr was not bothered by the mockery. ‘She will become empress at a suitable moment. In precisely the same way that dozens of girls have become and do become queens. Meaning almost not knowing their spouses. Often not having a good opinion of them on the basis of their first encounter. Often disappointed by the first days and . . . first nights . . . of marriage. Cirilla won’t be the first.’

Geralt refrained from comment.

‘Cirilla,’ continued the emperor, ‘will be happy, like most of the queens I was talking about. It will come with time. Cirilla will transfer the love that I do not demand at all onto the son I will beget with her. An archduke, and later an emperor. An emperor who will beget a son. A son, who will be the ruler of the world and will save the world from destruction. Thus speaks the prophecy whose exact contents only I know.

‘Naturally,’ the White Flame continued, ‘Cirilla will never find out who I am. The secret will die. Along with those who know it.’

‘That’s clear,’ Geralt nodded. ‘It can’t be clearer.’

‘You cannot fail to detect the hand of destiny in all of this,’ Emhyr said after a long time, ‘All of this. Including your activities. From the very beginning.’

‘I see rather the hand of Vilgefortz. For it was he who directed you to Cintra, wasn’t it? When you were the Enchanted Urcheon? He made Pavetta—’

‘You’re stumbling in the dark,’ Emhyr interrupted brutally, tossing his salamander-decorated cloak over his shoulder. ‘You don’t know anything. And you don’t have to know. I didn’t ask you here to tell you my life story. Or to excuse myself before you. The only thing you have earned is the assurance that the girl will not be harmed. I have no debts towards you, Witcher. None—’

‘Yes you do!’ Geralt interrupted brutally. ‘You broke the contract. You went back on your word. They are debts, Duny. You broke a promise as a princeling, and you have a debt as an emperor. With imperial interest. Ten years worth!’

‘Is that all?’

‘That is all. For only that is owed to me, nothing more. But nothing less, either. I was to collect the child when it turned six. You didn’t wait for the promised date. You planned to steal it from me before it passed. The destiny you keep talking about sneered at you, however. You tried to fight that destiny for the following ten years. Now you have her, you have Ciri, your own daughter, whom you once basely deprived of parents, and with whom you now mean to vilely beget incestuous children. Without demanding love. Rightly, as a matter of fact. You do not deserve her love. Just between us, Duny, I don’t know how you will manage to look her in the eyes.’

‘The end justifies the means,’ Emhyr said dully. ‘What I’m doing, I’m doing for posterity. To save the world.’

‘If the world is to be saved like that—’ the Witcher lifted his head ‘—it would be better for it to perish. Believe me, Duny, it’d be better if it perished.’

‘You’re pale,’ Emhyr var Emreis said, almost gently. ‘Don’t get so excited, for you are liable to faint.’

He moved away from the wardrobe, selected a chair and sat down. The Witcher’s head was indeed spinning.

‘The Iron Urcheon,’ the emperor began calmly and quietly, ‘was to be a way of forcing my father to collaborate with the usurper. It was after the coup. My father, the overthrown emperor, was in prison and being tortured. He couldn’t be broken, so another way was tried. A sorcerer hired by the usurper changed me into a monster in front of my father’s eyes. The sorcerer added a little something on his own initiative. Namely humour. Eimyr in our language means an “urcheon”, an old name for a hedgehog.

‘My father didn’t allow himself to be broken and so they murdered him. I, meanwhile, was released into a forest amidst mockery and scorn, and dogs were set on me. I survived. I wasn’t hunted too seriously, for it wasn’t known that the sorcerer had botched his work, and that my human form returned at night. Fortunately, I knew several people of whose loyalty I could be certain. And at that time I was, for your information, thirteen.

‘I had to flee the country. And the fact that I ought to search for a cure to the spell in the North, beyond the Marnadal Stairs, was read in the stars by a slightly crazy astrologer by the name of Xarthisius. Later, when I was emperor, I gave him a tower and apparatus for that. At that time, he had to work on borrowed equipment.

‘You know, it’s a waste of time getting bogged down in what happened in Cintra. I deny, however, that it supposedly had anything to do with Vilgefortz. Firstly, I didn’t know him then, and secondly I had a strong aversion to mages. Even today I don’t like them, actually. Ah, while I remember: when I regained the throne I caught up with the sorcerer who had served the usurper and tortured me in front of my father’s eyes. I also displayed a sense of humour. The mage’s name was Braathens, and in our language that sounds almost the same as “fried”.

‘Enough digressions, though, let’s get back to the matter at hand. Vilgefortz visited me secretly in Cintra, shortly after Ciri’s birth. He passed himself off as a trusted friend of people in Nilfgaard who were still loyal to me and had conspired against the usurper. He offered help and soon proved to be capable of helping. When, still mistrustful, I asked about his motives, he bluntly declared he was counting on gratitude. For the favours, privileges and power he would be given by the great Emperor of Nilfgaard. Meaning me. A powerful ruler who would govern half the world. Who would beget an heir who would govern half the world. He intended to rise high himself – or so he declared, without inhibition – at the side of those great rulers. Here he took out some scrolls bound with snake skin and commended the contents to my attention.

‘Thus I learned of the prophecy. I learned about the fate of the world and the universe. I found out what I had to do. And came to the conclusion that the end justifies the means.’

‘Of course.’

‘My affairs were prospering in Nilfgaard, meanwhile.’ Emhyr ignored the sarcasm. ‘My partisans were gaining more and more influence. Finally, having a group of front line officers and a corps of cadets, they decided to launch a coup d’état. I was needed for that, nonetheless. Me myself. The rightful heir to the throne and crown of the empire, a rightful Emreis with the blood of the Emreises. I was to be something akin to the standard of the revolution. Just between us, plenty of the revolutionaries cherished the hope that I would be nothing more than that. Those among them who are still alive cannot get over it to this day.

‘But, as has been said before, let us leave the digressions. I had to return to home. The time came for Duny, the false prince of Maecht and the phoney duke of Cintra, to demand his inheritance. I hadn’t forgotten about the prophecy, however. I had to return with Ciri. And Calanthe was keeping a weather eye on me.’

‘She never trusted you.’

‘I know. I think she knew something about that prediction. And would have done anything to hamper me, and in Cintra I was in her power. It was clear: I had to return to Nilfgaard, but in a way that no one could guess that I was Duny and Ciri was my daughter. Vilgefortz suggested a way. Duny, Pavetta and their child had to die. Vanish without trace.’

‘In a staged shipwreck.’

‘That’s right. During the voyage from Skellige to Cintra, Vilgefortz was to pull the ship into a magical whirlpool over the Sedna Abyss. Pavetta, Ciri and I were supposed to have previously locked ourselves in a specially secured lifeboat and survive. And the crew—’

‘Were meant not to survive,’ finished the Witcher. ‘And that’s how your ruthless path began.’

Emhyr var Emreis said nothing for some time.

‘It began earlier,’ he finally said, and his voice was soft. ‘Regrettably. At the moment it turned out Ciri wasn’t on board.’

Geralt raised his eyebrows.

‘Unfortunately, I hadn’t appreciated Pavetta in my planning.’ The emperor’s face didn’t express anything. ‘That melancholy wench with her permanently lowered eyes had seen through me and my plans. She had sent the child ashore in secret before the anchor was weighed. I fell into a fury. As she did. She had an attack of hysteria. During the struggle . . . she fell overboard. Before I could dive after her, Vilgefortz had drawn the ship into his maelstrom. I hit my head against something and lost consciousness. I survived by a miracle, entangled in the ropes. I came to, covered in bandages. I had a broken arm.’

‘I wonder how a man feels after murdering his wife,’ the Witcher said coldly.

‘Lousy,’ replied Emhyr without delay. ‘I felt and I feel lousy and bloody shabby. Even the fact that I never loved her doesn’t change that. The end justifies the means, yet I sincerely do regret her death. I didn’t want it or plan it. Pavetta died by accident.’

‘You’re lying,’ Geralt said dryly, ‘and that doesn’t befit an emperor. Pavetta could not live. She had unmasked you. And would never have let you do what you wanted to do to Ciri.’

‘She would have lived,’ Emhyr retorted. ‘Somewhere . . . far away. There are enough castles . . . Darn Rowan, for instance. I couldn’t have killed her.’

‘Even for an end that was justified by the means?’

‘One can always find a less drastic means.’ The emperor wiped his face. ‘There are always plenty of them.’

‘Not always,’ said the Witcher, looking him in the eyes. Emhyr avoided his gaze.

‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ Geralt said, nodding. ‘Finish your story. Time’s passing.’

‘Calanthe guarded little Ciri like the apple of her eye. I couldn’t even have dreamed of kidnapping her. My relations with Vilgefortz had cooled considerably, and I still had a dislike of other mages . . . But my military men and aristocracy were urging me hard towards war, towards an attack on Cintra. They vouched that the people were demanding it, that the people wanted living space, that listening to the vox populi would be a kind of imperial test. I decided to kill two birds with one stone. By capturing both Cintra and Ciri in one go. You know the rest.’

‘I do,’ Geralt nodded. ‘Thank you for the conversation, Duny. I’m grateful that you were willing to devote your time to me. But I cannot delay any longer. I am very tired. I watched the death of my friends who followed me here to the end of the world. They came to rescue your daughter. Not even knowing her. Apart from Cahir, none of them even knew Ciri. But they came here to rescue her. For there was something in her that was decent and noble. And what happened? They found death. I consider that unjust. And if anyone wants to know, I don’t agree with it. Because a story where the decent ones die and the scoundrels live and carry on doing what they want is full of shit. I don’t have any more strength, Emperor. Summon your men.’

‘Witcher—’

‘The secret has to die with those who know it. You said it yourself. You don’t have a choice. It’s not true that you have plenty of them. I’ll escape from any prison. I’ll take Ciri from you. There’s no price I wouldn’t pay to take her away. As you well know.’

‘I do.’

‘You can let Yennefer live. She doesn’t know the secret.’

‘She would pay any price to rescue Ciri,’ Emhyr said gravely. ‘And avenge your death.’

‘True,’ the Witcher nodded. ‘Indeed, I’d forgotten how much she loves Ciri. You’re right, Duny. Well, you can’t run from destiny. I have a request.’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me say goodbye to them both. Then I’ll be at your disposal.’

Emhyr stood by the window, staring at the mountain peaks.

‘I cannot decline you. But—’

‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell Ciri anything. I’d be harming her by telling her who you are. And I couldn’t harm her.’

Emhyr said nothing for a long time, still turned towards the window.

‘Perhaps I do have a debt to you.’ He turned on his heel. ‘So hear what I will offer you in payment. Long, long ago, in former times, when people still had honour, pride and dignity, when they valued their word, and were only afraid of shame, it happened that persons of honour, when sentenced to death, and to escape the shameful hand of the executioner, would enter a bath of hot water and open their veins. Is it possible—?’

‘Order the bath filled.’

‘Is it possible,’ the emperor calmly continued, ‘that Yennefer might wish to accompany you in that bath?’

‘I’m almost certain of it. But you must ask. She has quite a rebellious nature.’

‘I know.’

*

Yennefer agreed at once.

‘The circle is closed,’ she added, looking down at her wrists. ‘The serpent Ouroboros has sunk its teeth into its own tail.’

*

‘I don’t understand!’ Ciri hissed like an infuriated cat. ‘I don’t understand why I have to go with him. Where to? What for?’

‘Daughter,’ Yennefer said softly. ‘This, and no other, is your destiny. Understand that it simply can’t be otherwise.’

‘And you?’

‘Our destiny awaits us.’ Yennefer looked at Geralt. ‘This is the way it has to be. Come here, my daughter. Hug me tightly.’

‘They want to murder you, don’t they? I don’t agree! I’ve only just got you back! It’s not fair!’

‘He who lives by the sword,’ Emhyr var Emreis said softly, ‘dies by the sword. They fought against me and lost. But they lost with dignity.’

Ciri was standing before him in three strides, and Geralt silently sucked in air. He heard Yennefer’s gasp. Dammit, he thought, everybody can see it! All his black—uniformed army can see what can’t be hidden! The same posture, the same sparkling eyes, the same grimace. Arms crossed on the chest identically. Fortunately, extremely fortunately, she inherited her ashen hair from her mother. But anyhow, when you scrutinise them, it’s clear whose blood . . .

‘But you won,’ said Ciri, glaring at him passionately. ‘You won. And do you think it was with dignity?’

Emhyr var Emreis didn’t reply. He just smiled, eyeing the girl with a clearly contented gaze. Ciri clenched her teeth.

‘So many have died. So many people have died because of all this. Did they lose with dignity? Is death dignified? Only a beast could think like that. Though I looked on death from close up it wasn’t possible to turn me into a beast. And it won’t be possible.’

He didn’t answer. He looked at her, and it seemed he was drinking her in with his gaze.

‘I know what you’re plotting,’ she hissed, ‘Know what you want to do with me. And I’ll tell you right now: I won’t let you touch me. And if you . . . If you . . . I’ll kill you. Even tied up. When you fall asleep I’ll tear your throat out with my teeth.’

With a rapid gesture, the imperator quietened the rumble gathering among the officers surrounding them.

‘What is destined, shall be,’ he drawled, not taking his eyes off Ciri. ‘Say goodbye to your friends, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.’

Ciri looked at the Witcher. Geralt shook his head. The girl sighed.

She and Yennefer hugged and whispered for a long time. Then Ciri went closer to Geralt.

‘Pity,’ she said quietly. ‘Things were looking more promising.’

‘Much more.’

They hugged each other.

‘Be brave.’

‘He won’t have me,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll escape from him. I have a way—’

‘You may not kill him. Remember, Ciri. You may not.’

‘Don’t worry. I wasn’t thinking about killing at all. You know, Geralt, I’ve had enough of killing. There’s been too much of it.’

‘Too much. Farewell, Witcher Girl.’

‘Farewell, Witcher.’

‘Just don’t cry.’

‘Easier said than done.’

*

Emhyr var Emreis, Imperator of Nilfgaard, accompanied Yennefer and Geralt all the way to the bathroom. Almost to the edge of a large, marble pool, full of steaming, fragrant water.

‘Farewell,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to hurry. I’m going, but I’m leaving people here who I shall instruct and to whom I shall issue orders. When you’re ready, just call, and a lieutenant will give you a knife. But I repeat: you don’t have to hurry.’

‘We appreciate your favour,’ Yennefer nodded gravely. ‘Your Imperial Majesty?’

‘Yes?’

‘Please, as far as possible, don’t harm my daughter. I wouldn’t want to die with the thought that she’s crying.’

Emhyr was silent for a long time. A very long time. Leaning against a window. With his head turned away.

‘Madam Yennefer,’ he finally answered, and his face was very strange. ‘You may be certain I shall not harm your and Witcher Geralt’s daughter. I’ve trampled human bodies and danced on the barrows of my foes. And I thought I was capable of anything. But what you suspect me of, I simply wouldn’t be capable of doing. I know it now. So I thank you both. Farewell.’

He went out, quietly closing the door behind him. Geralt sighed.

‘Shall we undress?’ He glanced at the steaming pool. ‘The thought that they’ll haul me out of here as a naked corpse doesn’t especially delight me.’

‘And, can you believe it, to me it’s all the same.’ Yennefer threw off her slippers and unfastened her dress with swift movements. ‘Even if it’s my last bath, I’m not going to bathe in my clothes.’

She pulled her blouse over her head and entered the pool, energetically splashing water around.

‘Well, Geralt? Why are you standing there like a statue?’

‘I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.’

‘You forget easily. Come on, into the water.’

When he sat down beside her she immediately threw her arms around his neck. He kissed her, stroking her waist, above and below the water.

‘Is it,’ he asked for form’s sake, ‘an appropriate time?’

‘Any time,’ she muttered, putting a hand under the water and touching him, ‘is the right time for this. Emhyr repeated twice that we don’t have to hurry. What would you prefer to spend doing during the last minutes given to you? Weeping and wailing? That’s undignified, isn’t it? Examining your conscience? That’s banal and stupid, isn’t it?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘So what did you mean?’

‘The cuts will be painful if the water cools down,’ he murmured, caressing her breasts.

‘It’s worth paying in pain—’ Yennefer put her other hand in the water ‘—for pleasure. Are you afraid of pain?’

‘No.’

‘Neither am I. Sit on the edge of the pool. I love you, but I’m not bloody going to do it underwater.’

*

‘Oh my, oh my,’ said Yennefer, tilting her head back so that her hair, damp from the steam, spread over the edge like little black vipers. ‘Oh my . . . oh.’

*

‘I love you, Yen.’

‘I love you, Geralt.’

‘It’s time. We’ll call them.’

‘We’ll call them.’

They called. First the Witcher called, and then Yennefer called. Then, not having heard any reaction, they yelled in unison.

‘Now! We’re ready! Give us that knife! Heeey! Dammit! The water’s cooling down!’

‘Get out of there,’ said Ciri, peeping into the bathroom. ‘They’ve all gone.’

‘What?’

‘I’m telling you. They’ve gone. Apart from us three there isn’t a living soul here. Get dressed. You look awfully funny in the nude.’

*

As they were dressing, their hands began to tremble. Both Geralt’s and Yennefer’s. They had great difficulty coping with the hooks and eyes, clasps and buttons. Ciri was jabbering away.

‘They rode away. Just like that. All of them, as many as there were of them. They took everyone from here, mounted their horses and rode away. As fast as they could.’

‘Didn’t they leave anybody?’

‘Nobody at all.’

‘That’s staggering,’ whispered Geralt. ‘It’s staggering.’

‘Has anything happened—’ Yennefer cleared her throat ‘—to explain it?’

‘No,’ Ciri quickly replied. ‘Nothing.’

She was lying.

*

At first she put on a brave front. Erect, with head haughtily raised and stony-faced, she pushed away the gloved hands of the black-cloaked knights, looking boldly and defiantly at the menacing nose-guards and visors of their helmets. They didn’t touch her any longer, particularly since they were stopped from doing so by the growl of an officer, a broad-shouldered soldier with silver braid and a white heron-feather plume.

She walked towards the exit, escorted on both sides. With her head proudly raised. Heavy boots thudded, mail shirts clanked and weapons jingled.

After a dozen paces she looked back for the first time. After the next few the second time. Why, I’ll never, ever see them again. The thought flashed with terrifying and cool clarity beneath her crown. Neither Geralt nor Yennefer. Never.

That awareness immediately, all at once, wiped away the mask of feigned courage. Ciri’s face contorted and grimaced, her eyes filled with tears and her nose ran. The girl fought with all her strength, but in vain. A wave of tears breached the dam of pretence.

The Nilfgaardians with salamanders on their cloaks looked at her in silence and amazement. Some of them had seen her on the bloody staircase, all of them had seen her in conversation with the emperor. The witcher girl with a sword, the unvanquished witcher girl, arrogantly challenging the imperator to his face. And now they were surprised to see a snivelling, sobbing child.

She was aware of it. Their eyes burned her like fire, pricked her like pins. She fought, but ineffectively. The more powerfully she held back her tears, the more powerfully they exploded.

She slowed down and then stopped. The escort also stopped. But only for a moment. On the growling command of an officer iron hands grasped her by the upper arms and wrists. Ciri, sobbing and swallowing back tears, looked back for the last time. Then they dragged her. She didn’t resist, but sobbed louder and louder and more and more despairingly.

They were stopped by Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, that dark-haired man with a face which awoke strange, vague memories in her. They released her when he gave a curt order. Ciri sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Seeing him approaching, she stopped sobbing and raised her head haughtily. But now – she was aware of it – it just looked ridiculous.

Emhyr looked at her for a long while. Without a word. Then he approached her. And held out a hand. Ciri, who always reacted to gestures like that by pulling away involuntarily, now, to her great amazement, didn’t react. To her even greater amazement she found his touch wasn’t unpleasant at all.

He touched her hair, as though counting the snow-white streaks. He touched her cheek, disfigured by the scar. Then he hugged her and stroked her head and back. And she, overwhelmed by weeping, let him, although she held her arms as stiffly as a scarecrow.

‘It’s a strange thing, destiny,’ she heard him whisper. ‘Farewell, my daughter.’

*

‘What did he say?’

Ciri’s face grimaced slightly.

‘He said: va faill, luned. In the Elder Speech: farewell, girl.’

‘I know,’ Yennefer nodded. ‘What then?’

‘Then . . . Then he let me go, turned around and walked away. He shouted some orders. And everybody went. They passed me, utterly indifferently, with stamping, thudding and the clanking of armour echoing down the corridor. They mounted their horses and rode away, I heard the neighing and tramping of hooves. I’ll never understand that. For if I were to wonder—’

‘Ciri.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t wonder about it.’

*

‘Stygga Castle,’ repeated Philippa Eilhart, looking at Fringilla Vigo from under her eyelashes. Fringilla didn’t blush. During the past three months she had managed to manufacture a magical cream which made the blood vessels contract. Thanks to the cream she didn’t blush, no matter how embarrassed she was.

‘Vilgefortz’s hide-out was in Stygga Castle,’ confirmed Assire var Anahid. ‘In Ebbing, above a mountain lake, whose name my informer, a simple soldier, was unable to recall.’

‘You said: “was”—’ Francesca Findabair observed.

‘Was,’ Philippa interrupted in mid-sentence. ‘Because Vilgefortz is dead, my dear ladies. He and his accomplices, the entire gang, are no more. That favour was done for us by no other than our good friend the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Whom we didn’t appreciate. None of us. About whom we were mistaken. All of us. Some of us less seriously, others more.’

All the sorceresses looked at Fringilla in unison, but the cream really did act effectively. Assire var Anahid sighed. Philippa tapped her hand on the table.

‘Although the multitude of activities connected to the war and the preparations for the peace negotiations excuse us,’ she said dryly, ‘we ought to admit that the fact of being thoroughly outmanoeuvred in the case of Vilgefortz is a defeat for the lodge. That must never happen to us again, my dear ladies.’

The lodge – with the exception of the ashen-pale Fringilla Vigo – nodded.

‘Right now,’ continued Philippa, ‘the Witcher Geralt is somewhere in Ebbing. Along with Yennefer and Ciri, whom he freed. We ought to ponder over how to find them—’

‘And that castle?’ Sabrina Glevissig interrupted. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something, Philippa?’

‘No, no I haven’t. The legend, if it should arise, ought to have a single, faithful version. Thus I’d like to ask you to do it, Sabrina. Take Keira and Triss with you. Sort out the matter. So that no trace remains.’

*

The roar of the explosion was heard as far away as in Maecht, and the flash – since it took place at night – was visible even in Metinna and Geso. The series of further tectonic shocks were perceptible even further away. At the remotest ends of the world.

Congreve, Estella or Stella, the daughter of Baron Otto de Congreve, espoused to the Count of Liddertal, managed his estates extremely judiciously following his early death, owing to which she amassed a considerable fortune. Enjoying the great estimation of Emperor Emhyr var Emreis (q.v.), she was a greatly important personage at his court. Although she held no position, it was known that the emperor was always in the habit of gracing her voice and opinion with his attention and consideration. Owing to her great affection for the young Empress Cirilla Fiona (see also), whom she loved like her own daughter, she was jokingly called the ‘empress mother’. Having survived both the emperor and the empress, she died in 1331, and her immense estate was left in her will to distant relatives, a side branch of the Liddertals called the White Liddertals. They, however, being careless and giddy—headed people, utterly squandered it.

Effenberg and Talbot,

Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, vol. III

CHAPTER TEN

The man stealing up to the camp, to give him his due, was as spry and cunning as a fox. He changed his position so swiftly, and moved so agilely and quietly, that he could have sneaked up on anyone. Anyone. But not Boreas Mun. Boreas Mun had too much experience in the matter of stalking.

‘Come out, fellow!’ he called, trying hard to colour his voice with self-assured and confident arrogance. ‘Those tricks of yours are in vain. I see you. You’re over there.’

One of the megaliths, a ridge of which bristled on the hillside, twitched against the deep blue, starry sky. It moved. And assumed human form.

Boreas turned some meat roasting on a spit, for he could smell burning. He laid his hand on his bow’s riser, pretending to be leaning carelessly.

‘My belongings are meagre.’ He wove a gruff, metallic thread of warning into his apparently calm tone. ‘There are a few of them. But I’m attached to them. I shall defend them to the death.’

‘I’m no bandit,’ said the man, who had pretended to be a menhir, in a deep voice. ‘I’m a pilgrim.’

The pilgrim was tall and powerfully built, easily measuring seven feet, and in order to balance him on a weighing scales Boreas would have bet anything that a weight of at least five-and-twenty stone would have been required. His pilgrim’s staff, a pole as thick as a cart shaft, looked like a walking cane in his hand. Boreas Mun was indeed amazed how such a huge clodhopper was able to steal up so agilely. He was also somewhat alarmed. His bow, a composite seventy-pounder, with which he could down an elk at four dozen paces, suddenly seemed a small, fragile child’s toy.

‘I’m a pilgrim,’ repeated the powerful man. ‘I mean no—’

‘And the other man,’ Boreas interrupted sharply. ‘Let him come out too.’

‘What oth—?’ stammered the pilgrim and broke off, seeing a slender silhouette, noiseless as a shadow, emerging from the gloom on the other side. This time Boreas Mun wasn’t at all amazed. The other man – his way of moving immediately betrayed it to the tracker’s trained eye – was an elf. And it is no disgrace to be sneaked up on by an elf.

‘I ask for forgiveness,’ said the elf in a strangely un-elven, slightly husky voice. ‘I hid from both of you gentlemen not from evil intentions, but from fear. I’d turn that spit over.’

‘Indeed,’ said the pilgrim, leaning on his staff and sniffing audibly. ‘The meat’s cooked more than enough on that side.’

Boreas turned the spit, sighed and cleared his throat. And sighed again.

‘Sit you down, gentlemen,’ he decided. ‘And wait. The animal will be done any minute. Ha, verily, he’s a fool who denies meat to travellers on the road.’

The fat dribbled onto the fire with a hiss, the fire flared up. It became brighter.

The pilgrim was wearing a felt hat with a broad brim, whose shadow quite effectively covered his face. A turban made from colourful cloth, not covering his face, served as headgear for the elf. When they saw his face in the glare of the campfire, both men – Boreas and the pilgrim – shuddered. But didn’t utter so much as a gasp, not even a soft one, at the sight of the face, once no doubt elfinly beautiful, now disfigured by a hideous scar running diagonally across his forehead, brow, nose and cheek to his chin.

Boreas Mun cleared his throat and turned the spit again.

‘This sweet fragrance lured you to my campfire,’ he stated rather than asked. ‘Didn’t it, gentlemen?’

‘Indeed.’ The pilgrim tipped the brim of his hat and his voice changed a little. ‘I smelled out the roast from far away, with all due modesty. But I remained cautious. They were roasting a woman on a campfire I approached two days ago.’

‘That’s true,’ confirmed the elf. ‘I was there the next morning, I saw human bones in the ashes.’

‘The next morning,’ the pilgrim repeated in a slow, drawling voice, and Boreas would have bet anything that a nasty smile had appeared on the face concealed by the shadow of the hat. ‘Have you been tracking me in secret for long, Master Elf?’

‘Aye.’

‘And what stopped you revealing yourself?’

‘Good sense.’

‘The Elskerdeg pass—’ Boreas Mun turned the spit and interrupted the awkward silence ‘—is a place that doesn’t enjoy the best of reputations. I’ve also seen bones on campfires, skeletons on stakes. Men hanged from trees. This place is full of the savage followers of cruel cults. And creatures just waiting to eat you. According to hearsay.’

‘It’s not hearsay,’ the elf corrected him. ‘It’s the truth. And the further into the mountains towards the east, the worse it’ll be.’

‘Are you gentlemen also travelling eastwards? Beyond Elskerdeg? To Zerrikania? Or perhaps even further, to Hakland?’

Neither the pilgrim nor the elf replied. Boreas hadn’t really expected an answer. Firstly, the question had been indiscreet. Secondly, it had been stupid. From where they were it was only possible to go back or eastwards. Through Elskerdeg. Where he too was headed.

‘Roast’s ready.’ Boreas opened a butterfly knife with a deft flourish, meant to impress. ‘Go ahead, gentlemen. Help yourselves.’

The pilgrim had a cutlass, and the elf a dagger, which also didn’t resemble a kitchen knife at all. But all three blades, sharpened for more menacing purposes, served to carve meat that day. For some time all that could be heard was crunching and munching. And the sizzling of chewed bones thrown into the embers.

The pilgrim belched in a dignified manner.

‘Strange little creature,’ he said, examining the shoulder blade which he had gnawed clean and licked until it looked as though it had been kept for three days in an anthill. ‘It tasted a bit like goat, and it was as tender as coney . . . I don’t recall eating anything like that.’

‘It was a skrekk,’ said the elf, crunching the gristle with a crack. ‘Neither do I recall eating it at any time.’

Boreas cleared his throat quietly. The barely audible note of sarcastic merriment in the elf’s voice proved he knew that the roast came from an enormous rat with bloodshot eyes and huge teeth, only the tail of which measured three ells. The tracker had by no means hunted the gigantic rodent. He had shot it in self-defence, but had decided to roast it. He was a sensible and clear-headed man. He wouldn’t have eaten a rat scavenging on rubbish heaps and eating scraps. But it was a good three hundred miles from the narrow passage of the Elskerdeg pass to the nearest community capable of generating waste. The rat – or, as the elf had said, skrekk – must have been clean and healthy. It hadn’t had any contact with civilisation. So there was nothing it could have been soiled by or infected with.

Soon the last, smallest bone, chewed and sucked clean, landed in the embers. The moon rose over the jagged range of the Fiery Mountains. The wind fed the fire and sparks shot up, dying out and fading amidst the countless twinkling stars.

‘Long on the road, gentlemen?’ Boreas Mun risked another none-too-discreet question, ‘Here, in the Wildernesses? Left the Solveiga Gate behind you long since, if you’ll pardon my asking?’

‘Long since, long since,’ said the pilgrim, ‘is a relative thing. I passed through Solveiga the second day after the September full moon.’

‘Me on the sixth day,’ said the elf.

‘Ha,’ continued Boreas Mun, encouraged by the reaction. ‘It’s a wonder we’ve only met up now, because I also walked that way, or actually rode, for I still had a horse then.’

He fell silent, driving away the unpleasant thoughts and recollections linked to the horse and its loss. He was sure his accidental companions must also have had similar adventures. If they’d been walking the whole time they never would have caught up with him here, near Elskerdeg.

‘I venture, thus,’ he continued, ‘that you set off right after the war, after the Peace of Cintra was concluded, gentlemen. It’s none of my business, naturally, but I dare suppose that you were not pleased by the order and vision of the world created and established in Cintra.’

The lengthy silence that fell by the campfire was interrupted by distant howling. A wolf, probably. Although in the vicinity of the Elskerdeg pass you could never be certain.

‘If I’m to be frank,’ the elf spoke up unexpectedly, ‘I didn’t have the grounds to be pleased with the world and its image following the Peace of Cintra. Not to mention the new order.’

‘In my case it was similar,’ said the pilgrim, crossing his powerful forearms on his chest. ‘Though I came to realise it, as a friend said, post factum.’

Silence reigned for a long time. Even whatever had been howling on the pass was silent.

‘At first,’ continued the pilgrim – although Boreas and the elf had been ready to bet he would not – ‘At first, everything indicated that the Peace of Cintra would bring favourable changes, would create quite a tolerable world order. If not for everyone, then at least for me . . .’

‘If my memory serves me—’ Boreas cleared his throat ‘—the kings arrived in Cintra in April?’

‘The second of April, to be precise,’ the pilgrim corrected him. ‘It was, I recall, a full moon.’

*

Along the walls, positioned below the dark beams supporting a small gallery, hung rows of shields with colourful representations of the heraldic emblems and coats of arms of the Cintran nobility. A first glance revealed the differences between the now somewhat faded arms of the ancient families and those of families ennobled more recently during the reigns of Dagorad and Calanthe. The newer ones had vivid and not yet cracked paint, and no peppering of woodworm holes was visible on them.

Whereas the escutcheons of the more recently ennobled Nilfgaardian families, rewarded during the capture of the castle and the five-year imperial administration, had the most vivid colours.

When we regain Cintra, thought King Foltest, it will be necessary to make sure the Cintrans don’t destroy those shields in a fervour of revival. Politics is one thing, the hall’s decor another. Changes in regimes cannot be a justification for vandalism.

So everything began here, thought Dijkstra, looking around the great hall. The celebrated betrothal banquet, during which the Steel Urcheon appeared and demanded the hand of Princess Pavetta . . . And Queen Calanthe engaged the Witcher . . .

How bizarre are the twists of human fate, thought the spy, surprising himself at the banality of his own musings.

Five years ago, thought Queen Meve, five years ago, the brain of Calanthe, the Lioness of the blood of the Cerbins, splashed onto the floor of the courtyard, this very courtyard I can see from the windows. Calanthe, whose proud portrait we saw in the corridor, was the penultimate living carrier of the royal blood. After her daughter, Pavetta, drowned, the only one left was her granddaughter. Cirilla. Unless the news that Cirilla is also dead is true.

‘Please.’ Cyrus Engelkind Hemmelfart, the Hierarch of Novigrad, accepted on grounds of age, position and universal respect per acclamationem as the chairman of the meeting, beckoned with a trembling hand. ‘Please take your seats.’

They found their chairs, which were marked by mahogany plaques, and sat down at the round table. Meve, Queen of Rivia and Lyria. Foltest, King of Temeria, and his vassal, King Venzlav of Brugge. Demavend, King of Aedirn. Henselt, King of Kaedwen. King Ethain of Cidaris. Young King Kistrin of Verden. Duke Nitert, head of the Redanian Regency Council. And Count Dijkstra.

We must rid ourselves of that spy, remove him from the conference table, thought the hierarch. King Henselt and King Foltest, why, even young Kistrin, have taken the liberty of making sour remarks, so at any moment there’ll be a démarche from the Nilfgaardian representatives. Sigismund Dijkstra is a man of unseemly breeding, and furthermore a person with a dirty past and bad reputation, a persona turpis. One cannot let the presence of a persona turpis infect the atmosphere of the negotiations.

The head of the Nilfgaardian delegation, Baron Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, who had been allotted a place at the round table immediately opposite Dijkstra, greeted the spy with a polite diplomatic bow.

Seeing that everybody was now seated, the Hierarch of Novigrad also sat down. Not without the help of pages supporting him by his trembling arms. The hierarch sat down on a chair made for Queen Calanthe many years before. The chair had an impressively high and richly decorated backrest, making it stand out among the other ones.

*

So it was here, thought Triss Merigold, looking around the chamber, staring at the tapestries, paintings and numerous hunting trophies, and the antlers of a horned animal totally unfamiliar to her. It was here, after the infamous shambles in the throne room, where the famous private conversation between Calanthe, the Witcher, Pavetta and the Enchanted Urcheon occurred. When Calanthe gave her agreement to that bizarre marriage. And Pavetta was already pregnant. Ciri was born almost eight months later . . . Ciri, the heir to the throne . . . The Lion Cub from the Lioness’ blood . . . Ciri, my little sister. Who’s still somewhere far away in the South. Fortunately, she’s no longer alone. She’s with Geralt and Yennefer. She’s safe.

Unless they’ve lied to me again.

‘Sit down, dear ladies,’ urged Philippa Eilhart, who had been scrutinising Triss closely for some time. ‘In a short while the rulers of the world will begin making their inaugural speeches one after another; I wouldn’t want to miss a word.’

The sorceresses, interrupting their furtive gossiping, quickly took their seats. Sheala de Tancarville, in a boa of silver fox, which gave a feminine accent to her severe male outfit. Assire var Anahid, in a dress of mauve silk, which extremely gracefully combined modest simplicity with chic elegance. Francesca Findabair, regal, as usual. Ida Emean aep Sivney, mysterious, as usual. Margarita Laux-Antille, distinguished and serious. Sabrina Glevissig in turquoise. Keira Metz in green and daffodil yellow. And Fringilla Vigo. Dejected. Sad. And pale with a truly deathly, morbid, utterly ghastly paleness.

Triss Merigold was sitting beside Keira, opposite Fringilla. A painting depicting a horseman galloping headlong down a road between an avenue of alders hung above the head of the Nilfgaardian sorceress. The alders were holding out their monstrous arm-like boughs towards the rider, sneeringly smiling with the ghastly maws of their hollows. Triss shuddered involuntarily.

The three-dimensional telecommunicator standing in the middle of the table was active. Philippa Eilhart used a spell to focus the image and sound.

‘Ladies, as you can see and hear,’ she said, not without a sneer, ‘the rulers of the world are, at this very moment, getting down to deciding the fate of it in the throne room of Cintra, plumb beneath us, one floor lower. And we, here, one floor above them, will be watching over so that the boys don’t go too wild.’

*

Other howlers joined the howler howling in Elskerdeg. Boreas had no doubt. They weren’t wolves.

‘I hadn’t expected much from those Cintran talks either,’ he said, in order to revive the dead conversation. ‘Why, no one I know expected any good to come of them.’

‘The simple fact that the negotiations began was important,’ calmly protested the pilgrim. ‘A simple fellow, and I indeed am just such a fellow, if I may say so, thinks simply. A simple fellow knows that the warring kings and emperors aren’t that furious with each other. If they could have, if they’d had the strength, they’d have killed each other. That they’ve stopped trying to kill each other, and instead of that have sat down to a round table? That means they have no more power. They are, to put it simply, powerless. And the result of that powerlessness is that no armed men are attacking a simple fellow’s homestead; they aren’t killing, aren’t mutilating, aren’t burning down buildings, they aren’t cutting children’s throats, aren’t raping wives, or driving people into captivity. No. Instead of that they’ve gathered in Cintra and are negotiating. Let’s rejoice!’

The elf finished poking with his stick a log in the fire that was shooting sparks and looked askance at the pilgrim.

‘Even a simple fellow,’ he said, not concealing the sarcasm, ‘even if he’s joyful, why, even euphoric, ought to understand that politics is also a war, just conducted a little differently. He ought to understand that negotiations are like trade. They have the same self-propelling mechanism. Negotiated successes are bought with concessions. You win some, you lose some. In other words, in order for some people to be bought, others have to be sold.’

‘Indeed,’ the pilgrim said after a while. ‘It’s so simple and obvious that every man understands it. Even a simple one.’

*

‘No, no and once more, no!’ yelled King Henselt, banging both fists on the table so hard he knocked over a goblet and made the inkwells jump. ‘No discussions on that subject! No horse-trading in this matter! That’s the end, that’s that, deireadh!’

‘Henselt.’ Foltest spoke calmly, soberly and very placatingly. ‘Don’t make things difficult. And don’t embarrass us in front of His Excellency with your yelling.’

Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, negotiator for the Empire of Nilfgaard, bowed with a false smile which was meant to imply that the King of Kaedwen’s antics were neither shocking nor bothering him.

‘We are negotiating with the Empire,’ continued Foltest, ‘and amongst ourselves we’ve suddenly begun to bite each other like dogs? It’s a disgrace, Henselt.’

‘We’ve reached agreement with Nilfgaard in matters as difficult as Dol Angra and Riverdell,’ said Dijkstra apparently casually. ‘It would be stupid—’

‘I won’t have such remarks!’ roared Henselt, this time so loudly that not even a buffalo would have matched him. ‘I won’t put up with such remarks, particularly from spies, of all people! I’m the king, for fuck’s sake!’

‘That’s quite plain,’ snorted Meve. Demavend, his back to them, was looking at the escutcheons on the wall, smiling contemptuously, quite as if the game was not about his kingdom.

‘Enough,’ panted Henselt, eyes roving around. ‘Enough, enough by the Gods, or my blood will boil. I said: not a span of land. No, but no, repossession! I won’t agree to my kingdom being reduced by so much as a span, even half a span of land! The Gods entrusted me with the honour of Kaedwen and only to the Gods will I give it up! The Lower Marches is our land . . . Our . . . eth . . . ethic . . . ethnic land. The Lower Marches have belonged to Kaedwen for centuries . . .’

‘Upper Aedirn,’ Dijkstra spoke again, ‘has belonged to Kaedwen since last year. To be precise, since the twenty-fourth of July last year. From the moment a Kaedwenian occupying force invaded it.’

‘I request,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen said without being asked, ‘for it to be minuted ad futuram rei memoriam that the Empire of Nilfgaard had nothing to do with that annexation.’

‘Apart from the fact that it was pillaging Vengerberg at the time.’

‘Nihil ad rem!’

‘Indeed?’

‘Gentlemen!’ Foltest admonished.

‘The Kaedwenian Army,’ rasped Henselt, ‘entered the Lower Marches as liberators! My soldiers were welcomed there with flowers! My soldiers—’

‘Your bandits.’ King Demavend’s voice was calm, but it was apparent from his face how much effort it was costing him. ‘Your brigands, who invaded my kingdom with a murderous hassa, murdered, raped and looted. Gentlemen! We have gathered here and have been debating for a week, we’re debating about what the future face of the world should be. By the Gods, is it to be a face of crime and pillage? Is the murderous status quo to be maintained? Are plundered goods to remain in the hands of the thug and the marauder?’

Henselt seized a map from the table, tore it up with a violent movement and hurled it towards Demavend. The King of Aedirn didn’t even move.

‘My army,’ wheezed Henselt, and his face took on the colour of good, old wine, ‘captured the Marches from the Nilfgaardians. Your woeful kingdom didn’t even exist then, Demavend. I shall say more: had it not been for my army you wouldn’t even have a kingdom today. I’d like to see you driving the Black Cloaks over the Yaruga and beyond Dol Angra without my help. Thus the statement that you’re king by my grace wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration. But here my generosity ends! I said I won’t give up even a span of my land. I won’t let my kingdom be diminished.’

‘Nor I!’ Demavend stood up. ‘We shall not reach agreement, then!’

‘Gentlemen.’ Cyrus Hemmelfart, the Hierarch of Novigrad, who had been slumbering until then, suddenly spoke in a placatory manner. ‘Some kind of compromise is surely possible—’

‘The Empire of Nilfgaard,’ began again Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen, who liked to butt in out of the blue, ‘will not accept any deal that would be damaging to the Land of Elves in Dol Blathanna. If necessary, I shall read you once again the contents of the memorandum . . .’

Henselt, Foltest and Dijkstra snorted, but Demavend looked at the imperial ambassador calmly and almost benignly.

‘For the general good and for peace,’ he declared, ‘I recognise the autonomy of Dol Blathanna. Not as a kingdom, but as a duchy. The condition is that Duchess Enid an Gleanna pays liege homage to me and obligates herself to grant equal rights and privileges to humans and elves. I’m prepared to do that, as I have said, pro publico bono.’

‘Spoken like a true king,’ said Meve.

‘Salus publica lex suprema est,’ said Hierarch Hemmelfart, who had also been searching for some time for the chance to show off his knowledge of diplomatic jargon.

‘I shall add, nonetheless,’ continued Demavend, looking at the pompous Henselt, ‘that the concession regarding Dol Blathanna is not a precedent. It is the only encroachment on the integrity of my lands to which I shall agree. I shall not recognise any other partition. The Kaedwenian Army that invaded my borders as an aggressor and invader has one week to abandon the illegally occupied fortalices and castles of Upper Aedirn. That is the condition of my further participation in this conference. And because verba volant, my secretary shall submit to the minutes an official démarche in the case.’

‘Henselt?’ Foltest looked hesitantly at the bearded king.

‘Never!’ roared the King of Kaedwen, knocking over a chair and hopping like a chimpanzee stung by a hornet. ‘I’ll never give up the Marches! Over my dead body! Never! Nothing will make me! No force! No fucking force!’

And in order to prove he was also well-born and educated he howled: ‘Non possumus!’

*

‘I’ll give him non possumus, the old fool!’ snorted Sabrina Glevissig in the upstairs chamber. ‘You need not worry, ladies, I’ll force that blockhead to recognise the repossession demands in the case of Upper Aedirn. The Kaedwenian Army will leave before ten days are up. The matter is clear. No two ways about it. If any of you doubted it I have the right to feel piqued, indeed.’

Philippa Eilhart and Sheala de Tancarville expressed their acknowledgement by bowing. Assire var Anahid gave her thanks with a smile.

‘All that remains today,’ said Sabrina, ‘is to settle the matter of Dol Blathanna. We know the contents of Emperor Emhyr’s memorandum. The kings down below still haven’t had the chance to discuss that matter, but have signalled their preferences. And the most – I would say – interested party has taken a stance. That’s King Demavend.’

‘Demavend’s stance,’ said Sheala de Tancarville, wrapping the silver fox boa around her neck, ‘bears the features of a far—reaching compromise. It’s a positive, considered and balanced stance. Shilard Fitz—Oesterlen will have considerable difficulty trying to argue in the direction of greater concessions. I don’t know if he’ll want to.’

‘He will,’ Assire var Anahid stated calmly. ‘Because those are the instructions he has from Nilfgaard. He will invoke ad referendum and submit notes. He’ll argue for at least a day. After that time has passed he’ll begin to make concessions—’

‘That’s normal,’ Sabrina Glevissig cut her off. ‘It’s normal that they’ll finally find some common ground and agree on something. We won’t wait for that, we’ll decide right away what they’ll ultimately be permitted to do. Francesca! Say something! It’s about your country, after all.’

‘Just for that reason—’ the Daisy of the Valleys smiled very beautifully ‘—just for that reason I’m keeping quiet, Sabrina.’

‘Get over your pride,’ Margarita Laux-Antille said gravely. ‘We have to know what we can allow the kings.’

Francesca Findabair smiled even more beautifully.

‘For the sake of peace and pro bono publico,’ she said, ‘I agree to King Demavend’s offer. From this moment you may stop addressing me as Your Royal Highness, my dear girls; an ordinary “Your Enlightenment” will suffice.’

‘Elven jokes,’ Sabrina grimaced, ‘don’t amuse me at all, probably because I don’t understand them. What about Demavend’s other conditions?’

Francesca fluttered her eyelashes.

‘I agree to the re-immigration of human settlers and the return of their estates,’ she said gravely. ‘I guarantee equality to all races . . .’

‘For the love of the Gods, Enid,’ laughed Philippa Eilhart. ‘Don’t agree to everything! Set some conditions!’

‘I shall.’ The elf suddenly grew more serious. ‘I don’t agree to liege homage. I want Dol Blathanna as a freehold. No vassal duties apart from an oath of loyalty and no actions to the detriment of the suzerain.’

‘Demavend won’t agree,’ Philippa commented curtly. ‘He won’t waive the income and rent that the Valley of Flowers gave him.’

‘In that matter—’ Francesca raised her eyebrows ‘—I’m prepared to negotiate bilaterally; I’m sure we can achieve consensus. The freehold doesn’t demand payment, but it doesn’t forbid nor exclude it either.’

‘And what about familial inheritance?’ Philippa Eilhart kept digging. ‘What about primogeniture? By agreeing to a freehold, Foltest will want a guarantee of the duchy’s indivisibility.’

‘My complexion and figure may indeed beguile Foltest,’ Francesca smiled again, ‘but I’m surprised at you, Philippa. The age when falling pregnant was a possibility is far, far behind me. Regarding primogeniture and fideicommissum Demavend ought not to be afraid. For I shall be the ultimus familiae of the dynasty of Dol Blathanna’s monarchs. But in spite of the age difference Demavend sees as advantageous, we will be resolving the issue of inheritance not with him, but rather his grandchildren. I assure you, ladies, there will be no moot points in this matter.’

‘Not in this one,’ agreed Assire var Anahid, looking into the sorceress’s elven eyes. ‘And what about the matter of the Squirrel commando units? What about the elves who fought for the Empire? If I’m not mistaken, this mainly concerns your subjects, Madam Francesca?’

The Daisy of the Valleys stopped smiling. She glanced at Ida Emean, but the silent elf from the Blue Mountains avoided her gaze.

‘Pro publico bono—’ she began and broke off. Assire, also very serious, nodded her understanding.

‘What to do?’ she said slowly. ‘Everything has its price. War demands casualties. Peace, it turns out, does too.’

*

‘Aye, true in every respect,’ the pilgrim repeated pensively, looking at the elf sitting with head lowered. ‘Peace talks are a market. A country fair. So that some people can be bought, others must be sold. Thus the world runs its course. The point is not to pay too high a price . . .’

‘And not to sell oneself too cheaply,’ finished the elf, without raising his head.

*

‘Traitors! Despicable good-for-nothings!’

‘Whoresons!’

‘An’badraigh aen cuach!’

‘Nilfgaardian dogs!’

‘Silence!’ roared Hamilcar Danza, slamming an armoured fist onto the balustrade of the cloister. The archers on the gallery pointed their crossbows at the elves crowded into the cul-de-sac.

‘Calm down!’ Danza roared even more loudly. ‘Enough! Quieten down, gentlemen officers! A little more dignity!’

‘Do you have the audacity to talk of dignity, blackguard?’ yelled Coinneach Dá Reo. ‘We spilled blood for you, accursed Dh’oine! For you and your emperor, who received an oath of fealty from us! And this is how you repay it? You hand us over to those murderers from the North? As felons! As criminals!’

‘Enough, I said!’ Danza slammed his fist hard onto the balustrade again. ‘Acknowledge this fait accompli, gentle-elves! The agreements reached in Cintra, as conditions of the peace treaty being concluded, impose on the Empire the duty to turn over war criminals to the Nordlings—’

‘Criminals?’ shouted Riordain. ‘Criminals? You wretched Dh’oine!’

‘War criminals,’ repeated Danza, paying no attention whatsoever to the unrest below him. ‘Any officers who stand accused of proven charges of terrorism, murdering civilians, killing and torturing captives, massacring the wounded in field hospitals—’

‘You whoresons!’ yelled Angus Bri Cri. ‘We killed, because we were at war!’

‘We killed on your orders!’

‘Cuach’te aep arse, bloede Dh’oine!’

‘It has been ruled!’ repeated Danza. ‘Your insults and shouts won’t change anything. Please go to the guardhouse one at a time and put up no resistance while being manacled.’

‘We should have stayed when they were fleeing across the Yaruga.’ Riordain ground his teeth. ‘We should have stayed and fought on in the commando units. But we, idiots, fools, dolts, kept our soldierly oath! Serves us right!’

Isengrim Faoiltiarna, the Iron Wolf, the most celebrated, now almost legendary commander of the Squirrels, presently an imperial colonel, tore the silver lightning bolts of the Vrihedd Brigade from his sleeve and spaulder, stony-faced, and threw them down in the courtyard. The other officers followed his example. Hamilcar Danza frowned from the gallery as he watched this.

‘An irresponsible demonstration,’ he said. ‘Furthermore, in your place I wouldn’t rid myself so lightly of imperial insignia. I feel the duty to inform you that as imperial officers, during the negotiations of the conditions of the peace treaty, you were guaranteed fair trials, lenient sentences and a swift amnesty . . .’

The elves crowded into the cul-de-sac roared in unison with laughter that thundered and boomed amidst the walls.

‘I also draw your attention to the fact,’ Hamilcar Danza added calmly, ‘that it’s only you we are handing over to the Nordlings. Thirty-two officers. And not one of the soldiers you commanded. Not one.’

The laughter in the cul-de-sac ceased in an instant.

*

The wind blew on the campfire, stirring up a shower of sparks and blowing smoke into their eyes. Again, howling could be heard from the pass.

‘They prostituted everything.’ The elf broke the silence. ‘Everything was for sale. Honour, loyalty, our bonds, vows, everyday decency . . . They were simply chattels, having a value as long as there was a trade in them and a demand. And once there wasn’t, they weren’t worth a straw and were discarded. Onto the dust heap.’

‘Onto the dust heap of history,’ the pilgrim nodded. ‘You’re right, master elf. That’s how it was back then in Cintra. Everything had its price. And was worth as much as it could be traded for. The market opened every morning. And like a real market, now and again there’d be unexpected booms and crashes. And just like a real market, one couldn’t help but get the impression somebody was pulling the strings.’

*

‘Am I hearing right?’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen asked in a slow, drawling voice, expressing disbelief in his tone and facial expression. ‘Do my ears deceive me?’

Berengar Leuvaarden, special imperial envoy, didn’t deign to reply. Sprawled in an armchair, he continued to contemplate the ripples of wine as he rocked his goblet.

Shilard puffed himself up, then assumed a mask of contempt and superiority. Which said, either you’re lying, blackguard, or you wish to trick me, test me out. In both cases I’ve seen through you.

‘So am I to understand,’ he said, sticking his chest out, ‘that after far-reaching concessions in the matter of borders, in the matter of prisoners of war and the repayment of spoils, in the matter of the officers of the Vrihedd Brigade and the Scoia’tael commando units, the emperor orders me to compromise and accept the Nordlings’ impossible claims regarding the repatriation of settlers?’

‘You understood perfectly, Baron,’ replied Berengar Leuvaarden, drawing out his syllables characteristically. ‘Indeed, I’m full of admiration for your perspicacity.’

‘By the Great Sun, Lord Leuvaarden, do you in the capital ever consider the consequences of your decisions? The Nordlings are already whispering that our empire is a giant with feet of clay! Now they’re crying that they’ve defeated us, beaten us, driven us away! Does the emperor understand that to make further concessions means to accept their arrogant and excessive ultimatums? Does the Emperor understand that if they treat this as a sign of weakness it may have lamentable results in the future? Does the Emperor understand, finally, what fate awaits those several thousand settlers of ours in Brugge and Lyria?’

Berengar Leuvaarden stopped rocking his goblet and fixed his coal-black eyes on Shilard.

‘I have given you an imperial order, Baron,’ he muttered through his teeth. ‘When you’ve carried it out and returned to Nilfgaard you may ask the emperor yourself why he’s so unwise. Perhaps you mean to reprimand the emperor. Scold him. Chide him. Why not? But alone. Without my mediation.’

Aha, thought Shilard. Now I know. The new Stefan Skellen is sitting before me. And I must behave with him as with Skellen.

But it’s obvious he didn’t come here without a goal. An ordinary courier could have brought the order.

‘Well,’ he began, apparently freely, in a positively familiar tone. ‘Woe to the vanquished! But the imperial order is clear and precise, and it shall be carried out thus. I shall also try hard to make it look like the result of negotiations and not abject submissiveness. I know something about that. I’ve been a diplomat for thirty years. With four generations before me. My family is one of the wealthiest, most prominent. . . and influential—’

‘I know, I know, to be sure.’ Leuvaarden interrupted him with a slight smirk. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

Shilard bowed slightly. And waited patiently.

‘The difficulties in understanding,’ began the envoy, rocking his goblet, ‘occurred because you, dear Baron, chose to think that victory and conquest are based on senseless genocide. On thrusting a standard somewhere in the blood-soaked ground and crying: “All this is mine, I have captured it!” A similar opinion is, regrettably, quite widespread. For me though, sir, as also for the people who gave me my powers, victory and conquest depend on diametrically different things. Victory should look thus: the defeated are compelled to buy goods manufactured by the victors. Why, they do it willingly, because the victors’ goods are better and cheaper. The victors’ currency is stronger than the currency of the defeated, and the vanquished trust it much more than their own. Do you understand me, Baron Fitz-Oesterlen? Are you beginning slowly to differentiate the victors from the vanquished? Do you comprehend whom woe actually betides?’

The ambassador nodded to confirm he did.

‘But in order to consolidate the victory and render it binding,’ Leuvaarden continued a moment later, drawing out his syllables, ‘peace must be concluded. Quickly and at any cost. Not some truce or armistice, but peace. A creative compromise. A constructive accord. And without the imposition of trade embargoes, retorsions of customs duty and protectionism.’

Shilard nodded again to confirm he knew what it was about.

‘Not without reason have we destroyed their agriculture and ruined their industry,’ Leuvaarden continued in a calm, drawling, unemotional voice. ‘We did it in order for them to have to buy our goods owing to a scarcity of theirs. But our merchants and goods won’t get through hostile and closed borders. And what will happen then? I shall tell you what will happen then, my dear Baron. A crisis of over-production will occur, because our manufactories are working at full tilt. The maritime trading companies who entered into collaboration with Novigrad and Kovir would also suffer great losses. Your influential family, my dear baron, has considerable shares in those companies. And the family, as you are no doubt aware, is the basic unit of society. Are you aware of that?’

‘I am.’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen lowered his voice, although the chamber was tightly sealed against eavesdropping. ‘I understand, I comprehend. Though I’d like to be certain I’m carrying out the emperor’s order . . . Not that of some . . . corporation . . .’

‘Emperors pass,’ drawled Leuvaarden. ‘And corporations survive. And will survive. But that’s a truism. I understand your anxieties, Baron. You can be certain, sir, that I’m carrying out an order issued by the emperor. Aimed at the empire’s good and in its interest. Issued, I don’t deny it, as a result of advice given to the emperor by a certain corporation.’

The envoy opened his collar and shirt, demonstrating a golden medallion on which was depicted a star set in a triangle surrounded by flames.

‘A pretty ornament,’ Shilard confirmed with a smile and a slight bow that he understood. ‘I’m aware it is very expensive . . . and exclusive . . . Can they be had anywhere?’

‘No,’ stated Berengar Leuvaarden with emphasis. ‘You have to earn them.’

*

‘If you permit, m’lady and gentlemen.’ The voice of Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen assumed a special tone, already familiar to the debaters, that signified that what the ambassador was about to say was considered by him to be of the utmost importance. ‘If you permit, m’lady and gentlemen, I shall read the aide memoire sent to me by His Imperial Highness Emhyr var Emreis, by grace of the Great Sun, the Emperor of Nilfgaard . . .’

‘Oh no. Not again.’ Demavend ground his teeth, and Dijkstra just groaned. This did not escape Shilard’s attention, because it couldn’t have.

‘The note is long,’ he admitted. ‘So I shall precis it, rather than read it. His Imperial Highness expresses his great gladness concerning the course of the negotiations, and as a peace-loving man joyfully receives the compromises and reconciliations achieved. His Imperial Highness wishes further progress in the negotiations and a resolution to them to the mutual benefit of—’

‘Let us get down to business then,’ Foltest interrupted in mid-sentence. ‘And briskly!’ Let’s finish it to our mutual benefit and return home.’

‘That’s right,’ said Henselt, who had the furthest to go. ‘Let’s finish, for if we dally we’re liable to be caught by the winter!’

‘One more compromise awaits us,’ reminded Meve. ‘A matter which we have barely touched on several times. Probably for fear that we’re liable to fall out over it. It’s time to overcome that fear. The problem won’t vanish just because we’re afraid of it.’

‘Indeed,’ confirmed Foltest. ‘So let’s get to work. Let’s settle the status of Cintra, the problem of succession to the throne, of Calanthe’s heir. It’s a difficult problem, but I don’t doubt we’ll cope with it. Shall we not, Your Excellency?’

‘Oh.’ Fitz-Oesterlen smiled diplomatically and mysteriously. ‘I’m certain that the matter of the succession to the throne of Cintra will go like clockwork. It’s an easier matter than you all suppose, m’lady and gentlemen.’

*

‘I submit for consideration,’ announced Philippa Eilhart in quite an indisputable tone, ‘the following project: we shall turn Cintra into a trust territory. We’ll grant Foltest of Temeria a mandate.’

‘That Foltest is getting too big for his boots,’ Sabrina Glevissig grimaced. ‘He has too large an appetite. Brugge, Sodden, Angren—’

‘We need—’ Philippa cut her off ‘—a strong state at the mouth of the Yaruga. And on the Marnadal Stairs.’

‘I don’t deny it.’ Sheala de Tancarville nodded. ‘It’s of necessity to us. But not to Emhyr var Emreis. And compromise – not conflict – is our aim.’

‘A few days ago,’ reminded Francesca Findabair, ‘Shilard suggested building a demarcation line, dividing Cintra into spheres of influence; into northern and southern zones—’

‘Nonsense and childishness,’ snorted Margarita Laux-Antille. ‘Such divisions are senseless, are only the seeds of conflicts.’

‘I think Cintra ought to be turned into a jointly governed principality,’ said Sheala. ‘With power exercised by appointed representatives of the northern kingdoms and the Empire of Nilfgaard. The city and port of Cintra will receive the status of a free city . . . Would you like to say something, my dear Madam Assire? Please do. I admit I usually prefer discourses consisting of full, complete utterances, but please proceed. We’re listening.’

All of the sorceresses, including Fringilla Vigo, who was as white as a sheet, fixed their eyes on Assire var Anahid. The Nilfgaardian sorceress wasn’t disconcerted.

‘I suggest we concentrate on other problems,’ she declared in her soft, pleasant voice, ‘Let’s leave Cintra in peace. I have so far been unable to inform you all of certain matters about which I’ve received reports. The matter of Cintra, distinguished sisters, has already been solved and taken care of.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Philippa’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean by that, if one may ask?’

Triss Merigold gasped loudly. She had already guessed, already knew what was meant by it.

*

Vattier de Rideaux was downhearted and morose. His charming and wonderful lover, the golden-haired Cantarella, had dropped him, suddenly and unexpectedly, without giving any arguments or explanations. For Vattier it was a blow, an awful blow, following which he moped about dejectedly, and was agitated, distracted and stupefied. He had to be very attentive, be very guarded, so as not to blot his copybook, nor make a faux pas in conversation with the emperor. Times of great changes did not favour the agitated and incompetent.

‘We have already repaid the Guild of Merchants for their invaluable help,’ said Emhyr var Emreis, frowning. ‘We’ve given them enough privileges, more than they received from the previous three emperors combined. As regards Berengar Leuvaarden, we’re also indebted to him for his help in uncovering the conspiracy. He has received a senior and remunerative position. But if it turns out he is incompetent he’ll be kicked out, in spite of his services. It would be well if he knew that.’

‘I’ll do my utmost, Your Highness. And what about Dijkstra? And that mysterious informer of his?’

‘Dijkstra would rather die than reveal who his informer is. It would indeed be worth repaying him for that invaluable news . . . But how? Dijkstra won’t accept anything from me.’

‘If I may, Your Imperial Majesty—’

‘Speak.’

‘Dijkstra will accept information. Something he doesn’t know and would like to. Your Highness can repay him with information.’

‘Well done, Vattier.’

Vattier de Rideaux sighed with relief. He turned his head away and took a deep breath. For which reason he was first to notice the ladies approaching. Stella Congreve, the Countess of Liddertal, and the fair-haired girl entrusted into her care.

‘They’re coming.’ He gestured with a movement of his eyebrows. ‘Your Imperial Majesty, may I take the liberty of reminding . . . Reasons of state . . . The empire’s interests—’

‘Stop.’ Emhyr var Emreis cut him off truculently. ‘I said I’d ponder it. I’ll think the matter over and make a decision. And after taking it I’ll inform you what the decision is.’

‘Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.’

‘What else?’ The White Flame of Nilfgaard impatiently slapped a glove against the hip of a marble nereid adorning the fountain’s pedestal. ‘Why are you still here, Vattier?’

‘The matter of Stefan Skellen—’

‘I shall not show mercy. Death to the traitor. But after an honest and thorough trial.’

‘Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.’

Emhyr didn’t even glance at him as he bowed and walked away. He was looking at Stella Congreve. And the fair-haired girl.

Here comes the interest of the empire, he thought. The bogus princess, the bogus queen of Cintra. The bogus ruler of the mouth of the River Yarra, which means so much to the empire. Here she approaches, eyes lowered, terrified, in a white, silk dress and green gloves with a peridot necklace on her slight décolletage. Back then in Darn Rowan, I complimented her on that dress, praised the choice of jewellery. Stella knows my taste. But what am I to do with the young thing? Put her on a pedestal?

‘Noble ladies.’ He bowed first. In Nilfgaard – apart from in the throne room – courtly respect and courtesy regarding women even applied to the emperor.

They responded with deep curtseys and lowered heads. They were standing before a courteous emperor, but still an emperor.

Emhyr had had enough of etiquette.

‘Stay here, Stella,’ he ordered dryly. ‘And you, girl, will accompany me on a stroll. Take my arm. Head up. Enough, I’ve had enough of those curtseys. It’s just a walk.’

They walked down an avenue, amidst shrubs and hedges barely in leaf. The imperial bodyguard, soldiers from the elite Impera Brigade, the famous Salamanders, stayed on the sidelines, but always on the alert. They knew when not to disturb the emperor.

They passed a pond, empty and melancholy. The ancient carp released by Emperor Torres had died two days earlier. I’ll release a new, young, strong, beautiful specimen, thought Emhyr var Emreis, I’ll order a medal with my likeness and the date to be attached to it. Vaesse deireadh aep eigean. Something has ended, something is beginning. It’s a new era. New times. A new life. So let there be a new carp too, dammit.

Deep in thought, he almost forgot about the girl on his arm. About her warmth, her lily-of-the-valley fragrance and the interest of the empire. In that order, and no other.

They stood by the pond, in the middle of which an artificial island rose out of the water, and on it a rock garden, a fountain and a marble sculpture.

‘Do you know what that figure depicts?’

She didn’t reply right away. ‘Yes, Your Imperial Majesty. It’s a pelican, which pecks its own breast open to feed its young on its blood. It is an allegory of noble sacrifice. And also—’

‘I’m listening to you attentively.’

‘—and also of great love.’

‘Do you think—’ he turned her to face him and pursed his lips ‘—that a torn-open breast hurts less because of that?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ she stammered. ‘Your Imperial Majesty . . . I . . .’

He took hold of her hand. He felt her shudder; the shudder ran along his hand, arm and shoulder.

‘My father,’ he said, ‘was a great ruler, but never had a head for legends or myths, never had time for them. And always mixed them up. Whenever he brought me here, to the park, I remember it like yesterday, he always said that the sculpture shows a pelican rising from its ashes. Well, girl, at least smile when the emperor tells a funny story. Thank you. That’s much better. The thought that you aren’t glad to be walking here with me would be unpleasant to me. Look me in the eyes.’

‘I’m glad . . . to be able to be here . . . with Your Imperial Majesty. It’s an honour for me, I know . . . But also a great joy. I’m enjoying—’

‘Really? Or is it perhaps just courtly flattery? Etiquette, the good school of Stella Congreve? A line that Stella has ordered you to learn by heart? Admit it, girl.’

She was silent, and lowered her eyes.

‘Your emperor has asked you a question,’ repeated Emhyr var Emreis. ‘And when the emperor asks no one can dare be silent. No one can dare to lie either, of course.’

‘Truly,’ she said melodiously. ‘I’m truly glad, Your Imperial Majesty.’

‘I believe you,’ Emhyr said a moment later. ‘I believe you. Although I’m surprised.’

‘I also . . .’ she whispered back. ‘I’m also surprised.’

‘I beg your pardon? Don’t be shy, please.’

‘I’d like to be able . . . to go for walks more often. And talk. But I understand . . . I understand that it’s not possible.’

‘You understand well.’ He bit his lip. ‘Emperors rule their empires, but two things they cannot rule: their hearts and their time. Those two things belong to the empire.’

‘I know that only too well,’ she whispered.

‘I shall not be staying here long,’ he said after a moment of oppressive silence. ‘I must ride to Cintra and grace with my person the ceremony of the peace treaty being signed. You will return to Darn Rowan . . . Raise your head, girl. Oh no. That’s the second time you’ve sniffed in my presence. And what’s that in your eyes? Tears? Oh, those are serious breaches of etiquette. I will have to express my most serious discontent to the Countess of Liddertal. Raise your head, I said . . .’

‘Please . . . forgive Madam Stella . . . Your Imperial Majesty. It’s my fault. Only mine. Madam Stella has taught me . . . And prepared me well.’

‘I’ve noticed and appreciate that. Don’t worry, Stella Congreve isn’t in danger of my disfavour. And never has been. I was making fun of you. Reprehensibly.’

‘I noticed,’ whispered the girl, paling, horrified by her own audacity. But Emhyr just laughed. Somewhat stiffly.

‘I prefer you like that,’ he stated. ‘Believe me. Bold. Just like—’

He broke off. Like my daughter, he thought. A sense of guilt tormented him like a dog worrying at him.

The girl didn’t take her eyes off him. It’s not just Stella’s work, thought Emhyr. It really is her nature. In spite of appearances she’s a diamond that’s hard to scratch. No. I won’t let Vattier murder this child. Cintra is Cintra, and the interest of the empire is the interest of the empire, but this matter seems only to have one sensible and honourable solution.

‘Give me your hand.’

It was an order delivered in a stern voice and tone. But in spite of that he couldn’t help but get the impression it was carried out willingly. Without compulsion.

Her hand was small and cool. But wasn’t trembling now.

‘What’s your name? Just please don’t say it’s Cirilla Fiona.’

‘Cirilla Fiona.’

‘I feel like punishing you, girl. Severely.’

‘I know, Your Imperial Majesty. I deserve it. But I . . . I have to be Cirilla Fiona.’

‘One might suppose you regret you are not she,’ he said, not letting go of her hand.

‘I do,’ she whispered. ‘I do regret I am not she.’

‘Indeed?’

‘If I were . . . the real Cirilla . . . the emperor would look more favourably on me. But I’m only a counterfeit. A poor imitation. A double, not worthy of anything. Nothing . . .’

He turned around suddenly and grabbed her by the arms. And released her at once. He took a step back.

‘Yearning for a crown? Power?’ he was speaking softly, but quickly, pretending not to see as she denied it with abrupt movements of her head. ‘Honours? Accolades? Luxuries—’

He broke off, breathing heavily. Pretending he couldn’t see the girl still shaking her lowered head, still denying further hurtful accusations, perhaps all the more hurtful because of being unexpressed.

He breathed out deeply and loudly.

‘Do you know, little moth, that what you see before you is a flame?’

‘I do, Your Imperial Majesty.’

They were silent for a long time. The scent of spring suddenly made them feel light-headed. Both of them.

‘In spite of appearances,’ Emhyr finally said dully, ‘being empress is not an easy job. I don’t know if I’ll be able to love you.’

She nodded to show she also knew. He saw a tear on her cheek. Just like in Stygga Castle, he felt the tiny shard of cold glass lodged in his heart shift.

He hugged her, pressed her hard to his chest, stroked her hair, which smelled of lilies-of-the-valleys.

‘My poor little one . . .’ he said in an unfamiliar voice. ‘My little one, my poor raison d’état.’

*

Bells rang throughout Cintra. In a stately manner, deeply, solemnly. But somehow strangely mournfully.

Unusual looks, thought Hierarch Hemmelfart, looking, like everybody else, at the hanging portrait which measured, like all the others, at least one yard by two. Strange looks. I’m absolutely certain she’s some kind of half—breed. I’d swear she has the blood of the accursed elves in her veins.

Pretty, thought Foltest, prettier than the miniature the people from the intelligence service showed me. Ah well, portraits usually flatter.

Utterly unlike Calanthe, thought Meve. Utterly unlike Roegner. Utterly unlike Pavetta . . . Hmmm . . . There’ve been rumours . . . But no, that’s impossible. She must have royal blood, must be the rightful ruler of Cintra. She must. It is demanded by raison d’état. And history.

She’s not the one I saw in my dreams, thought Esterad Thyssen, King of Kovir, who had recently arrived in Cintra. She’s certainly not that one. But I shan’t tell that to anyone. I’ll keep it to myself and my Zuleyka. Zuleyka and I shall decide how we shall use the knowledge those dreams gave us.

She was almost my wife, that Ciri, thought Kistrin of Verden. I’d have been Duke of Cintra then, according to custom the heir to the throne . . . And I’d probably have perished like Calanthe. It was fortunate, oh, it was fortunate that she ran away from me then.

Not even for a moment did I believe in the tale of great love at first sight, thought Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen. Not even for a moment. And yet Emhyr is marrying that girl. He’s rejecting the chance for reconciliation with the dukes. Instead of the daughter of one of the Nilfgaardian dukes he’s taking Cirilla of Cintra for his wife. Why? In order to seize that miserable little country, half of which, if not more, I would anyway have gained for the empire in negotiations. To seize the mouth of the Yaruga, which is in any case under the dominion of a Nilfgaardian-Novigradian—Koviran maritime trading company.

I don’t understand anything of this raison d’état.

I suspect they aren’t telling me everything.

Sorceresses, thought Dijkstra. It’s the sorceresses’ handiwork. But let it be. It was clearly written that Ciri would become the Queen of Cintra, the wife of Emhyr and the Empress of Nilfgaard. Destiny clearly wanted that. Fate.

Let it be, thought Triss Merigold. May it remain like that. Well and good. Ciri will be safe now. They’ll forget about her. They’ll let her live.

The portrait finally ended up in its place, and the servants who had hung it stood back and removed the ladders.

In the long row of darkened and somewhat dusty paintings of the rulers of Cintra, beyond the collection of Cerbins and Corams, beyond Corbett, Dagorad and Roegner, beyond the proud Calanthe and the melancholy Pavetta, hung the last portrait. Depicting the currently reigning gracious monarch. The successor to the throne and to the royal blood.

The portrait of a slim girl with fair hair and a sad gaze. Wearing a white dress with green gloves.

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.

The Queen of Cintra and the Empress of Nilfgaard.

Destiny, thought Philippa Eilhart, feeling Dijkstra’s eyes on her.

Poor child, thought Dijkstra, looking at the portrait. She probably thinks it’s the end of her worries and misfortunes. Poor child.

The bells of Cintra rang, frightening the seagulls.

*

‘Shortly after the end of the negotiations and the signing of the Peace of Cintra—’ the pilgrim picked up the story ‘—a grand holiday, a celebration lasting several days, was held in Novigrad, the crowning moment of which was a great and ceremonial military parade. The day, as befitted the first day of a new era, was truly beautiful . . .’

‘Are we to understand,’ the elf asked sarcastically, ‘that you were present there, sir? At that parade?’

‘In truth, I was a little late.’ The pilgrim clearly wasn’t the type to be disconcerted by sarcasm. ‘The day, as I said, was beautiful. It promised thus from the very dawn.’

*

Vascoigne, the commandant of Drakenborg – until recently deputy to the chief of political affairs – impatiently struck his whip against the side of his boot.

‘Faster over there, faster,’ he urged. ‘The next ones are waiting! After that peace treaty signed in Cintra we’re snowed under here.’

The hangmen, having put the nooses around the condemned men’s necks, stepped back. Vascoigne whacked his whip against his boot.

‘If any of you has anything to say,’ he said dryly, ‘now is your last chance.’

‘Long live freedom,’ said Cairbre aep Diared.

‘The trial was fixed,’ said Orestes Kopps, marauder, robber and killer.

‘Kiss my arse,’ said Robert Pilch, deserter.

‘Tell Lord Dijkstra I’m sorry,’ said Jan Lennep, secret agent, condemned for bribery and thievery.

‘I didn’t mean to . . . I really didn’t mean to,’ sobbed Istvan Igalffy, the fort’s former commandant, removed from his position and arraigned before the tribunal for acts committed against female prisoners, as he tottered on a birch stump.

The sun, as blinding as liquid gold, exploded above the fort’s palisade. The gallows poles cast long shadows. A beautiful, new sunny day rose over Drakenborg.

The first day of a new era.

Vascoigne hit his whip against his boot. He raised and lowered his hand.

Stumps were kicked out from under feet.

*

All the bells of Novigrad tolled, their deep and plaintive sounds echoing against the roofs and mansards of merchants’ residences, the echoes fading amongst the narrow streets. Rockets and fireworks shot up high. The crowd roared, cheered, threw flowers, tossed up their hats, waved handkerchiefs, favours, flags, why, even trousers.

‘Long live the Free Company!’

‘Hurraaaah!’

‘Long live the condottieri!’

Lorenzo Molla saluted the crowd, blowing kisses to beautiful townswomen.

‘If they’re going to pay bonuses as effusively as they cheer,’ he shouted over the tumult, ‘then we’ll be rich!’

‘Pity,’ said Julia Abatemarco, with a lump in her throat. ‘Pity Frontino didn’t live to see this . . .’

They walked their horses through the town’s main street, Julia, Adam ‘Adieu’ Pangratt and Lorenzo Molla, at the head of the Company, dressed in their best regalia, formed up into fours so even that none of the groomed and gleaming horses stuck their muzzles even an inch out of line. The condottieri’s horses were, like their riders, calm and proud; they weren’t frightened by the crowd’s cheers and shouts, reacting with slight, faint, almost imperceptible jerks of their heads at the wreaths and flowers flying at them.

‘Long live the condottieri!’

‘Long live Adieu Pangratt! Long live Pretty Kitty!’

Julia furtively wiped away a tear, catching a carnation thrown from the crowd.

‘I never dreamed . . .’ she said. ‘Such a triumph . . . Pity Frontino . . .’

‘You’re a romantic,’ smiled Lorenzo Molla. ‘You’re getting emotional, Julia.’

‘I am. Attention, by my troth! Eyes leeeft! Look!’

They sat up straight in the saddle, turning their heads towards the review stand and the thrones and seats arranged there. I see Foltest, thought Julia. That bearded one is probably Henselt of Kaedwen, and that handsome one Demavend of Aedirn. That matron must be Queen Hedwig . . . And that pup beside her is Prince Radovid, son of the murdered king . . . Poor boy . . .

*

‘Long live the condottieri! Long live Julia Abatemarco! Hurrah for Adieu Pangratt! Hurrah for Lorenzo Molla!’

‘Long live Constable Natalis!’

‘Long live the kings! Long live Foltest, Demavend and Henselt!’

‘Long live Dijkstra!’ roared some toady.

‘Long live His Holiness!’ yelled several voices paid to do so. Cyrus Engelkind Hemmelfart, the Hierarch of Novigrad, stood up and greeted the crowd and the marching army with arms raised, rather inelegantly turning his rear towards Queen Hedwig and the minor Radovid, obscuring them with the tails of his voluminous robes.

No one’s going to shout ‘Long live Radovid’, thought the prince, blocked by the hierarch’s fat backside. No one’s even going to look at me. No one will raise a cry in honour of my mother. Nor mention my father; they won’t shout his glory. Today, on the day of triumph, on the day of reconciliation, of the alliance to which my father, after all, contributed. Which was why he was murdered.

He felt someone’s eyes on the nape of his neck. As delicate as something he didn’t know – or did, but only from his dreams. Something like the soft, hot caress of a woman’s lips. He turned his head. He saw the dark, bottomless eyes of Philippa Eilhart fixed on him.

Just you wait, thought the prince, looking away. Just you wait.

No one could have predicted then or guessed that this thirteen-year-old boy – now a person without any significance in a country ruled by the Regency Council and Dijkstra – would grow into a king. A king, who – after paying back all the insults borne by himself and his mother – would pass into history as Radovid V the Stern.

The crowd cheered. Flowers rained down under the hooves of the parading horses of the condottieri.

*

‘Julia?’

‘Yes, Adieu.’

‘Marry me. Be my wife.’

Pretty Kitty delayed her answer a long time, as she recovered from her astonishment. The crowd cheered. The Hierarch of Novigrad, sweaty, gasping for air, like a large, fat catfish, blessed the townspeople and the procession, town and world from the viewing stand.

‘But you are married, Adam Pangratt!’

‘I’m separated. I’ll get a divorce.’

Julia Abatemarco didn’t answer. She turned her head away. Astonished. Disconcerted. And very happy. God knows why.

The crowd cheered and threw flowers. Rockets and fireworks exploded with a crack over the rooftops.

The bells of Novigrad moaned plaintively.

*

A woman, thought Nenneke. When I sent her away to war she was a girl. She’s returned a woman. She’s confident. Self—aware. Serene. Composed. Feminine.

She won that war. By not allowing the war to destroy her.

‘Debora,’ Eurneid continued her litany in a soft, but sure voice, ‘died of typhus in a camp at Mayena. Prine drowned in the Yaruga when a boat full of casualties capsized. Myrrha was killed by Squirrel elves, during an attack on a field hospital at Armeria . . . Katje—’

‘Go on, my child,’ Nenneke urged her on gently.

‘Katje—’ Eurneid cleared her throat ‘—met a wounded Nilfgaardian in hospital. She went back to Nilfgaard with him after the peace was concluded, when prisoners of war were exchanged.’

‘I always say,’ sighed the stout priestess, ‘that love knows no borders or cordons. What about Iola the Second?’

‘She’s alive,’ Eurneid hurried to assure her. ‘She’s in Maribor.’

‘Why doesn’t she come back?’

The novice bowed her head.

‘She won’t return to the temple, Mother,’ she said softly. ‘She’s in the hospital of Mr Milo Vanderbeck, the surgeon, the halfling. She said she wants to tend the sick. That she’ll only devote herself to that. Forgive her, Mother Nenneke.’

‘Forgive her?’ the priestess snorted. ‘I’m proud of her.’

*

‘You’re late,’ Philippa Eilhart hissed. ‘You’re late for a ceremony graced by kings. By a thousand devils, Sigismund, your arrogance regarding etiquette is well known enough for you not to have to flaunt it so blatantly. Particularly today, on a day like this . . .’

‘I had my reasons.’ Dijkstra responded to the look of Queen Hedwig and the raised eyebrows of the Hierarch of Novigrad with a bow. He noticed the grimace on the face of priest Willemer and the expression of contempt on the impossibly handsome countenance of King Foltest.

‘I have to talk to you, Phil.’

Philippa frowned.

‘In private, most probably?’

‘That would be best.’ Dijkstra smiled faintly. ‘If, however, you consider it appropriate, I’ll agree to a few additional pairs of eyes. Let’s say those of the beautiful ladies of Montecalvo.’

‘Hush,’ hissed the sorceress from behind her smiling lips.

‘When can I expect an audience?’

‘I’ll think about it and let you know. Now leave me in peace. This is a stately ceremony. It’s a great celebration. Let me remind you of that, if you hadn’t noticed yourself.’

‘A great celebration?’

‘We’re on the threshold of a new era, Dijkstra.’

The spy shrugged.

The crowd cheered. Fireworks shot into the sky. The bells of Novigrad tolled, tolled for the triumph, for the glory. But somehow they sounded strangely mournful.

*

‘Hold the reins, Jarre,’ said Lucienne. ‘I’ve grown hungry, I’d like a bite of something. Here, I’ll wrap the strap over your arm. I know one’s not much use.’

Jarre felt a blush of shame and humiliation burning on his face. He still hadn’t got used to it. He still had the impression that the whole world didn’t have anything better to do than stare at his stump, at the sleeve sewn up over it. That the whole world didn’t think of anything else but to look at his disability, to falsely sympathise with the cripple and falsely pity him, and secretly disdain him and treat him as something that unpleasantly disturbs the nice order by repulsively and blatantly existing. By daring to exist.

Lucienne, he had to hand it to her, differed a little from the whole world in this respect. She neither pretended she couldn’t see it, nor adopted an affected style of humiliating help and even more humiliating pity. Jarre was close to thinking that the fair-haired young wagoner treated him naturally and normally. But he drove that thought away. He didn’t accept it.

For he still hadn’t managed to treat himself normally.

The wagon carrying military invalids creaked and rattled. Hot weather had come after a short period of rain, and the ruts created by military convoys had dried out and hardened into ridges and humps of fantastic shapes, over which the vehicle being pulled by four horses had to trundle. The wagon positively jumped over the bigger ruts, creaking, the coach body rocking like a ship in a storm. The swearing of the crippled soldiers – mainly lacking legs – was as exquisite as it was filthy, and in order not to fall Lucienne hung on to Jarre and hugged him, generously giving the boy her magical warmth, extraordinary softness and the exciting mixture of the smell of horses, leather straps, hay, oats and young, intense, girlish sweat.

The wagon lurched out of another pothole and Jarre took in the slack from the reins wound around his wrist. Lucienne, taking bites in turn from a hunk of bread and a sausage, cuddled up to his side.

‘Well, well.’ She noticed his brass medallion and disgracefully exploited the fact that his hand was taken up by the reins. ‘Did they take you in too? A forget-me-not amulet? Oh, whoever invented that trinket was a real trickster. There was great demand for them during the war, probably second only to vodka. And what girl’s name is inside it? Let’s take a gander—’

‘Lucienne.’ Jarre blushed like a beetroot and felt as though the blood would gush from his cheeks at any moment. ‘I must ask you . . . not to open it . . . Forgive me, but it’s personal. I don’t want to offend you, but . . .’

The wagon bounced, Lucienne cuddled up to him, and Jarre shut up.

‘Ci . . . ri . . . lla,’ the wagoner spelled it out with difficulty, but it surprised Jarre, who hadn’t suspected the peasant girl of such far-reaching talents.

‘She won’t forget you.’ She slammed the medallion shut, let go of the chain and looked at the boy. ‘That Cirilla, I mean. If she really loved you. Foolish spells and amulets. If she really loved you, she won’t forget, she’ll be faithful. She’ll wait.’

‘What for?’ Jarre lifted his stump.

The girl squinted her cornflower-blue eyes slightly.

‘If she really loved you,’ she repeated firmly, ‘she’s waiting, and the rest’s codswallop. I know it.’

‘Do you have such great experience in this regard?’

‘None of your business—’ now it was Lucienne’s turn to blush slightly ‘—what I’ve had and with whom. And don’t think I’m one of those what you only have to nod at and she’s ready to have some exspermience in the hay. But I know what I know. If you love a fellow, you love all of him and not just bits. Then it’s a hill of beans even if he’s lost one of those bits.’

The wagon jumped.

‘You’re simplifying it a bit,’ Jarre said through clenched teeth, greedily sniffing up the girl’s fragrance. ‘You’re simplifying it a lot and you’re idealising it a lot, Lucienne. You deign not to notice even a detail so slight that a man’s ability to support a wife and family depends on whether he’s in one piece. A cripple isn’t capable—’

‘Hey, hey, hey!’ she bluntly interrupted him. ‘Don’t be blubbering on me frock. The Black Cloaks didn’t tear your head off, and you’re a brainbox, you toil with your noggin. What you staring at? I’m from the country, but I have ears and eyes. Quick enough to notice a detail so slight as someone’s manner of speech, that’s truly lordly and learned. And what’s more . . .’

She bent her head and coughed. Jarre also coughed. The wagon jumped.

‘And what’s more,’ the girl finished, ‘I’ve heard what the others said. That you’re a scribe. And the priest at a temple. Then see for yourself that that hand’s . . . A trifle. And that’s that.’

The wagon hadn’t bounced for some time, but Jarre and Lucienne seemed not to notice it at all. And it didn’t bother them at all.

‘I seem to attract scholars,’ the girl said after a longer pause, ‘There was one . . . Once . . . Made advances towards me . . . He was book-learned and schooled in academies. You could tell it from his name alone.’

‘And what was it?’

‘Semester.’

‘Hey there, miss,’ Gefreiter Corncrake called from behind their backs. He was a nasty, gloomy man, wounded during the fighting for Mayena. ‘Crack the whip above the geldings’ rumps, miss, your cart’s crawling along like snot down a wall!’

‘I swear,’ added another cripple, scratching himself on a stump covered in shiny scar tissue visible under a rolled up trouser leg, ‘this wilderness is getting me down! I’m really missing a tavern, since, I tell you, I’d verily love a beer. Can’t we go any brisker?’

‘We can.’ Lucienne turned around on the box. ‘But if the shaft or a hub breaks on a clod, then for a Sunday or two you’ll not be drinking beer but rainwater or birch juice, waiting for a lift. You can’t walk, and I’m not going to take you on my back, am I?’

‘That’s a great pity,’ Corncrake grinned. ‘For I dream at night of you taking me. On your back, I mean from behind. I like it like that. And you, miss?’

‘You arsehole of a cripple!’ Lucienne yelled. ‘You stinking old goat! You—’

She broke off, seeing the faces of all the invalids sitting on the wagon suddenly covered in a deathlike pallor.

‘Damn,’ sobbed one of them. ‘And we were so close to home . . .’

‘We’re done for,’ said Corncrake quietly and utterly without emotion. Simply stating the fact.

And they said – the thought flashed through Jarre’s head – that there weren’t any more Squirrels. That they’d all been killed. That the elven question, as they said, had been solved.

There were six horsemen. But after a closer look it turned out there were six horses, but eight riders. Two of the steeds were carrying a pair of riders. All the horses were treading stiffly and out of rhythm, their heads drooping. They looked miserable.

Lucienne gasped loudly.

The elves came closer. They looked even worse than the horses.

Nothing remained of their pride, of their hard-earned, supercilious, charismatic otherness. Their clothing – usually even on guerrillas from the commando units smart and beautiful – was dirty, torn and stained. Their hair – their pride and joy – was dishevelled, matted with sticky filth and clotted blood. Their large eyes, usually vain and lacking in any expression, were now abysses of panic and despair.

Nothing remained of their otherness. Death, terror, hunger and homelessness had made them become ordinary. Very ordinary.

They had even stopped being frightening.

For a moment Jarre thought they would pass them, would simply cross the road and disappear into the forest on the other side, not gracing the wagon or its passengers with even a glance. That all that would remain of them would be that utterly non-elven, unpleasant, foul smell, a smell that Jarre knew only too well from the field hospitals – the smell of misery, urine, dirt and festering wounds.

They passed them without looking.

But not all of them.

An elf woman with long, dark hair caked together with congealed blood stopped her horse right beside the wagon. She sat in the saddle leaning over awkwardly, protecting an arm in a blood-soaked sling around which flies buzzed and swarmed.

‘Toruviel,’ said one of the elves, turning around. ‘En’ca digne, luned.’

Lucienne instantly realised, understood, what it was about. She understood what the elf woman was looking at. The peasant girl had been familiar from childhood with the blue-grey, swollen spectre, the apparition of famine, lurking around the corner of her cottage. So she reacted instinctively and unerringly. She held out the bread towards the elf woman.

‘En’ca digne, Toruviel,’ repeated the elf. He was the only one of the entire commando unit to have the silver lightning bolts of the Vrihedd Brigade on the torn sleeve of his dust-covered jacket.

The invalids on the wagon, until then petrified and frozen in their tracks, suddenly twitched, as though animated by a magic spell. Quarter loaves of bread, rounds of cheese, pieces of fatback and sausage appeared – as if by magic – in the hands that they held out towards the elves.

And for the first time in a thousand years elves were holding their hands out towards humans.

And Lucienne and Jarre were the first people to see elves crying. To see them choking on their sobs, not even trying to wipe away the tears flowing down their dirty faces. Giving the lie to the claim that elves supposedly had no lachrymal glands at all.

‘En’ca . . . digne,’ repeated the elf with the lightning bolts on his sleeve, in a faltering voice.

And then he held out a hand and took the bread from Corncrake.

‘Thank you,’ he said hoarsely, struggling to adapt his lips and tongue to the foreign language. ‘Thank you, human.’

After some time, noticing that it had all gone, Lucienne clicked her tongue at the horses and flicked the reins. The wagon creaked and rattled. No one spoke.

It was well on towards evening when the highway began to teem with armoured horsemen. They were commanded by a woman with completely white, close-cropped hair, with an evil, fierce face disfigured by scars, one of which crossed her cheek from her temple to the corner of her mouth, and another of which, describing a horseshoe, encircled her eye socket. The woman also lacked a large part of her right ear, and her left arm below the elbow ended in a leather sleeve and a brass hook to which her reins were attached.

The woman, staring malevolently at them with a glare full of vindictiveness, asked about the elves. About the Scoia’tael. About terrorists. About fugitives, survivors of a commando unit destroyed two days back.

Jarre, Lucienne and the invalids, avoiding the gaze of the white-haired, one-armed woman, spoke, mumbling indistinctly that no, they hadn’t encountered anyone or seen anyone.

You’re lying, thought White Rayla, once Black Rayla. You’re lying, I know you are. You’re lying out of pity.

But it doesn’t matter anyway.

For I, White Rayla, have no pity.

*

‘Hurraaaah, up with the dwarves! Long live Barclay Els!’

‘Long liiiive the dwaaarves!’

The Novigrad streets thudded beneath the heavy, iron-shod boots of the old campaigners of the Volunteer Regiment. The dwarves marched in a formation typical for them, in fives, and the hammers on their standard fluttered over the column.

‘Long live Mahakam! Vivant the dwarves!’

‘Glory to them! And fame!’

Suddenly someone in the crowd laughed. Several others joined in. And a moment later everybody was roaring with laughter.

‘It’s an insult . . .’ Hierarch Hemmelfart gasped for air. ‘It’s a scandal . . . It’s unpardonable . . .’

‘Vile people,’ hissed priest Willemer.

‘Pretend you can’t see it,’ Foltest advised calmly.

‘We shouldn’t have economised on their pay,’ Meve said sourly. ‘Or refused them rations.’

The dwarven officers kept their countenance and form, standing erect and saluting in front of the review stand. Whereas the non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Volunteer Regiment expressed their disapproval of the budget cuts applied by the kings and the hierarch. Some crooked their elbows as they passed the stand, while others demonstrated their other favourite gesture: a fist with the middle finger stuck stiffly upwards. In academic circles that gesture bore the name digitus infamis. The plebs had a cruder name for it.

The blushes on the faces of the kings and the hierarch demonstrated that they knew both names.

‘We ought not to have insulted them by our miserliness,’ Meve repeated. ‘They’re an ambitious nation.’

*

The howler in Elskerdeg howled; the howling turned into a horrifying wailing call. None of the men sitting by the campfire turned his head around.

Boreas Mun was the first to speak after a long silence.

‘The world has changed. Justice has been done.’

‘Well, you might be exaggerating with that justice.’ The pilgrim smiled slightly. ‘I would agree, though, that the world has in some way adapted itself to the basic law of physics.’

‘I wonder if we have the same law in mind,’ the elf said in a slow, drawling voice.

‘Every action causes a reaction,’ said the pilgrim.

The elf snorted, but it was quite a friendly snort.

‘That’s a point for you, human.’

*

‘Stefan Skellen, son of Bertram Skellen, you, who were Imperial Coroner, be upstanding. The High Tribunal of the Eternal Empire by grace of the Great Sun has found you guilty of the crimes and illegitimate acts of which you have been charged, namely: treason and participation in a conspiracy intended to bring about a murderous assault on the statutory order of the Empire, and also on the person of the Imperial Majesty. Your guilt, Stefan Skellen, has been confirmed and proven, and the Tribunal has not found extenuating circumstances. His Royal Imperial Majesty has thus not granted you an imperial pardon.

‘Stefan Skellen, son of Bertram Skellen. You will be taken from the courtroom to the Citadel, from where, when the apposite time comes, you will be led out. As a traitor, unworthy of treading the soil of the Empire, you will be placed on a wooden cart and horses will pull you to Millennium Square on that cart. As a traitor, unworthy of breathing the air of the Empire, you will be hanged by the neck on a gallows by the hand of an executioner, between heaven and earth. And you will hang until you are dead. Your corse will be cremated and the ashes tossed to the four winds.

‘O Stefan Skellen, son of Bertram, traitor. I, the head of the Highest Tribunal of the Empire, sentencing you, utter your name for the last time. May it henceforth be forgotten.’

*

‘It works! It works!’ shouted Professor Oppenhauser, rushing into the dean’s office. ‘It works, gentlemen! Finally! Finally! It functions. It rotates. It works! It works!’

‘Really?’ Jean La Voisier, Professor of Chemistry, called Rotten Eggs by his students, asked bluntly and quite sceptically. ‘It can’t be! And what, out of interest, works?’

‘My perpetual motion machine!’

‘A perpetum mobile?’ Edmund Bumbler, venerable Zoology lecturer, asked curiously. ‘Indeed? You aren’t exaggerating, my dear colleague?’

‘Not in the slightest!’ yelled Oppenhauser, and leaped like a goat. ‘Not a bit! It works! The machine works. I set it in motion and it works. It runs continuously. Without stopping. Permanently. Forever and ever. It can’t be described, colleagues, you must see it! Come to my lab, quickly!’

‘I’m having my breakfast,’ protested Rotten Eggs, but his protest was lost in the hubbub and general excited commotion. Professors, magisters and bachelors threw coats and fur coats over their gowns and ran for the exit, led by Oppenhauser, still shouting and gesticulating. Rotten Eggs pointed his digitus infamis at them and returned to his roll and forcemeat.

The small group of scholars, constantly being joined by more scholars greedy to see the fruits of Oppenhauser’s thirty years of labours, briskly covered the distance separating them from the laboratory of the famous physicist. They were just about to open the door when the ground suddenly shook. Perceptibly. Powerfully, actually. Very powerfully, actually.

It was a seismic wave, one of the series of earthquakes caused by the destruction of Stygga Castle, Vilgefortz’s hide-out, by the sorceresses. The seismic wave had come all the way to Oxenfurt from distant Ebbing.

Dozens of pieces of glass exploded with a crash from the stained-glass window on the frontage of the Department of Fine Arts. The bust of Nicodemus de Boot, the academy’s first rector, scrawled over with rude words, fell from its plinth. The cup of herb tea with which Rotten Eggs was washing down his roll and forcemeat fell from the table. A first-year physics student, Albert Solpietra, fell from a plantain tree in the academy grounds that he had climbed to impress some female medical students.

And Professor Oppenhauser’s perpetum mobile, his legendary perpetual motion engine, turned over once more and stopped. Forever.

And it was never possible to start it again.

*

‘Long live the dwarves! Long live Mahakam!’

What kind of mixed bunch is this, what gang of ruffians? thought Hierarch Hemmelfart, blessing the parade with a trembling hand. Who’s being cheered here? Venal condottieri, obscene dwarves; what a bizarre bunch! Who won this war, after all, them or us? By the Gods, I must draw the kings’ attention to this. When historians and writers get down to their work, their scribblings ought to be censored. Mercenaries, witchers, hired brigands, non—humans and all other suspicious elements are to vanish from the chronicles of humanity. Are to be deleted, expunged. Not a word about them. Not a word.

And not a word about him either, he thought, pursing his lips and looking at Dijkstra, who was observing the parade with a distinctly bored expression.

It will be necessary, thought the hierarch, to issue the kings with instructions regarding Dijkstra. His presence is an insult to decent people.

He’s a heathen and a scoundrel. May he disappear without trace. And may he be forgotten.

*

Over my dead body, you sanctimonious purple hog, thought Philippa Eilhart, effortlessly reading the hierarch’s feverish thoughts. You’d like to rule, you’d like to dictate and influence? You’d like to decide things? Over my dead body.

All you can make judgements about are your piles, which don’t count for much beyond your own arse.

And Dijkstra will remain. As long as I need him.

*

You’ll make a mistake one day, thought priest Willemer, looking at Philippa’s shining, crimson lips. One day, one of you will make a mistake. Your vainglory, arrogance and hubris will be your undoing. And your scheming. Your immorality. The baseness and perversion you give yourselves unto, in which you live. It will come to light. The stench of your sins will spread when you make a mistake. Such a moment has to come.

And even if you don’t make a mistake, an opportunity will arise to blame you for something. Some misfortune, some disaster, some pestilence, perhaps a plague or an epidemic, will fall on humanity . . . Then your guilt will descend on you. You will not be blamed for having been unable to prevent the plague, but for being unable to remove its effects.

You shall be to blame for everything.

And then fires will be lit under stakes.

*

The stripy old tomcat, called Ginger because of its colouring, was dying. Dying hideously. He was rolling around, writhing, scratching the ground, vomiting blood and mucus, racked by convulsions. On top of that he had bloody diarrhoea. He was meowing, although it was beneath his dignity. Meowing mournfully, softly. He was weakening fast.

Ginger knew why he was dying. Or at least guessed what was killing him.

Several days before, a strange freighter, an old and very dirty hulk, a neglected tub, almost a wreck, had called at the port of Cintra. ‘Catriona’ announced the barely visible letters on the hulk’s prow. Ginger – naturally – couldn’t read the letters. A rat climbed down the mooring line to alight on the quay from the strange old tub. A single rat. The rat was hairless, lousy and sluggish. And only had one ear.

Ginger killed the rat. He was hungry, but instinct prevented him from eating the hideous creature. However, several fleas, big, shiny fleas, teeming in the rodent’s fur, managed to crawl onto Ginger and settle in his coat.

‘What’s up with that sodding cat?’

‘Someone probably poisoned it. Or put a spell on it!’

‘Ugh, abomination! He doesn’t half stink, the scoundrel. Get him off those steps, woman!’

Ginger stiffened and silently opened his bloody maw. He no longer felt the kicks or pokes of the broom with which the housewife was now thanking him for eleven years of catching mice. Kicked out of the yard, he was dying in a gutter frothing with soap suds and urine. He died, wishing that those ungrateful people would also fall ill. And suffer like him.

His wishes were about to come true. And on a great scale. A great scale indeed.

The woman who had kicked and swept Ginger from the yard stopped, lifted her frock and scratched her calf below the knee. It was itchy.

A flea had bitten her.

*

The stars over Elskerdeg twinkled intensively. They formed the backdrop against which the sparks from the campfire were dying out.

‘Neither can the Peace of Cintra,’ said the elf, ‘nor yet the bombastic Novigradian parade, be considered a watershed or a milestone. What kind of notions are they? Political authority cannot create history with the help of acts or decrees. Neither can political authority assess history, give grades or characterise it, although in its pride no authority would ever acknowledge that truth. One of the more extreme signs of your human arrogance is so-called historiography, the attempts to give opinions and pass sentences about what you call “ancient history”. It’s typical for you people, and results from the fact that nature gave you an ephemeral, insectile, ant-like life, and an average lifespan of less than a hundred years. You, however, try to adapt the world to that insectile existence. And meanwhile history is a process that occurs ceaselessly and never ends. It’s impossible to separate history into episodes, from here to there, from here to there, from date to date. You can’t define history, nor change it with a royal address. Even if you’ve won a war.’

‘I won’t enter into a philosophical dispute,’ said the pilgrim. ‘As it’s been said before, I’m a simple and not very eloquent fellow. But I dare observe two things. Firstly, a lifespan as short as insects protects us, people, from decadence, and inclines us to respect life, live intensively and creatively in order to make the most of every moment of life and enjoy it. I speak and think like a man, but after all, the long-lived elves thought likewise, going to fight and die in the Scoia’tael commando units. If I’m wrong, please correct me.’

The pilgrim waited a suitable length of time, but no one corrected him.

‘Secondly,’ he continued, ‘it seems to me that political authority, although unable to change history, may by its actions produce quite a fair illusion and appearance of such an ability. Political power has methods and instruments to do so.’

‘Oh, yes,’ replied the elf, turning his face away. ‘Here you’ve hit the nail on the head, master pilgrim. Power has methods and instruments. Which are in no way open to discussion.’

*

The galley’s side struck the seaweed- and shell-covered piles. Mooring ropes were thrown. Shouts, curses and commands resounded.

Seagulls shrieked as they scavenged for the refuse floating in the port’s dirty green water. The quayside was teeming with people. Mainly uniformed.

‘End of the voyage, gentlemen elves,’ said the Nilfgaardian commander of the convoy. ‘We’re in Dillingen. Everybody off! You’re being waited for here.’

It was a fact. They were being waited for.

None of the elves – and certainly not Faoiltiarna – had any faith in the assurances of fair trials or amnesties. The Scoia’tael and officers of the Vrihedd Brigade had no illusory hopes about the fate awaiting them on the far side of the Yaruga. In the majority of cases they had become accustomed to it, accepted it stoically, with resignation even. Nothing, they thought, could astonish them now.

They were mistaken.

They were chased from the galley, jingling and clanking their manacles, driven onto the jetty and then onto the quay, between a double line of armed mercenaries. There were also civilians there, whose sharp eyes flashed quickly, flitting from face to face, from figure to figure.

Selectors, thought Faoiltiarna. He wasn’t mistaken.

He couldn’t expect, naturally, his disfigured face to be overlooked. And he wasn’t.

‘Mr Isengrim Faoiltiarna? The Iron Wolf? What a pleasant surprise! Come this way, come this way!’

The mercenaries dragged him out of the ranks.

‘Va fail!’ Coinneach Dá Reo shouted to him. He had been recognised and hauled out by other soldiers wearing gorgets with the Redanian eagle. ‘Se’ved, se caerme dea!’

‘You’ll be seeing each other,’ hissed the civilian who had selected Faoiltiarna, ‘but probably in hell. They’re already waiting for him in Drakenborg. Hullo, stop! Isn’t that by chance Mr Riordain? Seize him!’

In all, they pulled out three of them. Just three. Faoiltiarna understood and suddenly – to his surprise – began to be afraid.

‘Va fail!’ Angus Bri Cri, shouted to his comrades as he was pulled out of the rank, manacles jingling. ‘Va fail, fraeren!’

A mercenary shoved him roughly.

They weren’t taken far. They only got to one of the sheds close to the harbour. Right next to the dock, over which a forest of masts swayed.

The civilian gave a sign. Faoiltiarna was pushed against a post, under a beam over which a rope was slung. An iron hook was attached to the rope. Riordain and Angus were sat down on two stools on the dirt floor.

‘Mr Riordain, Mr Bri Cri,’ said the civilian coldly. ‘You have been given an amnesty. The court decided to show mercy.

‘But justice must be done,’ he added, not waiting for a reaction. ‘And the families of those whom you murdered have paid for it to happen, gentlemen. The verdict has been reached.’

Riordain and Angus didn’t even manage to cry out. Nooses were thrown over their necks, they were throttled, knocked down along with the stools and dragged across the floor. As they vainly tried with their manacled hands to tear off the nooses biting into their necks, the executioners kneeled on their chests. Knives flashed and fell, blood spurted. Now even the nooses were unable to stifle their screams, their hair-raising shrieks.

It lasted a long time. As always.

‘Your sentence, Mr Faoiltiarna, was equipped with an additional clause,’ said the civilian, turning his head slowly, ‘Something extra—’

Faoiltiarna had no intention of waiting for that something extra. The manacle’s clasp, which the elf had been working on for two days and nights, now fell from his wrist as though tapped by a magic wand. With a terrible blow of the heavy chain he knocked down both mercenaries guarding him. Faoiltiarna – in full flight – kicked the next one in the face, lashed the civilian with the manacles, hurled himself straight at the cobweb-covered window of the shed and flew through it taking the frame and casing with him, leaving blood and shreds of clothing on the nails. He landed on the planks of the jetty with a thud. He turned, tumbled forward, rolled over and dived into the water, between the fishing boats and launches. The heavy chain, still attached to his right wrist, was dragging him down to the bottom. Faoiltiarna fought. He fought with all his strength for his life, which not so long before he hadn’t thought he cared about.

‘Catch him!’ yelled the mercenaries, rushing from the shed. ‘Catch him! Kill him!’

‘Over there!’ yelled others, running up along the jetty. ‘There, he came up there!’

‘To the boats!’

‘Shoot!’ roared the civilian, trying with both hands to stop the blood gushing from his eye socket. ‘Kill him!’

The strings of crossbows twanged. Seagulls flew up shrieking. The dirty green water between the launches seethed with crossbow bolts.

*

‘Vivant!’ The parade stretched out and the crowd of Novigradians were now displaying signs of fatigue and hoarseness. ‘Vivant! Long live the army!’

‘Hurrah!’

‘Glory to the kings! Glory!’

Philippa Eilhart looked around to see that no one was listening, then leaned over towards Dijkstra.

‘What do you want to talk to me about?’

The spy also looked around.

‘About the assassination of King Vizimir carried out last July.’

‘I beg your pardon?

‘The half-elf who committed that murder—’ Dijkstra lowered his voice even more ‘—was by no means a madman, Phil. And wasn’t acting alone.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Hush.’ Dijkstra smiled. ‘Hush, Phil.’

‘Don’t call me Phil. Do you have any proof? What kind? Where did you get it?’

‘You’d be surprised, Phil, if I told you where. When can I expect an audience, Honourable Lady?’

Philippa Eilhart’s eyes were like two black, bottomless lakes.

‘Soon, Dijkstra.’

The bells tolled. The crowd cheered hoarsely. The army paraded. Petals covered the Novigradian cobbles like snow.

*

‘Are you still writing?’

Ori Reuven started and made a blot. He had served Dijkstra for nineteen years but was still not accustomed to the noiseless movements of his boss, appearing from God knows where and God knows how.

‘Good evening, hem, hem, Your Hon—’

‘Men from the Shadows.’ Dijkstra read the title page of the manuscript, which he had picked up unceremoniously from the table. ‘The History of the Royal Secret Services, written by Oribasius Gianfranco Paolo Reuven, magister . . . Oh, Ori, Ori. An old fellow, and such foolishness—’

‘Hem, hem . . .’

‘I came to say goodbye, Ori.’

Reuven looked at him in surprise.

‘You see, my loyal comrade,’ continued the spy, without waiting for his secretary to cough anything up, ‘I’m also old, and it turns out I’m also foolish. I said one word to one person. Just one person. And just one word. It was one word too many and one person too many. Listen carefully, Ori. Can you hear them?’

Ori Reuven shook his head, his eyes wide open in amazement. Dijkstra said nothing for a time.

‘You can’t hear,’ he said after a moment. ‘But I can hear them. In all the corridors. Rats are running through the city of Tretogor. They’re coming here. They’re coming on soft little rat’s paws.’

*

They came out of the shadows, out of the darkness. Dressed in black, masked, as nimble as rats. The sentries and bodyguards from the antechambers dropped without moaning under the quick thrusts of daggers with narrow, angular blades. Blood flowed over the floors of Tretogor Castle, spilled over the tiles, stained the woodblocks, soaked into the Vengerbergian carpets.

They approached along all the corridors and left corpses behind them.

‘He’s there,’ said one of them, pointing. The scarf shrouding his face up to his eyes muffled his voice. ‘He went in there. Through the chancery where Reuven, that coughing old coot, works.’

‘There’s no way out of there.’ The eyes of the other one, the commander, shone in the slits of his black, velvet mask. ‘The chamber behind the chancery is windowless. There’s no way out.’

‘All of the other corridors are covered. All the doors and windows. He can’t escape. He’s trapped.’

‘Forward!’

The door gave away to kicks. Daggers flashed.

‘Death! Death to the bloody killer!’

‘Hem, hem?’ Ori Reuven raised his myopic, watery eyes above the papers. ‘Yes? How can I, hem, hem, help you gentlemen?’

The murderers smashed open the door to Dijkstra’s private chambers, scurried around them like rats, searching through all the nooks and crannies. Tapestries, paintings and panels were torn from the walls, fell onto the floor. Daggers slashed curtains and upholsteries.

‘He’s not here!’ yelled one of them, rushing into the chancery. ‘He’s not here!’

‘Where is he?’ rasped the gang leader, leaning over Ori, staring at him through the slits in his black mask. ‘Where is that bloodthirsty dog?’

‘He’s not here,’ Ori Reuven replied calmly. ‘You can see for yourself.’

‘Where is he? Talk! Where’s Dijkstra?’

‘Am I,’ coughed Ori, ‘hem, hem, my brother’s keeper?’

‘Die, old man!’

‘I’m old. Sick. And very weary. Hem, hem. I fear neither you nor your knives.’

The murderers ran from the chamber. They vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

They didn’t kill Ori Reuven. They were paid killers. And there hadn’t been the slightest mention of Ori Reuven in their orders.

Oribasius Gianfranco Paolo Reuven, master at law, spent six years in various prisons, constantly interrogated by various investigators, asked about all sorts of apparently senseless things and matters.

He was released after six years. He was very ill by then. Scurvy had taken away all his teeth, anaemia his hair, glaucoma his eyesight, and asthma his breath. The fingers of both hands had been broken during the interrogations.

He lived for less than a year after being freed. He died in a temple poorhouse. In misery. Forgotten.

The manuscript of the book Men from the Shadows, the History of the Royal Secret Services vanished without trace.

*

The sky in the east brightened. A pale glow appeared above the hills, the harbinger of the dawn.

Silence had reigned by the campfire for a long time. The pilgrim, the elf and the tracker looked into the dying fire in silence.

Silence reigned in Elskerdeg. The howling phantom had gone away, bored by its vain howling. The phantom must have finally understood that the three men sitting by the campfire had seen too many atrocities lately to worry about any old spectre.

‘If we are to travel together we must abandon mistrust,’ Boreas Mun said suddenly, looking into the campfire’s ruby glow. ‘Let’s leave behind us what was. The world has changed. There’s a new life in front of us. Something has ended, something is beginning. Ahead of us—’

He broke off and coughed. He was not accustomed to speeches like that, was afraid of looking ridiculous. But his accidental companions weren’t laughing. Why, Boreas positively sensed friendliness emanating from them.

‘The pass of Elskerdeg is ahead of us,’ he ended in a more confident voice, ‘and beyond the pass Zerrikania and Hakland. There’s a long and dangerous road ahead of us. If we are to travel together . . . Let’s abandon mistrust. I am Boreas Mun.’

The pilgrim in the wide-brimmed hat stood up, straightening his great frame, and shook the hand being held out towards him. The elf also stood up. His horrifyingly disfigured face contorted strangely.

After shaking the tracker’s hand the pilgrim and the elf held out their right hands towards each other.

‘The world has changed,’ said the pilgrim. ‘Something has ended. I am . . . Sigi Reuven.’

‘Something is beginning.’ The elf twisted his ravaged face into something that according to all evidence was a smile. ‘I am . . . Wolf Isengrim.’

They shook hands, quickly, firmly, downright violently. For a moment it looked more like the preliminaries to a fight than a gesture of reconciliation. But only for a moment.

The log in the campfire shot out sparks, celebrating the event with a joyful firework.

‘God strike me down—’ Boreas Mun smiled broadly ‘—if this isn’t the start of a beautiful friendship.’

. . . along with the other Martyr Sisters, St Philipa was also calumniated for betraying the kingdom, for fomenting tumults and sedition, for inciting the people and plotting an insurrection. Wilmerius, a heretic and cultist, and self—appointed high priest, ordered the Saint to be seized, thrown into a dark and foul prison beset with cold and stench, calling on her to confess her sins and declare those that she had committed. And Wilmerius showed St Philipa divers instruments of torture and menaced her greatly, but the Saint merely spat in his countenance and accused him of sodomy.

The heretic ordered her stripped of her raiment and thrashed mercilessly with leather straps and for splinters to be driven under her fingernails. And then he asked and called on her to disavow her faith and the Goddess. But the Saint merely laughed and advised him to distance himself.

Then he ordered her dragged to the torture chamber and her whole body to be harrowed with iron gaffs and hooks and her sides scorched with candles. And although thus tormented, the Saint in her mortal corps showed immortal forbearance. Until the torturers were enfeebled and withdrew in great horror, but Wilmerius fiercely admonished them and ordered them further to torture her and soundly belabour her. They then began to scorch St Philipa with red hot irons, dislocate her members from the joints and rend the woman’s breast with pincers. And in this suffering she, having confessed nothing, expired.

And the godless, shameless Wilmerius, about whom you may read in the works of the Holy Fathers, met such a punishment that lice and wyrms spread over him and overcame him until he was decayed all over and expired. And he reeked like a cur such that he needs must be cast into a river without burial.

For which praise and a martyr’s crown are due to St Philipa, and glory forever to the Great Mother Goddess, and to us a lesson and a warning, Amen.

The Life of St Philipa the Martyr of Mons Calvus, copied from the martyr scribes, in the Tretorian Breviary summarised, drawn from many Holy Fathers who praise her in their writings.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They rushed like the wind, like mad things, at breakneck speed. They rode through the days, now burgeoning with spring. The horses carried them in a light-footed gallop, and the people, straightening their necks and backs from toiling on the soil, watched them as they went, uncertain of what they had seen: riders or apparitions?

They rode through the nights, dark and wet from the warm rain, and the people, woken and sitting up on their pallets, looked around, terrified, fighting the choking pain that rose in their throats and chests. People sprang up, listening to the thud of shutters, to the crying of those wrested from sleep, to the howling of dogs. They pressed their faces to the parchment in their windows, uncertain of what they had seen: riders, or apparitions?

After Ebbing, tales of the three demons began to circulate.

*

The three riders appeared from God knows where and God knows how, completely astonishing Peg Leg and giving him no chance to flee. Neither was there any help to call for. A good five hundred paces separated the cripple from the outermost buildings of the small town. And even had it been closer, there was a slender chance that any of Jealousy’s inhabitants would bother about someone calling for help. It was siesta time, which in Jealousy usually lasted from late morning until early evening. Aristoteles Bobeck, nicknamed Peg Leg, the local beggar and philosopher, knew only too well that Jealousy residents didn’t react to anything during siesta time.

There were three riders. Two women and a man. The man had white hair and wore a sword slung across his back. One of the women, more mature and dressed in black and white, had raven-black hair, curled in locks. The younger one, whose straight hair was the colour of ash, had a hideous scar on her left cheek. She was sitting on a splendid black mare. Peg Leg felt he’d seen a mare like that before.

It was the younger one that spoke first.

‘Are you from around here?’

‘It wasn’t me!’ Peg Leg said, teeth chattering. ‘I’m nobbut gathering mushrooms! Forgive me, don’t harm a cripple—’

‘Are you from round here?’ she repeated, and her green eyes flashed menacingly. Peg Leg cowered.

‘Aye, noble lady,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m a local, right enough. I was born here, in Birka, I mean in Jealousy. And I shall no doubt die here—’

‘Last year, in the summer and autumn, were you here?’

‘Where should I have bin?’

‘Answer when I ask you.’

‘I was, good lady.’

The black mare shook its head and pricked up its ears. Peg Leg felt the eyes of the other two – the black-haired woman and the white-haired man – pricking him like hedgehog’s spines. The white-haired man scared him the most.

‘A year ago,’ continued the girl with the scar, ‘in the month of September, the ninth of September to be precise, in the first quarter of the moon, six young people were murdered here. Four lads . . . and two girls. Do you recall?’

Peg Leg swallowed. For some time he had suspected, and now he knew, now he was certain.

The girl had changed. And it wasn’t just that scar on her face. She was completely different to how she had been when she was screaming, tied to a hitching post, watching as Bonhart cut off the heads of the murdered Rats. Quite different to how she had been in the Chimera’s Head when Bonhart undressed and beat her. Only the eyes . . . The eyes hadn’t changed.

‘Talk,’ the other – black-haired – woman urged him. ‘You were asked a question.’

‘I remember, my lord and ladies,’ confirmed Peg Leg. ‘How could I not remember? Six youngsters were killed. By truth, it was last year. In September.’

The girl said nothing for a long time, looking not at him, but somewhere in the distance, over his shoulder.

‘So you must know . . .’ she finally said with effort. ‘You must know where those boys and those girls were buried. By which fence . . . On what rubbish tip or muck heap . . . Or if their bodies were cremated . . . If they were taken to the forest and left for the foxes and wolves . . . You’ll show me that place. You’ll take me there. Understand?’

‘I understand, noble lady. Come with me. For it’s not far at all.’

He hobbled, feeling on his neck the hot breath of their horses. He didn’t look back. Something told him he shouldn’t.

‘Here it is,’ he finally pointed. ‘This is our Jealousy boneyard, here in this grove. And the ones you was asking about, Miss Falka, they lie over there.’

The girl gasped audibly. Peg Leg glanced furtively, and saw her face changing. The white-haired man and the black-haired woman were silent and their faces inscrutable.

The girl looked long at the small barrow. It was orderly, level, tidy, edged by blocks of sandstone and slabs of spar and slate. The fir branches that the burial mound had been decorated with had turned brown. The flowers that had once been laid there were dry and yellowed.

The girl dismounted.

‘Who?’ she asked dully, still looking, not turning her head away.

‘Well, many Jealousy people helped.’ Peg Leg cleared his throat. ‘But chiefly the widow Goulue. And young Nycklar. The widow was always a good and sincere dame . . . And Nycklar . . . His dreams tormented him terribly. They wouldn’t give him rest. Until ’e’d given the murdered ones a decent burial—’

‘Where shall I find them? The widow and Nycklar?’

Peg Leg said nothing for a long time.

‘The widow is buried there, beyond that crooked little birch,’ he said at last, looking without fear into the girl’s green eyes. ‘She died of pneumonia in the winter of the year. And Nycklar joined the army somewhere in foreign parts . . . Folks say he fell in the war.’

‘I forgot,’ she whispered. ‘I forgot that destiny tied both of them to me.’

She approached the small burial mound and knelt down, or rather fell onto one knee. She bent over low, very low, her forehead almost touching the stones around the base. Peg Leg saw the white-haired man make a movement, as though meaning to dismount, but the black-haired woman caught him by the arm, stopping him with a gesture and a look.

The horses snorted, shook their heads, the rings of their bits jingling.

The girl knelt for a long, long time at the foot of the burial mound, bent over, and her mouth moved in some silent litany.

She staggered as she stood up. Peg Leg held her up instinctively. She flinched hard, jerked her elbow away, and looked at him malevolently through her tears. But she didn’t say a word. She even thanked him with a nod when he held her stirrup for her.

‘Yes, noble Miss Falka,’ he dared to say. ‘Fate ran a strange course. You were in grievous strife then, in bitter times . . . Few of us here in Jealousy thought you’d get out of it alive . . . And finally you’re healthy today, my lady, and Goulue and Nycklar are in the beyond. There’s not even anyone to thank, eh? To repay for the burial mound—’

‘My name’s not Falka,’ she said harshly. ‘My name’s Ciri. And as far as thanks are concerned—’

‘Feel honoured by her,’ the black-haired woman interjected coldly, and there was something in her voice that made Peg Leg tremble.

‘Grace, gratitude and reward have befallen you, you and your entire settlement. You know not even how great,’ said the black-haired woman, slowly enunciating her words. ‘For the burial mound. For your humanity, and for your human dignity and decency.’

*

On the ninth of April, soon after midnight, the first residents of Claremont were awoken by a flickering brightness, a red blaze, that struck and flooded into the windows of their homesteads. The rest of the town’s residents were roused from their beds by screams, commotion and the insistent sounds of the bell tolling the alarm.

Only one building was burning. It was huge and wooden, formerly a temple, once consecrated to a deity whose name even the oldest grandmothers couldn’t remember. A temple, now converted into an amphitheatre, where animal-baiting, fights and other entertainment was held, capable of hauling the small town of Claremont out of its boredom, depression and drowsy torpor.

It was the amphitheatre that was now burning in a sea of roaring fire, shaking from explosions. Ragged tongues of flame, several yards long, shot from all the windows.

‘Fiiiire!’ roared the merchant Houvenaghel, the owner of the amphitheatre, running and waving his arms around, his great paunch wobbling. He was wearing a nightcap and a heavy, karakul coat he had thrown over his nightshirt. He was kneading the dung and mud of the street with his bare feet.

‘Fiiiire! Heeeelp! Waaaaaateeer!’

‘It’s a divine punishment,’ pronounced one of the oldest grandmothers authoritatively. ‘For those rumpuses they held in the house of worship . . .’

‘Yes, yes, madam. No doubt about it!’

A glow emanated from the roaring theatre, horse urine steamed and stank, and sparks hissed in puddles. A wind had got up from God knows where.

‘Put out the fiiiire!’ Houvenaghel howled desperately, seeing it spreading to the brewery and granary. ‘Heeeelp! Fetch buckets! Fetch buuuuckets!’

There was no shortage of volunteers. Why, Claremont even had its own fire brigade, equipped and maintained by Houvenaghel. They tried to put the fire out doggedly and with dedication. But in vain.

‘We can’t cope . . .’ groaned the chief of the fire brigade, wiping his blistered face. ‘That’s no ordinary fire . . . It’s the devil’s work!’

‘Black magic . . .’ another fireman choked on the smoke.

From inside the amphitheatre could be heard the terrible cracking of rafters, ridges and posts breaking. There was a roar, a bang and a crash, a great column of fire and sparks exploded into the sky, and the roof caved in and fell onto the arena. Meanwhile, the whole building listed over — you could say it was bowing to the audience, which it was entertaining and diverting for the last time, pleasing it with a stunning, truly fiery spectacle.

And then the walls collapsed.

The efforts of the fire fighters and rescuers meant half of the granary and about a quarter of the brewery were saved.

A foul-smelling dawn arose.

Houvenaghel sat in the mud and ash, in his soot-covered nightcap and karakul coat. He sat and wept woefully, whimpering like a child.

The theatre, brewery and granary he owned were insured, naturally. The problem was that the insurance company was also owned by Houvenaghel. Nothing, not even a tax swindle, could have made good even a fraction of the losses.

*

‘Where to now?’ asked Geralt, looking at the column of smoke, a smudged streak discolouring the sky glowing pink in the dawn. ‘Who do you still have to pay back, Ciri?’

She glanced at him and he immediately regretted his question. He suddenly desired to hug her, dreamed of embracing her, cuddling her, stroking her hair. Protecting her. Never allowing her to be alone again. To encounter evil. To encounter anything that would make her desire revenge.

Yennefer remained silent. Yennefer had spent a lot of time silent lately.

‘Now,’ Ciri said calmly, ‘we’re going to ride to a settlement called Unicorn. The name comes from a straw unicorn: the poor, ridiculous, miserable effigy that looks after the village. I want the residents to have, as a souvenir of what happened, a . . . Well, if not a more valuable, then at least a more tasteful totem. I’m counting on your help, Yennefer, for without magic . . .’

‘I know, Ciri. And after that?’

‘The swamps of Pereplut. I hope I can find my way . . . To a cottage amidst the swamps. We’ll find the remains of a man in a cottage. I want those remains to be buried in a decent grave.’

Geralt still said nothing. And didn’t lower his gaze.

‘After that,’ Ciri continued, holding his stare without the slightest difficulty, ‘we’ll stop by the settlement of Dun Dare. The inn there was probably burned down, and the innkeeper may have been murdered. Because of me. Hatred and vengeance blinded me. I shall try somehow to make it up to his family.’

‘There’s no way of doing that,’ he said, still looking.

‘I know,’ she replied at once, hard, almost angrily. ‘But I shall stand before them in humility. I shall remember the expression in their eyes. I hope the memory of those eyes will stop me making a similar mistake. Do you understand that, Geralt?’

‘He understands, Ciri,’ said Yennefer. ‘Both of us, believe us, understand you very well, daughter. Let’s go.’

*

The horses bore them like the wind. Like a magical gale. Alarmed by the three riders flashing by, a traveller on the road raised his head. A merchant on a cart with his wares, a villain fleeing from the law, and a wandering settler driven by politicians from the land he had settled, having believed other politicians, all raised their heads. A vagabond, a deserter and a pilgrim with a staff raised their heads. They raised their heads, amazed, alarmed. Uncertain of what they had seen.

Tales began to circulate around Ebbing and Geso. About the Wild Hunt. About the Three Spectral Riders. Stories were made up and spun in the evenings in rooms smelling of melting lard and fried onions, village halls, smoky taverns, roadhouses, crofts, tar kilns, forest homesteads and border watchtowers. Tales were spun and told. About war. About heroism and chivalry. About friendship and hatred. About wickedness and betrayal. About faithful and genuine love, about the love that always triumphs. About the crimes and punishments that always befall criminals. About justice that is always just.

About truth, which always rises to the surface like oil.

Tales were told; people rejoiced in them. Enjoyed the fairy-tale fictions. Because, indeed, all around, in real life, things happened entirely back to front.

The legend grew. The listeners – in a veritable trance – drank in the carefully measured words of the storyteller telling of the Witcher and the sorceress. Of the Tower of the Swallow. Of Ciri, the witcher girl with the scar on her face. Of Kelpie, the enchanted black mare.

Of the Lady of the Lake.

That came later, years later. Many, many years later.

But right now, like a seed swollen after warm rain, the legend was sprouting and growing inside people.

*

May came, suddenly. First at night, which flared up and sparkled with the distant fires of Beltane. When Ciri, strangely excited, leaped onto Kelpie and galloped towards the campfires, Geralt and Yennefer took advantage of the opportunity for a moment of intimacy. Undressing only as much as was absolutely necessary, they made love on a sheepskin coat flung onto the ground. They made love hurriedly and with abandon, in silence, without a word. They made love quickly and haphazardly. Just to have more of it.

And when they had both calmed down, trembling and kissing away each other’s tears, they were greatly surprised how much happiness such hurried lovemaking had brought them.

*

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes, Yen.’

‘When I . . . When we weren’t together, did you go with any other women?’

‘No.’

‘Not once?’

‘Not once.’

‘Your voice didn’t even waver. So I don’t know why I don’t believe you.’

‘I only ever thought about you, Yen.’

‘Now I believe you.’

*

May came unexpectedly. During the daytime, too. Dandelions spattered and dotted the meadows yellow, and the trees in the orchards became fluffy and heavy with blossom. The oak woods, too distinguished to hurry, remained dark and bare, but were already being covered in a green haze and at the edges grew bright with green splashes of birch.

*

One night, when they were camping in a valley covered in willows, the Witcher was woken by a dream. A nightmare, where he was paralysed and defenceless, and a huge grey owl raked his face with its talons and searched for his eyes with its curved beak. He awoke. And wasn’t sure if he hadn’t been transported from one nightmare into another.

There was a brightness billowing over their camp that the snorting horses took fright at. There was something inside the brightness, something like a dark interior, something shaped like a castle hall with a black colonnade. Geralt could see a large table around which sat ten shapes. Ten women.

He could hear words. Snatches of words.

. . . bring her to us, Yennefer. We order you.

You may not order me. You may not order her! You have no power over her!

I’m not afraid of them, Mamma. They can’t do anything to me. If they want, I’ll stand before them.

. . . is meeting the first of June, at the new moon. We order you both to appear. We warn you that we shall punish disobedience.

I shall come right away, Philippa. Let her stay with him a little longer. Let him not be alone. Just a few days. I shall come immediately. As a hostage of goodwill.

Comply with my request, Philippa. Please.

The brightness pulsated. The horses snorted wildly, banging their hooves.

The Witcher awoke. This time for real.

*

The following day Yennefer confirmed his fears. After a long conversation conducted with Ciri in private.

‘I’m going away,’ she said dryly and without any preliminaries. ‘I must. Ciri’s staying with you. For some time at least. Then I’ll summon her and she’ll also go away. And then we’ll all meet again.’

He nodded. Reluctantly. He’d had enough of silent assent. Of agreeing to everything she communicated to him, with everything she decided. But he nodded. He loved her, when all was said and done.

‘It’s an imperative that cannot be opposed,’ she said more gently. ‘Neither can it be postponed. It simply has to be taken care of. I’m doing it for you, in any case. For your good. And especially for Ciri’s good.’

He nodded.

‘When we meet again,’ she said even more gently, ‘I’ll make up for everything, Geralt. The silence, too. There’s been too much silence, too much silence between us. And now, instead of nodding, hug me and kiss me.’

He did as he was asked. He loved her, when all was said and done.

*

‘Where to now?’ Ciri asked dryly, a short while after Yennefer had vanished in the flash of the oval teleporter.

‘The river . . .’ Geralt cleared his throat, fighting the pain behind his breastbone that was taking his breath away. ‘The river we’re riding up is the Sansretour. It leads to a country I must show you. For it’s a fairy-tale country.’

Ciri turned gloomy. He saw her clench her fists.

‘Every fairy tale ends badly,’ she drawled. ‘And there aren’t any fairy-tale lands.’

‘Yes there are. You’ll see.’

*

It was the day after the full moon when they saw Toussaint bathed in greenery and sunshine. When they saw the hills, the slopes and the vineyards. The roofs of the castles’ towers glistening after a morning shower.

The view didn’t disappoint. It was stunning. It always was.

‘How beautiful it is,’ said Ciri, enraptured. ‘Oh my! Those castles are like children’s toys . . . Like icing decorations on a birthday cake. It makes me want to lick them!’

‘Architecture by Faramond himself,’ Geralt informed her knowledgeably. ‘Wait till you see the palace and grounds of Beauclair close up.’

‘Palace? We’re going to a palace? Do you know the king here?’

‘Duchess.’

‘Does the duchess,’ she asked sourly, observing him intently under her fringe, ‘have green eyes, perhaps? And short, black hair—?’

‘No.’ He cut her off, looking away. ‘She looks completely different. I don’t know where you got that from—’

‘Leave it, Geralt, will you? What is it about this duchess, then?’

‘As I said, I know her. A little. Not too well and . . . not too close, if you want to know. But I do know the duchess’s consort, or rather a candidate for the duchess’s consort. You do too, Ciri.’

Ciri jabbed Kelpie with a spur, making her dance around the highway.

‘Don’t torment me any longer!’

‘Dandelion.’

‘Dandelion? And the duchess? How come?’

‘It’s a long story. We left him here, at the side of his beloved. We promised to visit him, returning after—’

He fell silent and turned gloomy.

‘You can’t do anything about it,’ Ciri said softly. ‘Don’t torment yourself, Geralt. It’s not your fault.’

Yes it is, he thought. It’s mine. Dandelion’s going to ask. And I’ll have to answer.

Milva. Cahir. Regis. Angoulême.

A sword is a double—edged weapon.

Oh, by the Gods, I’ve had enough of this. Enough. Time I was done with this!

‘Let’s go, Ciri.’

‘In these clothes?’ she croaked. ‘To a palace—?’

‘I don’t see anything wrong with our clothes,’ he cut her off. ‘We aren’t going there to present our credentials. Or to a ball. We can even meet Dandelion in the stables.

‘Anyhow,’ he added, seeing her looking sulky, ‘I’m going to the bank in the town first. I’ll take a little cash out, and there are countless tailors and milliners in the cloth halls in the town square. You can buy what you want and dress as you wish.’

‘Have you got so much cash?’ she tilted her head mischievously.

‘You can buy what you want,’ he repeated. ‘Even ermine. And basilisk-leather slippers. I know a shoemaker who ought to have some of it left in stock.’

‘How did you make so much money?’

‘By killing. Let’s ride, Ciri, and not waste time.’

*

Geralt made a transfer and prepared a letter of credit, received a cheque and some cash in the branch of the Cianfanellis’ bank. He wrote some letters that were to be taken by the express courier service heading over the Yaruga. He politely excused himself from the luncheon the attentive and hospitable banker wanted to entertain him with.

Ciri was waiting in the street, watching the horses. The street, empty a moment earlier, now teemed with people.

‘We must have happened on some feast or other.’ Ciri gestured with her head towards a crowd heading for the town square. ‘A fair, perhaps . . .’

Geralt looked keenly ahead.

‘It’s not a fair.’

‘Ah . . .’ she also looked, standing up in the stirrups. ‘It’s not another—’

‘Execution,’ he confirmed. ‘The most popular amusement since the war. What have we seen so far, Ciri?’

‘Desertion, treason, cowardice in the face of the enemy,’ she quickly recited. ‘And financial cases.’

‘For supplying mouldy hardtack to the army.’ The Witcher nodded. ‘The life of an enterprising merchant is tough in wartime.’

‘They aren’t going to execute a tradesman here.’ Ciri reined back Kelpie, who was already submerged in the crowd as though in a rippling field of corn. ‘Just look, the scaffold’s covered in a cloth, and the executioner has a fresh new hood on. They’ll be executing somebody important, at least a baron. So it probably is cowardice in the face of the enemy.’

‘Toussaint didn’t have an army in the face of any foe.’ Geralt shook his head, ‘No, Ciri, I think it’s economics again. They’re executing somebody for swindles in the trade of their famous wine, the basis of the economy here. Let’s ride on, Ciri. We won’t watch.’

‘Ride on? How exactly?’

Indeed, riding on was impossible. In no time at all they had become stuck in the crowd gathered in the square, and were mired in the throng. There was no chance of their getting to the other side of the square. Geralt swore foully and looked back. Unfortunately, retreat was also impossible, for the wave of people pouring into the square had totally clogged up the street behind them. For a moment the crowd carried them like a river, but the movement stopped when the common folk came up against the serried wall of halberdiers surrounding the scaffold.

‘They’re coming!’ somebody shouted, and the crowd buzzed, swayed and took up the cry. ‘They’re coming!’

The clatter of hooves and the rattle of a wagon faded and was lost amidst the throng’s beelike humming. So they were astonished when a rack wagon pulled by two horses trundled out of a side street. And on it, having difficulty keeping his balance, stood . . .

‘Dandelion . . .’ groaned Ciri.

Geralt suddenly felt bad. Very bad.

‘That’s Dandelion,’ Ciri repeated in an unfamiliar voice. ‘Yes, it’s him.’

It’s unfair, thought the Witcher. It’s one big, bloody injustice. It can’t be like this. It shouldn’t be like this. I know it was stupid and naive to think that anything ever depended on me, that I somehow influenced the fate of this world, or that this world owes me something. I know it was a naive, arrogant opinion . . . But I know it! There’s no need to convince me about it! It doesn’t have to be proved to me! Particularly like this . . .

It’s unfair!

‘It can’t be Dandelion,’ he said hollowly, looking down at Roach’s mane.

‘It is Dandelion,’ Ciri said again. ‘Geralt, we have to do something.’

‘What?’ he asked bitterly. ‘Tell me what.’

Some soldiers pulled Dandelion from the wagon, treating him, however, with astonishing courtesy, without brutality, with positive reverence, the most they were capable of. They untied his hands before the steps leading to the scaffold. Then he nonchalantly scratched his behind and climbed the steps without being urged.

One of the steps suddenly creaked and the railing, made of a rough pole, cracked. Dandelion almost lost his balance.

‘That needs fixing, dammit!’ he yelled. ‘You’ll see, one day somebody will kill themselves on these steps. And that wouldn’t be funny.’

Dandelion was intercepted on the scaffolding by two hangman’s assistants in sleeveless leather jerkins. The executioner, as broad in the shoulders as a castle keep, looked at the condemned man through slits in his hood. Beside him stood a character in a sumptuous, though funereally black outfit. He also wore a funereal expression.

‘Good gentlemen and burghers of Beauclair and the surroundings!’ he read thunderously and funereally from an unrolled parchment. ‘It is known that Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, alias Dandelion—’

‘Pancratts what?’ Ciri whispered a question.

‘—by sentence of the Ducal High Court has been found guilty of all the crimes, misdeeds and offences of which he is accused, namely: lèse-majesté, treason, and furthermore sullying the dignity of the noble estate through perjury, lampooning, calumny and slander, also roistering and indecency as well as debauchery, in other words harlotry. Thus the tribunal has adjudged to punish Viscount Julian et cetera, primo: by defacing his coat of arms, by painting diagonal black lines on his escutcheon. Secundo: by the confiscation of his property, lands, estates, copses, forests and castles . . .’

‘Castles,’ groaned the Witcher. ‘What castles?’

Dandelion snorted insolently. The expression on his face demonstrated emphatically that he was heartily amused by the confiscation announced by the tribunal.

‘Tertio: the chief penalty. Anna Henrietta, reigning over us as Her Enlightenment the Duchess of Toussaint and Lady of Beauclair, has deigned to commute the punishment provided for the above-mentioned crimes of being dragged behind horses, broken on the wheel and quartered, to beheading by axe. May justice be done!’

The crowd raised several incoherent shouts. The women standing in the front row began to hypocritically wail and falsely lament. Children were lifted up or carried on shoulders so as not to miss any of the spectacle. The executioner’s assistants rolled a stump into the centre of the scaffold and covered it with a napkin. There was something of a commotion, since it turned out someone had swiped the wicker basket for the severed head, but another one was quickly found.

Four ragged street urchins had spread out a kerchief beneath the scaffold to catch blood on it. There was great demand for that kind of souvenir, you could earn good money from them.

‘Geralt.’ Ciri didn’t raise her lowered head. ‘We have to do something . . .’

He didn’t answer.

‘I wish to address the townspeople,’ Dandelion proudly declared.

‘Make it short, Viscount.’

The poet stood on the edge of the scaffold and raised his hands. The crowd murmured and fell silent.

‘Hey, people,’ called Dandelion. ‘What cheer? How go you?’

‘Ah, muddling along,’ muttered someone, after a long silence, in a row towards the back.

‘That’s good,’ the poet nodded. ‘I’m greatly content. Well, now we may begin.’

‘Master executioner,’ the funereal one said with artificial emphasis. ‘Do your duty!’

The executioner went closer, kneeled down before the condemned man in keeping with the ancient custom, and lowered his hooded head.

‘Forgive me, good fellow,’ he requested gravely.

‘Me?’ asked Dandelion in astonishment. ‘Forgive you?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ll never forgive you. Why should I? Have you heard him, the prankster! He’s about to cut my head off, and I’m supposed to forgive him? Are you mocking me or what? At a time like this?’

‘How can you, sir?’ asked the executioner, saddened. ‘For there’s a law . . . And a custom . . . The condemned man must forgive the executioner in advance. Good sir! Expunge my guilt, absolve my sin . . .’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No!’

‘I won’t behead him,’ the executioner declared gloomily, getting up from his knees. ‘He must forgive me, otherwise there’s nothing doing.’

‘Lord Viscount.’ The funereal clerk caught Dandelion by the elbow. ‘Don’t make things difficult. People have gathered, they’re waiting . . . Forgive him. He’s asking politely, isn’t he?’

‘I won’t forgive him, and that’s that!’

‘Master executioner!’ The funereal man approached the executioner. ‘Chop off his head without being forgiven, eh? I’ll see you right . . .’

Without a word, the executioner held out a hand a large as a frying pan. The funereal man sighed, reached into a pouch and tipped some coins out into his hand. The executioner looked at them for a while, then clenched his fist. The eyes in the slits of his hood flashed malevolently.

‘Very well,’ he said, putting the money away and turning towards the poet. ‘Kneel down then, Mr Stubborn. Put your head on the block, Mr Spiteful. I can also be spiteful, if I want to. I’ll take two blows to behead you. Three, if I’m lucky.’

‘I absolve you!’ howled Dandelion. ‘I forgive you!’

‘Thank you.’

‘Since he’s forgiven you,’ said the funereal clerk gloomily, ‘give me back my money.’

The executioner turned around and raised the axe.

‘Step aside, noble sir,’ he said forebodingly in a dull voice. ‘Don’t get in the way of the tool. For where heads are being chopped off, if you get too close you might lose an ear.’

The clerk stepped back suddenly and almost fell off the scaffold.

‘Like this?’ Dandelion kneeled down and stretched his neck on the block. ‘Master? Hey, master?’

‘What?’

‘You were joking, weren’t you? You’ll behead me with one blow? With one swing? Well?’

The executioner’s eyes flashed.

‘Let it be a surprise,’ he snapped portentously.

The crowd suddenly swayed, yielding before a rider bursting into the square on a foaming horse.

‘Stop!’ yelled the rider, waving a large roll of parchment hung with red seals. ‘Stop the execution! By ducal order! Out of my way! Stop the execution! I bear a pardon for the condemned man.’

‘Not again?’ the executioner snarled, lowering the already raised axe. ‘Another reprieve? It’s starting to get boring.’

‘Mercy! Mercy!’ bellowed the crowd. The matrons in the front row began to lament even louder. A lot of people, mainly youngsters, whistled and moaned in disapproval.

‘Quieten down, good gentlemen and burghers!’ yelled the funereal man, unrolling the parchment. ‘This is the will of Her Grace Anna Henrietta! In her boundless goodness, in celebration of the peace treaty, which, as rumour has it, was signed in the city of Cintra, Her Grace pardons Viscount Julian Alfred Pankratz de Lettenhove, alias Dandelion, and his misdeeds, and waives his execution—’

‘Darling Little Weasel,’ said Dandelion, smiling broadly.

‘—ordering at the same time that the above-mentioned Viscount Julian Pankratz et cetera without delay doth leave the capital and borders of the Duchy of Toussaint and never return, since he offends Her Grace, and Her Grace can no longer countenance him! You are free to go, Viscount.’

‘And my property?’ yelled Dandelion. ‘Eh? You can keep my chattels, copses, forests and castles, but give me back, sod the lot of you, my lute, my horse Pegasus, a hundred and forty talars and eighty halers, my raccoon-lined cloak, my ring—’

‘Shut up!’ shouted Geralt, jostling the fulminating and reluctantly parting crowd with his horse. ‘Shut up, get down and come here, you blockhead! Ciri, clear the way! Dandelion! Do you hear me?’

‘Geralt? Is that you?’

‘Don’t ask, just get down! Over here! Leap onto my horse!’

They forced their way through the throng and galloped down the narrow street. Ciri first and Geralt and Dandelion on Roach behind her.

‘Why the hurry?’ said the bard behind the Witcher’s back. ‘No one’s following us.’

‘For now. Your duchess likes to change her mind and suddenly cancel what she’s already decided. Come clean; did you know about the pardon?’

‘No, no I didn’t,’ murmured Dandelion. ‘But, I confess I was counting on it. Little Weasel is a darling and has a very kind heart.’

‘Enough of that bloody “Little Weasel”, dammit. You’ve only just wriggled out of lèse-majesté, do you want to fall back into recidivism?’

The troubadour fell silent. Ciri reined back Kelpie and waited for them. When they caught up she looked at Dandelion and wiped away a tear.

‘Oh, you . . .’ she said. ‘You . . . Pancratts . . .’

‘Let’s go,’ urged the Witcher. ‘Let’s leave this town and the borders of this enchanting duchy. While we still can.’

*

A ducal messenger caught up with them almost at the very border of Toussaint, from where one could already see Gorgon Mountain. He was pulling behind him a saddled Pegasus and was carrying Dandelion’s lute, cloak and ring. He ignored the question about the one hundred and forty talars and eighty halers. He listened stony-faced to the bard’s request to give the duchess a kiss.

They rode up the Sansretour, which was now a tiny, fast-flowing stream. They bypassed Belhaven and camped in the Newi valley. In a place the Witcher and the bard remembered.

Dandelion held out for a very long time. He didn’t ask any questions.

But he finally had to be told everything.

And be accompanied in his silence. In the dreadful, pregnant silence that fell after the telling, and festered like a sore.

*

At noon the next day they were at the Slopes, outside Riedbrune. Peace and order reigned all around. The people were sanguine and helpful. It felt safe.

Gibbets, heavy with hanging corpses, stood everywhere.

They steered clear of the town, heading towards Dol Angra.

‘Dandelion!’ Geralt had only just noticed what he should have noticed much earlier. ‘Your priceless tube! Your centuries of poetry! The messenger didn’t have them. They were left in Toussaint!’

‘They were.’ The bard nodded indifferently. ‘In Little Weasel’s wardrobe, under a pile of dresses, knickers and corsets. And may they lie there forever.’

‘Would you like to explain?’

‘What’s there to explain? I had enough time in Toussaint to read closely what I’d written.’

‘And?’

‘I’m going to write it again. Anew.’

‘I understand.’ Geralt nodded. ‘In short, you turned out to be as poor a writer as you were a favourite. Or to put it more bluntly: you make a fucking mess of whatever you touch. Well, but even if you have the chance to improve and rewrite your Half a Century, you haven’t got a fucking prayer with Duchess Anarietta. Ugh, the lover driven away in disgrace. Yes, yes, no point making faces! You weren’t meant to be ducal consort in Toussaint, Dandelion.’

‘We shall see about that.’

‘Don’t count on me. I don’t mean to be there to see it.’

‘And no one’s asking you to. I tell you though, Little Weasel has a good and understanding little heart. In truth, she got somewhat carried away when she caught me with young Nique, the baron’s daughter . . . But now she’s sure to have cooled off. Understood that a man isn’t created for monogamy. She’s forgiven me and is no doubt waiting—’

‘You’re hopelessly stupid,’ stated Geralt, and Ciri confirmed she thought the same with an energetic nod of her head.

‘I’m not going to discuss it with you,’ Dandelion sulked. ‘Particularly since it’s an intimate matter. I tell you one more time: Little Weasel will forgive me. I’ll write a suitable ballad or sonnet, send it to her, and she’ll . . .’

‘Have mercy, Dandelion.’

‘Oh, there’s really no point talking to you. Let’s ride on! Gallop, Pegasus! Gallop, you white-legged flyer!’

They rode on.

It was May.

*

‘Because of you,’ the Witcher said reproachfully, ‘because of you, O my banished lover, I also had to flee from Toussaint like some outlaw or exile. I didn’t even manage to meet up with . . .’

‘Fringilla Vigo? You wouldn’t have seen her. She left soon after you set off in January. She simply vanished.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about her.’ Geralt cleared his throat, seeing Ciri prick up her ears in interest. ‘I wanted to meet Reynart. And introduce him to Ciri . . .’

Dandelion fixed his eyes on Pegasus’s mane.

‘Reynart de Bois-Fresnes,’ he mumbled, ‘fell in a skirmish with marauders on the Cervantes pass sometime at the end of February, in the vicinity of the Vedette watchtower. Anarietta honoured him with a posthumous medal—’

‘Shut up, Dandelion.’

Dandelion shut up, admirably obedient.

*

May marched on and matured. The vivid yellow of dandelions disappeared from the meadows, replaced by the downy, grubby, fleeting white of their parachutes.

It was green and very warm. The air, if it wasn’t freshened by brief storms, was thick, hot and as sticky as mead.

*

They crossed the Yaruga on the twenty-sixth of May over a very new, very white bridge smelling of resin. The remains of the old bridge – black, scorched, charred timbers – could be seen in the water and on the bank.

Ciri became anxious.

Geralt knew. He knew her intentions, knew about her plans, about the agreement with Yennefer. He was ready. But in spite of that the thought of parting stung him painfully. As though a nasty little scorpion had been sleeping in his chest, within him, behind his ribcage and had now suddenly come awake.

*

A spreading oak tree stood – as it had for at least a hundred years, actually – at the crossroads outside the village of Koprzywnica, beyond the ruins of the burnt-down inn. Now, in the spring, it was laden with tiny buds of blossom. People from the whole region, even the remote Spalla, were accustomed to using the huge and quite low boughs of the oak to hang up slats and boards bearing all sorts of information. For that reason, the oak tree that served for communication between people was called the Tree of Tidings of Good and Evil.

‘Ciri, start on that side,’ ordered Geralt, dismounting. ‘Dandelion, have a look on this side.’

The planks on the boughs swayed in the wind, clattering against each other.

Searches for missing and separated families usually dominated after a war. There were plenty of declarations of the following kind: COME BACK, I FORGIVE YOU, plenty of offers of erotic massage and similar services in the neighbouring towns and villages, and plenty of announcements and advertisements. There were love letters, there were denunciations signed by well-meaning people, and poison pen letters. There were also boards expressing the philosophical views of their authors – the vast majority of them moronically nonsensical or repulsively obscene.

‘Ha!’ called Dandelion. ‘A witcher is urgently sought in Rastburg Castle. They write that good pay, luxurious accommodation and extraordinarily tasty board are guaranteed. Will you avail yourself of it, Geralt?’

‘Absolutely not.’

Ciri found the information they were looking for.

And then announced to the Witcher what he had been expecting for a long time.

*

‘I’m going to Vengerberg, Geralt,’ she repeated. ‘Don’t make faces like that. You know I have to, don’t you? Yennefer’s summoned me. She’s waiting for me there.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re going to Rivia, to that rendezvous you’re still keeping a secret—’

‘A surprise,’ he interrupted. ‘It’s a surprise, not a secret.’

‘Very well, a surprise. I, meanwhile, will sort out what I need to in Vengerberg, pick up Yennefer and we’ll both be in Rivia in six days. Don’t make faces, please. And let’s not part like it was forever. It’s just six days! Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Ciri.’

‘Rivia, in six days,’ she repeated once more, reining Kelpie around.

She galloped away at once. She was out of sight very quickly, and Geralt felt as though a cold, awful clawed hand was squeezing his stomach.

‘Six days,’ Dandelion repeated pensively. ‘From here to Vengerberg and back to Rivia . . . All together it’ll be close to two hundred and fifty miles . . . It’s impossible, Geralt. Indeed, on that devilish mare, on which the girl can travel at the speed of a courier, three times quicker than us, theoretically, very theoretically, she could cover such a distance in six days. But even the devilish mare has to rest. And that mysterious matter that Ciri has to take care of will also take some time. And thus it’s impossible . . .’

‘Nothing is impossible—’ the Witcher pursed his lips ‘—for Ciri.’

‘Can it be—?’

‘She’s not the girl you knew,’ Geralt interrupted him harshly. ‘Not any longer.’

Dandelion was silent for a long time.

‘I have a strange feeling . . .’

‘Be quiet. Don’t say anything. I beg you.’

*

May was over. The new moon was coming, the old moon was waning. It was very thin. They rode towards the mountains, barely visible on the horizon.

*

It was a typical landscape after a war. All of a sudden, graves and burial mounds had sprung up among the fields; skulls and skeletons lay white amidst the lush, spring grass. Corpses hung on roadside trees, and wolves sat beside the roads, waiting for the miserable travellers to weaken.

Grass no longer grew on the black patches of land where fires had passed through.

The villages and settlements, of which only charred chimneys remained, resounded with the banging of hammers and the rasping of saws. Near the ruins, peasant women dug holes in the scorched earth with hoes. Some of them, stumbling, were pulling harrows and ploughs and the webbing harnesses bit into their gaunt shoulders. Children hunted for grubs and worms in the newly ploughed furrows.

‘I have a vague feeling that something’s not as it should be here,’ said Dandelion, ‘Something’s missing . . . Do you have that impression, Geralt?’

‘Eh?’

‘Something’s not normal here.’

‘Nothing’s normal here, Dandelion. Nothing.’

*

During the warm, black and windless night, lit up by distant flashes of lightning and restless growls of thunder, Geralt and Dandelion saw from their camp the horizon in the west blooming with the red glow of fire. It wasn’t far and the wind that blew up brought the smell of smoke. The wind also brought snatches of sound. They heard – like it or not – the howling of people being murdered, the wailing of women, and the brash and triumphant yelling of bandits.

Dandelion said nothing, glancing fearfully at the Witcher every now and then.

But the Witcher didn’t even twitch, didn’t even turn his head around. And his face seemed to be cast in bronze.

They continued on their journey the next morning. They didn’t even look at the thin trail of smoke rising above some trees.

And later they chanced upon a column of settlers.

*

They were walking in a long line. Slowly. Carrying small bundles. They walked in complete silence. Men, boys, women and children. They walked without grumbling, without tears, without a word of complaint. Without screams, without any desperate wailing.

But there were screams and despair in their eyes. In the empty eyes of people who had been damaged. Robbed, beaten, driven away.

‘Who are they?’ Dandelion ignored the hostility visible in the eyes of the officer supervising the march. ‘Who are you driving like this?’

‘They’re Nilfgaardians,’ snapped a sub-lieutenant from the height of his saddle. He was a ruddy-faced stripling, of no more than eighteen summers. ‘Nilfgaardian settlers. They appeared in our lands like cockroaches! And we’ll sweep them away like cockroaches. So was it decided in Cintra and so was it written in the peace treaty.’

He leaned over and spat.

‘And if it was up to me,’ he continued, looking defiantly at Dandelion and the Witcher, ‘I wouldn’t let them get out of here alive, the rats.’

‘And if it depended on me,’ said a non-commissioned officer with a grey moustache in a slow, drawling voice, looking at his commander with a gaze strangely devoid of respect, ‘I’d leave them in peace on their farms. I wouldn’t drive good farmers from the land. I’d be glad that agriculture was prospering. That there’s something to eat.’

‘You’re as thick as pig shit, Sergeant,’ snapped the sub-lieutenant. ‘It’s Nilfgaard! It’s not our language, not our culture, not our blood. We’d be glad of the agriculture and nursing a viper in our bosom. Traitors, ready to stab us in the back. Perhaps you think there’ll be harmony with the Black Cloaks forever. No, they can go back where they came from . . . Hey, soldiers! That one has a cart! Get it off him, at the double!’

The order was carried out extremely zealously. With the use not only of heels and fists, but truncheons too.

Dandelion gave a slight cough.

‘What, something not to your liking, perhaps?’ The youthful sub-lieutenant glared at him. ‘Perhaps you’re a Nilfgaard-lover?’

‘Heaven forbid,’ Dandelion swallowed.

Many of the empty-eyed women and girls walking like automatons had torn garments, swollen and bruised faces, and thighs and calves marked by trickles of dried blood. Many of them had to be supported as they walked. Dandelion looked at Geralt’s face and began to be afraid.

‘Time we were going,’ he mumbled. ‘Farewell, gentlemen.’

The sub-lieutenant didn’t even turn his head around, preoccupied with checking that none of the settlers were carrying luggage larger than the Peace of Cintra had determined.

The column of settlers walked on.

They heard the high-pitched, desperate screams of a woman in great pain.

‘Geralt, no,’ groaned Dandelion. ‘Don’t do anything, I beg you . . . Don’t get involved . . .’

The Witcher turned his face towards him, and Dandelion didn’t recognise it.

‘Get involved?’ he repeated. ‘Intervene? Rescue somebody? Risk my neck for some noble principles or ideas? Oh, no, Dandelion. Not any longer.’

*

One night, a restless night lit up by distant flashes of lightning, a dream woke the Witcher again. He wasn’t certain this time, either, if he hadn’t gone straight from one nightmare to another.

Once again, a pulsating brightness that frightened the horses rose above the remains of the campfire. Once again, there was a great castle, black colonnades, and a table with women sitting around it in the brightness.

Two of the women weren’t sitting but standing. One in black and white and the other in black and grey.

It was Yennefer and Ciri.

The Witcher groaned in his sleep.

*

Yennefer was right to quite categorically advise Ciri against wearing male clothing. Dressed like a boy, Ciri would have felt foolish, here, now, in the hall among these elegant women sparkling with jewellery. She was pleased she’d agreed to dress in a combination of black and grey. It flattered her when she felt approving looks on her puffed, paned sleeves and high waist, on the velvet ribbon bearing the small rose-shaped diamond brooch.

‘Please come closer.’

Ciri shuddered a little. Not just at the sound of that voice. Yennefer, it turned out, had been right in one more thing – she had advised against a plunging neckline. Ciri, however, had insisted and now had the impression the draught was literally raging over her chest, and her whole front, almost to her navel, was covered in gooseflesh.

‘Come closer,’ repeated the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman whom Ciri knew and remembered from the Isle of Thanedd. And although Yennefer had told her whom she would meet in Montecalvo, had described them all and taught her all of their names, Ciri at once began to entitle her ‘Madam Owl’ in her thoughts.

‘Welcome to the Montecalvo Lodge,’ said Madam Owl. ‘Miss Ciri.’

Ciri bowed as Yennefer had instructed, politely, but more in the male fashion, without a ladylike curtsey, without a modest and submissive lowering of her eyes. She responded with a smile to Triss Merigold’s sincere and pleasant smile, and with a somewhat lower nod of the head to Margarita Laux-Antille’s friendly look. She endured the remaining eight pairs of eyes, although they pierced like gimlets. Stabbed like spear blades.

‘Please be seated,’ beckoned Madam Owl with a truly regal gesture. ‘No, not you, Yennefer! Just her. You, Yennefer, are not an invited guest, but a felon, summoned to be judged and punished. You will stand until the Lodge decides on your fate.’

Protocol was over for Ciri in a flash.

‘In that case I shall also stand,’ she said, not at all quietly. ‘I’m no guest either. I was also summoned to be informed about my fate. That’s the first thing. And the second is that Yennefer’s fate is my fate. What applies to her applies to me. We cannot be rent asunder. With all due respect.’

Margarita Laux-Antille smiled, looking her in the eyes. The modest, elegant woman with the slightly aquiline nose, who could only be the Nilfgaardian, Assire var Anahid, nodded, and tapped her fingers lightly on the table.

‘Philippa,’ said a woman with her neck wrapped in a silver fox-fur boa. ‘We don’t have to be so uncompromising, it seems to me. At least not today, not right now. This is the Lodge’s round table. We sit at it as equals. Even if we are to be judged. I think we can all agree about what we should—’

She didn’t finish, but swept her eyes over the remaining sorceresses. They, meanwhile, expressed their agreement by nodding: Margarita, Assire, Triss, Sabrina Glevissig, Keira Metz, and the two beautiful elf women. Only the other Nilfgaardian, the raven-haired Fringilla Vigo, sat motionless, very pale, not wresting her eyes from Yennefer.

‘Let it be so.’ Philippa Eilhart waved a ringed hand. ‘Sit down, both of you. Despite my opposition. But the Lodge’s unity comes before everything. The Lodge’s interests before everything. And above everything. The Lodge is everything, the rest nothing. I hope you understand, Ciri?’

‘Very well.’ Ciri had no intention of lowering her gaze. ‘Particularly since I am that nothing.’

Francesca Findabair, the stunning elf woman, gave a peal of resonant laughter.

‘Congratulations, Yennefer,’ she said in her hypnotically melodic voice. ‘I recognise an outstanding hallmark, the purity of the gold. I recognise the school.’

‘It isn’t difficult to recognise.’ Yennefer swept a passionate look around her. ‘For it’s the school of Tissaia de Vries.’

‘Tissaia de Vries is dead,’ Madam Owl said calmly. ‘She’s not present at this table. Tissaia de Vries died, and the matter has been grieved and mourned. It was simultaneously a landmark and a turning point. For a new time has dawned, a new era has come, and great changes are coming. And fate has assigned you an important role in these transformations, Ciri; you who once were Cirilla of Cintra. You probably already know what role.’

‘I know,’ she snapped, not reacting to Yennefer’s restraining hiss. ‘Vilgefortz explained it to me! While preparing to stick a glass syringe between my legs. If that’s supposed to be my destiny, then I – respectfully – decline.’

Philippa’s dark eyes flashed with a cold anger. But it was Sheala de Tancarville who spoke.

‘You still have much to learn, child,’ she said, wrapping the silver fox-fur boa around her neck. ‘You will have to unlearn many things, I see and hear, by your own efforts or with someone’s help. You have lately come into possession, it can be gathered, of much evil knowledge. You have also certainly endured evil, experienced evil. Now, in your childish rage, you refuse to notice the good, you deny the good and good intentions. You bristle like a hedgehog, unable to recognise precisely those who are concerned with your good. You snort and bare your claws like a wild kitten, without leaving us a choice: you need to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck. And we shall do that, child, without a second thought. For we are older than you, we’re wiser, we know everything about what has been and what is, and we know much about what will be. We shall take you by the scruff of the neck, kitty, so you may one day soon, sit here among us at this table, as an experienced and wise she-cat. As one of us. No! Not a word! Don’t you dare open your mouth when Sheala de Tancarville is speaking!’

The voice of the Koviran sorceress, sharp and piercing like a knife scraping against iron, suddenly hung in mid-air over the table. Not only Ciri cowered; the other witches of the Lodge shuddered slightly and drew their heads into their shoulders. Well, perhaps with the exception of Philippa, Francesca and Assire. And Yennefer.

‘You were right,’ continued Sheala, wrapping the boa around her neck, ‘in thinking that you were summoned to Montecalvo to be informed about your fate. You weren’t right to think you are nothing. For you are everything, you are the future of the world. At this moment, naturally, you don’t know that, can’t know that, at this moment you’re a puffed up and spitting kitten, a traumatised child, who sees in everybody Emhyr var Emreis or Vilgefortz holding his inseminator. And there’s no point now, at this moment, explaining to you that you are mistaken, that it concerns your good and the good of the world. The time will come for such explanations. One day. Now, hot under the collar, you don’t want to listen to the voice of reason. Now, for every argument you will have a riposte in the form of childish stubbornness and noisy indignation. Now you will simply be grabbed by the scruff of the neck. I have finished. Inform the girl of her fate, Philippa.’

Ciri sat stiff, stroking the heads of the sphinxes carved into the armrests of the chair.

‘You will go to Kovir with Sheala and I.’ Madam Owl broke the heavy and dead silence. ‘To Point Vanis, the royal summer capital. Because you are no longer Cirilla of Cintra, you will be presented at the audience as a novice in magic, our pupil. At the audience you will meet a very wise king, Esterad Thyssen, of genuine royal blood. You will meet his wife, Queen Zuleyka, a person of extraordinary nobility and goodness. You will also meet the royal couple’s son, Prince Tankred.

Ciri, beginning to understand, opened her eyes widely. Madam Owl noticed it.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘You must make an impression on Prince Tankred, above all. For you will become his lover and bear his child.’

‘Were you still Cirilla of Cintra—’ Philippa took the conversation up after a long pause ‘—were you still the daughter of Pavetta and the granddaughter of Calanthe, we would make you Tankred’s wedded wife. Princess, and later Queen of Kovir and Poviss. Sadly, and I say this with real sorrow, fate has deprived you of everything. Including the future. You will only be a lover. A favourite—’

‘By name and formally,’ interjected Sheala, ‘for in practice we shall try hard for you to gain the status of princess by Tankred’s side, and afterwards even of queen. Your help will be necessary, naturally. Tankred must desire you to be at his side. Day and night. We’ll teach you how to fuel such a desire. But whether the lesson is learned will depend on you.’

‘Those titles are essentially trifles,’ said Madam Owl. ‘It’s important that Tankred impregnates you as quickly as possible.’

‘Well, that’s obvious,’ Ciri muttered.

‘The Lodge will provide for the future and position of your child.’ Philippa didn’t take her eyes off Ciri. ‘You deserve to know we’re thinking here about matters of great note. You will be participating in it, in any case, since right after the birth of the child you will begin to take part in our gatherings. You will learn. Since you are, although it may be incomprehensible to you today, one of us.’

‘You called me a monster on the Isle of Thanedd, Madam Owl.’ Ciri overcame the constriction in her throat. ‘And today you tell me I’m one of you.’

‘There’s no contradiction in that,’ resounded the voice of Enid an Gleanna, the Daisy of the Valleys, as melodic as the burbling of a stream. ‘We, me luned, are all monsters. Each in our own way. Isn’t that right, Madam Owl?’

Philippa shrugged.

‘We shall disguise that hideous scar on your face with an illusion,’ Sheala spoke again, tugging at her boa apparently indifferently. ‘You will be beautiful and mysterious, and Tankred Thyssen, I assure you, will lose his head for you. We’ll have to invent some personal details for you. Cirilla is a nice name and is by no means so rare that you would have to give it up to remain incognito. But we have to give you a surname. I wouldn’t protest if you chose mine.’

‘Or mine,’ said Madam Owl, smiling with the corners of her mouth. ‘Cirilla Eilhart also sounds nice.’

‘That name—’ the silver bells of the Daisy of the Valleys jingled in the hall again ‘—sounds nice in every combination. And each of us, sitting here, would like to have a daughter like you, Zireael, O Swallow with the eyes of a falcon, you, who bear the blood and bones of Lara Dorren’s blood and bones. Each of us would give up everything, even the Lodge, even the fate of the kingdoms and the whole world, to have a daughter like you. But it’s impossible. We know that it’s impossible. Which is why we envy Yennefer.’

‘Thank you, Madam Philippa,’ Ciri said a moment later, clenching her hands on the sphinxes’ heads. ‘I’m also honoured at the offer of bearing the name Tancarville. However, because a surname is the only thing in this whole matter that depends on me and my choice, the only thing that isn’t being imposed on me, I have to gratefully decline and choose for myself. I want to be called Ciri of Vengerberg, daughter of Yennefer.’

‘Ha!’ A black-haired sorceress, whom Ciri guessed was Sabrina Glevissig of Kaedwen, flashed her teeth. ‘Tankred Thyssen will prove to be an ass if he doesn’t wed her morganatically. If instead of her he lets some drippy princess be foisted upon him, he’ll turn out to be an ass and a blind man, unable to recognise a diamond among pieces of glass. Congratulations, Yenna. I envy you. And you know how sincerely I can envy.’

Yennefer thanked her with a nod of her head. Without even the ghost of a smile.

‘And thus,’ said Philippa, ‘everything is settled.’

‘No,’ said Ciri.

Francesca Findabair snorted softly. Sheala de Tancarville raised her head and her facial features hardened unpleasantly.

‘I have to think the matter over,’ Ciri declared. ‘Ponder it. Sort everything out in my mind. Calmly. Once I’ve done that I’ll return here, to Montecalvo. I’ll appear before you, ladies. I’ll tell you what I’ve decided.’

Sheala moved her lips, as though she’d found something in her mouth she ought to spit out at once. But she didn’t speak.

‘I have arranged to meet the Witcher Geralt in the city of Rivia.’ Ciri lifted her head up. ‘I promised him I’d meet him there, that I’d ride there with Yennefer. I’ll keep that promise, with your permission or without it. Madam Rita, who is here, knows that I always find a crack in the wall if I’m going to Geralt.’

Margarita Laux-Antille nodded with a smile.

‘I must talk to Geralt. Say goodbye to him. And admit he’s right. Because you ought to know one thing, ladies. When we were riding away from Stygga Castle, leaving corpses in our wake, I asked Geralt if it was the end, if we were victorious, if evil had been overcome, and if good had triumphed. And he just smiled somehow strangely and sadly. I thought it was from tiredness, because we had buried all of his friends at the foot of Stygga. But now I know what that smile meant. It was a smile of pity at the naivety of a child who thought that the slit throats of Vilgefortz and Bonhart meant the triumph of good over evil. I really must tell him I’ve grown wiser, that I’ve understood. I really must tell him.

‘I must also try to convince him that what you want to do with me fundamentally differs from what Vilgefortz wanted to do to me with a glass syringe. I have to explain to him that there is a difference between Montecalvo Castle and Stygga Castle, even though Vilgefortz was concerned with the good of the world and you are also concerned with the good of the world.

‘I know it won’t be easy to convince an old wolf like Geralt. Geralt will say I’m a chit, that it’s easy to beguile me with appearances of nobility, that all this bloody destiny and good of the world are stupid platitudes. But I must try. It’s important that he understands and accepts it. It’s very important. For you too, ladies.’

‘You haven’t understood anything,’ said Sheala de Tancarville harshly. ‘You’re still a child passing from the stage of callow howling and foot-stamping to callow arrogance. The only thing that raises hope is your sharpness of mind. You’ll learn quickly. Soon, believe me, you’ll laugh, recalling the nonsense you talked here. As regards your trip to Rivia, I pray you, let the Lodge express its opinion. I’m expressing my firm opposition. For fundamental reasons. To prove to you that I, Sheala de Tancarville, never waste words. And am capable of making you bend your proud neck. You need to be taught discipline, for your own good.’

‘Let’s settle this matter then.’ Philippa Eilhart placed her palms on the table. ‘Ladies, please express your opinions. Are we to permit the haughty maid Ciri to ride to Rivia? For a meeting with some witcher for whom there soon won’t be a place in her life? Are we to let sentimentalism grow in her, sentimentality that she will soon have to utterly get rid of? Sheala is opposed. And the rest of you ladies?’

‘I’m against,’ declared Sabrina Glevissig. ‘Also for fundamental reasons. I like the girl, I like what she says, her insolence and hot-tempered impudence. I prefer it to spineless acquiescence. I wouldn’t have anything against her request, particularly since she would certainly return; people such as she don’t break their word. But the little madam has threatened us. She must know we disregard such threats!’

‘I’m opposed,’ said Keira Metz. ‘For practical reasons. I like the girl too, and Geralt carried me in his arms on Thanedd. There isn’t a scrap of sentimentality in me, but it was awfully pleasant. It would be a way of repaying him. But no! For you are mistaken, Sabrina. The girl is a witcher and is trying to outwit us. In short, make a run for it.’

‘Does anyone here,’ Yennefer drawled malevolently, ‘dare to doubt the words of my daughter?’

‘You, Yennefer, be quiet,’ hissed Philippa. ‘Don’t speak, or I’ll lose my patience. There are three votes against. Let’s hear the rest.’

‘I vote to allow her to go,’ said Triss Merigold. ‘I know her and vouch for her. I’d also like to accompany her on her journey, if she agrees. Help her in her deliberations and reflections, if she agrees. And in her conversation with Geralt, if she agrees.’

‘I’m also in favour,’ smiled Margarita Laux-Antille. ‘What I say will astonish you, ladies, but I’m doing it for Tissaia de Vries. Were Tissaia here, she would be outraged at the suggestion that compulsion and the restriction of personal freedom are necessary to maintain the unity of the Lodge.’

‘I vote in favour,’ said Francesca Findabair, straightening the lace on her neckline. ‘There are many reasons, but I don’t have to reveal them nor do I intend to.’

‘I vote in favour,’ said Ida Emean aep Sivney, just as laconically. ‘Because my heart compels me thus.’

‘And I’m opposed,’ declared Assire var Anahid dryly. ‘I’m not driven by any sympathy, antipathy or fundamental issues. I fear for Ciri’s life. She is safe in the Lodge’s care, but an easy target on the roads leading to Rivia. And I worry that there are people who, even having taken away her name and identity, will still think that’s not enough.’

‘It remains for us to learn the position of Madam Fringilla Vigo,’ said Sabrina Glevissig quite scathingly. ‘Although it should be obvious. For I take the liberty of reminding you all of Rhys-Rhun Castle.’

‘Although I am grateful for the reminder—’ Fringilla Vigo lifted her head proudly ‘—I vote for Ciri. To show the respect and affection I have for the girl. And more than anything I’m doing it for Geralt of Rivia, the Witcher, without whom that girl wouldn’t be here today. Who, in order to rescue Ciri, went to the end of the world, fighting everything that stood in his way, even himself. It would be a wickedness to deny him a meeting with her.’

‘Yet there was too little wickedness,’ Sabrina said cynically, ‘and too much naive sentimentality; the same sentimentality we mean to eradicate from this maiden. Why, there was even talk about hearts. And the result is that the scales are in the balance. In deadlock. We haven’t decided anything. We’ll have to vote again. I suggest by secret ballot.’

‘What for?’

They all looked at the person who had spoken. Yennefer.

‘I am still a member of this Lodge,’ said Yennefer. ‘No one has taken my membership away from me. No one has taken my place. I have the formal right to vote. I think it’s clear who I’m voting for. The votes in favour prevail, so the matter is settled.’

‘Your insolence,’ said Sabrina, locking her fingers, armed with onyx rings, ‘borders on bad taste, Yennefer.’

‘In your place, madam, I would sit in humble silence,’ added Sheala grimly. ‘Bearing in mind the voting of which you will soon be the subject.’

‘I backed Ciri,’ said Francesca, ‘but I must take you to task, Yennefer. You left the Lodge, fleeing from it and refusing to cooperate. You don’t have any rights. You do, though, have obligations, debts to pay, a sentence to hear. Were it not for that, you wouldn’t have been allowed to cross Montecalvo’s threshold.’

Yennefer restrained Ciri, who was itching to stand up and shout. Without resisting and in silence, Ciri sank into the chair with the armrests carved into sphinxes, watching Madam Owl – Philippa Eilhart – getting up from her chair and suddenly towering over the table.

‘Yennefer doesn’t have the right to vote, that is clear,’ she announced in a ringing voice. ‘But I do. I’ve listened to the votes of all the women present here, so I can finally vote myself, I believe.’

‘What do you mean by that, Philippa?’ Sabrina frowned.

Philippa Eilhart looked across the table. She met Ciri’s eyes and looked into them.

*

The bottom of the pool is made of a many-coloured mosaic, the tiles shimmering and seeming to move. The entire surface trembles, glimmering with light and shade. Carp and orfe flash by under lily leaves as large as plates, amidst green pond weed. The young girl’s large dark eyes reflect in the water, her long hair reaches down to the surface, floating on it.

The girl, forgetting about the whole world, runs her little hands among the stems of water lilies, and hangs over the edge of the pool surrounding the fountain. She would love to touch one of the small gold and red fishes. The fish swim up to the girl’s hands, they circle around her curiously, but they won’t let themselves be seized; they’re as elusive as apparitions, like the water itself. The dark-eyed girl’s fingers close on nothingness.

‘Philippa!’

It’s her most favourite voice. In spite of that the little girl doesn’t react right away. She continues to look at the water, at the little fish, at the water lilies and at her own reflection.

‘Philippa!’

*

‘Philippa.’ Sheala de Tancarville’s harsh voice shook her out of her reverie. ‘We’re waiting.’

A cold, spring wind blew in through the open window. Philippa Eilhart shuddered. Death, she thought. Death passed beside me.

‘This Lodge,’ she finally said confidently, loudly and emphatically, ‘will decide the fates of the world. Because this Lodge is like the world, is its mirror. Good sense, which doesn’t always mean cold wickedness and calculation, is balancing out sentimentality, which is not always naive. Responsibility, iron discipline – even if imposed by force – and aversion to violence; gentleness and trust. The matter-of-fact coolness of omnipotence . . . and heart.

‘I, casting my vote last, take one more thing into consideration,’ she continued in the silence that had descended on the colonnaded hall in Montecalvo. ‘One that, though it doesn’t balance out anything, counterbalances everything.’

Following her gaze, all the women looked at the wall, at the mosaic constructed from tiny coloured tiles, depicting the snake Ouroboros grasping its tail in its teeth.

‘That thing is destiny,’ she continued, fixing her dark eyes on Ciri. ‘Which I, Philippa Eilhart, have only recently begun to believe in. Which I, Philippa Eilhart, have only recently begun to understand. Destiny isn’t the judgements of providence, isn’t scrolls written by the hand of a demiurge, isn’t fatalism. Destiny is hope. Being full of hope, believing that what is meant to happen will happen, I cast my vote. I vote for Ciri. The Child of Destiny. The Child of Hope.’

The silence in the colonnaded hall of Montecalvo Castle, plunged in subtle chiaroscuro, lasted a long time. The cry of an osprey circling over the lake reached them from outside the window.

‘Madam Yennefer,’ Ciri whispered. ‘Does that mean . . .’

‘Let’s go, daughter,’ answered Yennefer in a soft voice. ‘Geralt’s waiting for us and there’s a long road ahead.’

*

Geralt awoke and leaped to his feet with the cry of a night bird in his ears.

Then the sorceress and the witcher were married and held a grand wedding party. I too was there, I drank mead and wine. And then they lived happily ever after, but for a very short time. He died ordinarily, of a heart attack. She died soon after him, but of what the tale does not say. They say of sorrow and longing, but who would lend credence to fairy tales?

Flourens Delannoy, Fairy Tales and Stories

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was the sixth day after the June new moon when they arrived in Rivia.

They rode out of the forests onto the hillsides and then, beneath them, down below, suddenly and without warning, twinkled and glittered the surface of Loch Eskalott, which filled the valley in the shape of the rune from which it took its name. The hillsides of Craag Ros, the protruding end of the Mahakam massif, covered in fir and larch, gazed at their own reflections in the lake surface. As did the red tiles of the towers of the stout Rivia Castle, the winter seat of the kings of Lyria, standing on a headland extending into the lake. And by a bay at the southern end of Loch Eskalott lay the town of Rivia, with the bright thatch of the cottages around the castle and dark houses growing by the lake shore like mushrooms.

‘Well, we seem to have arrived,’ Dandelion stated, shielding his eyes with his hand. ‘Now we’ve come full circle, we’re in Rivia. Strange, how strange are the twists of fate . . . I don’t see blue and white pennants on any of the castle towers, and thus Queen Meve is not residing at the castle. I don’t suppose, in any case, that she still remembers our desertion—’

‘Believe me, Dandelion,’ Geralt interrupted, steering his horse down the hillside. ‘I don’t give a damn who remembers what.’

A colourful tent resembling a cake stood outside the city, not far from the turnpike. A white shield with a red chevron hung on a pole in front of it. A knight in full armour and a white surcoat decorated with the same arms as the shield was standing under the raised flap of the tent. The knight was scrutinising women in headscarves, tar and pitch makers with kegs containing their wares, herdsmen, pedlars and beggars. His eyes lit up in hope at the sight of Geralt and Dandelion riding slowly along.

‘The lady of your heart—’ Geralt dispelled the knight’s hope in an icy voice ‘—whoever she is, is the most beautiful and most virtuous virgin from the Yaruga to the Buina.’

‘By my troth,’ the knight snapped back. ‘You speak the truth, sir.’

*

A fair-haired girl in a densely studded leather jacket vomited in the middle of the street, bent in two, holding on to the stirrup of a flea-bitten grey mare. The girl’s two male companions, identically attired, carrying swords on their backs and wearing bands on their foreheads, cursed the passers-by filthily, in somewhat incoherent voices. Both were more than tipsy, unsteady on their feet, bumping into horses’ sides and the bar of the hitching post situated outside the inn.

‘Must we really go in there?’ asked Dandelion. ‘There may be more nice lads like that inside.’

‘I’m meeting someone here. Have you forgotten? This is The Rooster and Mother Hen mentioned in a notice on the oak tree.’

The fair-haired girl bent over again, puked spasmodically and extremely profusely. The mare snorted loudly and jerked, knocking the girl over and dragging her through the vomit.

‘What are you gawking at, you fool?’ mumbled one of the youngsters. ‘You grey-haired old bum?’

‘Geralt,’ muttered Dandelion, dismounting. ‘Don’t do anything foolish, please.’

‘Fear not. I won’t.’

They tied their horses to the hitching post on the other side of the steps. The young men stopped paying attention to them and began insulting and spitting at a townswoman crossing the street with a child. Dandelion glanced at the Witcher’s face. He didn’t like what he saw.

The first thing that stuck out after entering the inn was a sign: WANTED: COOK. The next was a large picture on a signboard made of planks of wood, portraying a bearded monster holding a battle axe dripping blood. The caption announced: THE DWARF – A WRETCHED, TREACHEROUS RUNT.

Dandelion was right to be worried. In practice, the only guests in the inn – apart from a few seriously drunk drunks and two skinny prostitutes with dark circles around their eyes – were more ‘lads’ dressed up in leather sparkling with studs, with swords on their backs. There were eight of them of both sexes, but they were making enough of a commotion for eighteen, shouting over each other and swearing.

‘I recognise you and know who you are, gentlemen.’ The innkeeper surprised them as soon as he saw them. ‘And I have news for you. You’re to go to a tavern called Wirsing’s in Elm.’

‘Oooh.’ Dandelion cheered up. ‘That’s good . . .’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ The innkeeper went back to drying a mug on his apron. ‘If you disdain my establishment, that’s your choice. But I’ll tell you that Elm’s a dwarven district, where non-humans reside.’

‘And what of it?’ Geralt squinted his eyes.

‘Aye, I’m sure it doesn’t bother you.’ The innkeeper shrugged. ‘Why, the one who left the news was a dwarf. Since you associate with such as he . . . that’s your affair. It’s your affair whose company you find more agreeable.’

‘We aren’t particularly fussy as regards company,’ announced Dandelion, nodding towards the youths in black jackets with bands around their pimply foreheads yelling and wrestling at a table. ‘But I swear we aren’t fond of that kind.’

The innkeeper put down the dry mug and glared at them unpleasantly.

‘You should be more understanding,’ he instructed with emphasis. ‘Youngsters have to let off steam. There’s a certain saying, youngsters have to let off steam. The war damaged them. Their fathers perished . . .’

‘And their mothers screwed around,’ finished Geralt with a voice as icy as a mountain lake. ‘I understand and I’m full of understanding. At least, I’m trying hard to be. Let’s go, Dandelion.’

‘Be off with you – with respect,’ said the innkeeper without respect. ‘But don’t be a-complaining about what I warned you of. These days it’s easy to get a sore head in the dwarven district. If anything were to happen.’

‘If what were to happen?’

‘How would I know? Is it any business of mine?’

‘Let’s go, Geralt,’ urged Dandelion, seeing out of the corner of one eye that the war-damaged youngsters, those who were still reasonably conscious, were observing them with eyes shining with fisstech.

‘Goodbye, master innkeeper. Who knows, perhaps we’ll visit your establishment one day, in a while. Once those signs have gone from the entrance.’

‘And which one don’t you gentlemen like?’ The innkeeper frowned and stood with legs aggressively apart. ‘Eh? The one about the dwarf, perhaps?’

‘No. The one about the cook.’

Three youngsters got up from the table, slightly unsteady on their feet, clearly intending to bar their way. A girl and two boys in black jackets. With swords on their backs.

Geralt didn’t slow his stride, he walked on and his face and eyes were cold and totally indifferent.

Almost at the last moment the striplings parted, stepping back. Dandelion smelled the beer on their breath. And sweat. And fear.

‘You have to get used to it,’ said the Witcher, when they were outside. ‘You have to adapt.’

‘It’s hard sometimes.’

‘That’s no argument. That’s no argument, Dandelion.’

The air was hot, dense and sticky. Like soup.

*

Outside, in front of the inn, the two boys in black jackets were helping the fair-haired girl wash in a horse trough. The girl snorted, incoherently indicating that she was feeling better and announced that she needed a drink. And of course she’d go to the bazaar to overturn some stalls for a lark, but first she needed a drink.

The girl’s name was Nadia Esposito. That name became etched in the annals. It passed into history.

But Geralt and Dandelion couldn’t have known that then. Neither could the girl.

*

The narrow streets of the city of Rivia bustled with life, and what seemed to wholly occupy the residents and visitors was trade. It seemed as though everybody was trading in everything there and trying to exchange anything for something more. A cacophony of shouts resounded from all sides – goods were being advertised, people were bargaining heatedly, insulting each other, thunderously accusing each other of cheating, thievery and swindles, as well as other peccadilloes absolutely unconnected to commerce.

Before Geralt and Dandelion had reached Elm they were presented with a great deal of attractive offers. They were offered, among other things, an astrolabe, a brass trumpet, a set of cutlery decorated with the coat of arms of the Frangipani family, stocks in a copper mine, a large jar of leeches, a tattered book entitled An Alleged Miracle or the Medusa’s Head, a pair of ferrets, an elixir to increase potency and – as part of a package deal – a none too young, none too slim and none too fresh woman.

A black-bearded dwarf tried to convince them extremely aggressively to buy a shoddy little mirror in a pinchbeck frame, attempting to prove it was the magical looking glass of Cambuscan, when soon after somebody threw a stone and knocked the ware out of his hand.

‘Lousy kobold!’ bellowed a barefoot and dirty street urchin. ‘Unhuman! Bearded old goat!’

‘And may your guts rot, you human shithead!’ roared the dwarf. ‘May they rot and leak out of your arse.’

People looked on in gloomy silence.

*

The district of Elm lay right beside the lake, in a bay among alders, weeping willows and – naturally – elms. It was much more quiet and peaceful, no one bought anything or wanted to sell anything here. A light breeze was blowing from the lake, especially pleasant after getting out of the stuffy, flyblown stink of the city.

They didn’t have to search long to find Wirsing’s tavern. The first passer-by they encountered pointed it out to them without hesitation.

Two bearded dwarves, sipping beer from mugs hugged against their bellies, were sitting beneath a roof covered in bright green moss and swallows’ nests on the steps of a porch enveloped in climbing peas and wild roses.

‘Geralt and Dandelion,’ said one of the dwarves and belched daintily. ‘What took you so long, you rogues?’

Geralt dismounted.

‘Greetings, Yarpen Zigrin. Glad to see you, Zoltan Chivay.’

*

They were the only guests of the tavern, which smelled strongly of roast meat, garlic, herbs and something else, something elusive, but very pleasant. They sat at a heavy table with a view of the lake, which looked mysterious, charming and romantic through tinted panes in lead frames.

‘Where’s Ciri?’ Yarpen Zigrin asked bluntly. ‘She can’t be—’

‘No,’ Geralt quickly interrupted. ‘She’s coming here. She’ll be here any moment. Well, beardies, tell us how things are going.’

‘Didn’t I say?’ Yarpen said with a sneer. ‘Didn’t I say, Zoltan? Comes back from the end of the world, where, if rumours can be believed, he waded in blood, killed dragons and overthrew empires. And he asks us how things are going. That’s the Witcher all over—’

‘What smells so appetising here?’ Dandelion interjected.

‘Dinner,’ said Yarpen Zigrin. ‘Meat. Dandelion, ask me where we got the meat.’

‘I won’t, because I know that joke.’

‘Don’t be a swine.’

‘Where did you get the meat?’

‘Crawled here itself.’

‘And now more seriously—’ Yarpen wiped away tears, although the joke, to tell the truth, was pretty hoary ‘—the situation with vittles is quite critical, as usual after a war. You won’t find meat, not even poultry, it’s also hard to get fish . . . Things are bad with flour and spuds, peas and beans . . Farms have been burned down, stores plundered, fishponds emptied and fields lie fallow . . .’

‘There’s no turnover,’ added Zoltan. ‘There’s no transport. Only usury and barter are functioning. Did you see the bazaar? Profiteers are making fortunes beside beggars selling and exchanging the remains of their possessions . . .’

‘If the crops fail on top of that, people will begin to die of hunger in the winter.’

‘Is it really that bad?’

‘Riding from the South you must have passed villages and settlements. Think back to how often you heard dogs barking.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Dandelion slapped himself on the forehead. ‘I knew it . . . I told you, Geralt, that it wasn’t normal! That something was missing! Ha! Now I get it! We didn’t hear any dogs! There weren’t any around—’

He suddenly broke off and glanced towards the kitchen and the smell of garlic and herbs with terror in his eyes.

‘Fear not,’ snorted Yarpen. ‘Our meat doesn’t come from anything that barks, meows or calls out “Mercy!”. Our meat is totally different. It’s fit for kings!’

‘Let us in on it, dwarf!’

‘When we received your letter and it was clear we’d meet in Rivia, Zoltan and I pondered over what to serve you. We racked our brains till all that racking made us want to piss, and then we went down to a little lakeside alder. We looked, and there were positively tons of snails. So we took a sack and caught a load of the dear molluscs, as many as we could stuff in it . . .’

‘A lot of them escaped,’ Zoltan Chivay nodded, ‘We were a tad drunk and they’re devilish fast.’

Again, both dwarves wept with laughter at another old chestnut.

‘Wirsing—’ Yarpen pointed at the innkeeper bustling around by the stove ‘—knows how to cook snails, and that, you ought to know, demands considerable arcane knowledge. He nonetheless is a born chef de cuisine. Before he became a widower he and his wife ran the roadhouse in Maribor with such a table that the king himself entertained guests there. We’ll soon be tucking in, I tell you!’

‘And before that,’ nodded Zoltan, ‘we’ll have a starter of freshly smoked whitefish caught on a gaff in the bottomless depths of this lake. And we’ll wash it down with hooch from the depths of the cellar.’

‘And the story, gentlemen,’ reminded Yarpen, pouring. ‘The story!’

*

The whitefish was still hot, oily and smelled of smoke from alder chips. The vodka was so cold it stung the teeth.

Dandelion spoke first; elaborately, fluently, colourfully and volubly, embellishing his tale with ornaments so beautiful and fanciful they almost obscured the fibs and confabulations.

Then the Witcher spoke. He spoke the same truth, and spoke so dryly, boringly and flatly that Dandelion couldn’t bear it and kept butting in, for which the dwarves reprimanded him.

And then the story was over and a lengthy silence fell.

‘To the archer Milva!’ Zoltan Chivay cleared his throat, saluting with his cup. ‘To the Nilfgaardian. To Regis the herbalist who entertained the travellers in his cottage with moonshine and mandrake. And to Angoulême, whom I never knew. May the earth lie lightly on them all. May they have in the beyond plenty of whatever they were short of on earth. And may their names live forever in songs and tales. Let’s drink to them.’

*

Wirsing, a grey-haired fellow, pale and as thin as a rake, the sheer opposite of the stereotype of an innkeeper and master of culinary secrets, brought to the table a basket of snow-white, aromatic bread, and after that a huge, wooden dish of snails on a bed of horseradish leaves, sizzling and spitting garlic butter. Dandelion, Geralt and the dwarves set about eating with a will. The meal was exquisitely tasty and at the same time extremely comical, considering the need to fiddle with bizarre tongs and little forks.

They ate, smacked their lips and caught the dripping butter on bread. They swore cheerfully as one snail after another slipped from the tongs. Two young kittens had great fun rolling and chasing the empty shells across the floor.

The smell coming from the kitchen indicated that Wirsing was cooking another batch.

*

Yarpen Zigrin reluctantly waved a hand, but realised that the Witcher wouldn’t give up.

‘Nothing new with me, by and large,’ he said, sucking out a shell. ‘A bit of soldiering . . . A bit of politicking, because I was elected vice-starosta. I’m going to make a career in politics. There’s great competition in every other trade. And there are no end of fools, bribe-takers and thieves in politics. It’s easy to make a name for yourself.’

‘While I don’t have a flair for politics,’ said Zoltan Chivay, gesticulating with a snail held in his tongs, ‘I’m setting up a steam and water hammer works, in partnership with Figgs Merluzzo and Munro Bruys. Remember them, Witcher, Figgs and Bruys?’

‘Not just them.’

‘Yazon Varda fell at the Battle of the Yaruga,’ Zoltan informed them dryly. ‘Pretty stupidly, in one of the last skirmishes.’

‘Shame. And Percival Schuttenbach?’

‘The gnome? Oh, he’s doing well. The crafty thing, he got out of the draft using some ancient gnomish laws as an excuse, claiming his religion forbad him from soldiering. And he managed it, even though everybody knows he’d give the whole pantheon of gods and goddesses for a marinated herring. He has a jeweller’s workshop in Novigrad. Do you know, he bought that parrot Field Marshal Duda and turned the bird into a living advertisement, after teaching it to call: “Diiiamonds, diiiamonds”. And just imagine, it works. The gnome has lots of custom, hands full of work and a well-stuffed safe. Yes, yes, that’s Novigrad! Money lies in the streets there. That’s also why we want to start our hammer works in Novigrad.’

‘People will be smearing shit on your door,’ said Yarpen. ‘And throwing stones at the windows. And calling you a filthy short-arse. It won’t help you at all that you’re a war veteran, that you fought for them. You’ll be a pariah in that Novigrad of yours.’

‘Be all right,’ said Zoltan cheerfully. ‘There’s too much competition in Mahakam. And too many politicians. Let’s drink a toast, lads. To Caleb Stratton. And Yazon Varda.’

‘To Regan Dahlberg,’ added Yarpen, growing gloomy. Geralt shook his head.

‘Regan too . . .’

‘Aye. At Mayena. Old Mrs Dahlberg was left a widow. Ah, by the devil, enough, enough of that, let’s drink. And hurry with those snails, I see Wirsing’s bringing another bowl!’

*

The dwarves, belts loosened, listened to Geralt’s story about how Dandelion’s ducal romance finished up on the scaffold. The poet pretended to be piqued and didn’t comment. Yarpen and Zoltan roared with laughter.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Yarpen Zigrin at the end, grinning. ‘As the old song goes: Though man can bend rods of steel, women will always bring him to heel. Several wonderful examples of the aptness of that adage are gathered around one table today. Zoltan Chivay springs to mind. When I told you what’s new with him, I forgot to add he’s taking a wife. And soon, in September. The lucky girl is called Eudora Brekekeks.’

‘Breckenriggs!’ Zoltan corrected emphatically, frowning. ‘I’m beginning to have enough of correcting your pronunciation, Zigrin. Take heed, for I’m liable to start cracking heads when I’ve had enough of something—!’

‘Where’s the wedding? And when exactly?’ Dandelion interrupted in mid-sentence placatingly. ‘I’m asking, because we might look in. If you invite us, naturally.’

‘It hasn’t been decided what, where or how, or even if it’s happening,’ Zoltan mumbled, clearly disconcerted. ‘Yarpen’s getting ahead of himself. Eudora and I are engaged, right enough, but who knows what might happen? In these fuck-awful times?’

‘The second example of woman’s omnipotence,’ continued Yarpen Zigrin, ‘is Geralt of Rivia, the Witcher.’

Geralt pretended to be occupied with a snail. Yarpen snorted.

‘Having miraculously regained Ciri,’ he continued, ‘he lets her ride off, agreeing to another farewell. He leaves her on her own again, although, as somebody here rightly observed, the times are not too peaceful, for fuck’s sake. And said witcher does all that because that’s what a certain woman wants. The Witcher always does everything that that woman – known to society as Yennefer of Vengerberg – wants. And if only said Witcher got any benefit from it. But he doesn’t. Indeed, as King Dezmod used to say when looking into his chamber pot after completing a motion, “The mind is unable to grasp it”.’

‘I suggest—’ Geralt raised his cup with a charming smile ‘—we drink up and change the subject.’

‘Well said,’ said Dandelion and Zoltan in unison.

*

Wirsing brought to the table a third, and then a fourth great bowl of snails. Neither did he forget, naturally, about the bread and vodka. The diners had now eaten their fill, so it was no surprise that toasts were being drunk somewhat more frequently. Neither was it a surprise that philosophy crept into the discourse more and more often.

*

‘The evil I fought against,’ repeated the Witcher, ‘was a sign of the activities of Chaos, activities calculated to disturb Order. Since wherever Evil is at large, Order may not reign, and everything Order builds collapses, cannot endure. The little light of wisdom and the flame of hope, the glow of warmth, instead of flaring up, go out. It’ll be dark. And in the darkness will be fangs, claws and blood.’

Yarpen Zigrin stroked his beard, greasy from the herb and garlic butter that had dripped from the snails.

‘Very prettily said, Witcher,’ he admitted. ‘But, as the young Cerro said to King Vridanek during their first tryst: “It’s not a bad-looking thing, but does it have any practical use?”’

‘The reason for existence—’ the Witcher didn’t smile ‘—and the raison d’être of witchers has been undermined, since the fight between Good and Evil is now being waged on a different battlefield and is being fought completely differently. Evil has stopped being chaotic. It has stopped being a blind and impetuous force, against which a witcher, a mutant as murderous and chaotic as Evil itself, had to act. Today Evil acts according to rights – because it is entitled to. It acts according to peace treaties, because it was taken into consideration when the treaties were being written . . .’

‘He’s seen the settlers being driven south,’ guessed Zoltan Chivay.

‘Not only that,’ Dandelion added grimly. ‘Not only that.’

‘So what?’ Yarpen Zigrin sat more comfortably, locking his hands on his belly. ‘Everyone’s seen things. Everybody’s been pissed off, everybody has lost his appetite for a shorter or a longer time. Or lost sleep. That’s how it is. That’s how it was. And how it’s going to be. Like these shells here, I swear you won’t squeeze any more philosophy out of it. Because there isn’t any more. What’s not to your liking, Witcher, what doesn’t suit you? The changes the world’s undergoing? Development? Progress?’

‘Perhaps.’

Yarpen said nothing for a long time, looking at the Witcher from under his bushy eyebrows.

‘Progress,’ he said finally, ‘is like a herd of pigs. That’s how you should look at progress, that’s how you should judge it. Like a herd of pigs trotting around a farmyard. Numerous benefits derive from the fact of that herd’s existence. There’s pork knuckle. There’s sausage, there’s fatback, there are trotters in aspic. In a word, there are benefits! There’s no point turning your nose up at the shit everywhere.’

They were all silent for some time, weighing up in their minds and consciences the various important issues and matters.

‘Let’s have a drink,’ said Dandelion finally.

No one protested.

*

‘Progress,’ said Yarpen Zigrin amidst the silence, ‘will eventually light up the darkness. The darkness will yield before the light. But not right away. And definitely not without a fight.’

Geralt, staring at the window, smiled at his own thoughts and dreams.

‘The darkness you’re talking about,’ he said, ‘is a state of mind, not matter. Quite different witchers will have to be trained to fight something like that. It’s high time to start.’

‘Start retraining? Is that what you had in mind?’

‘Not entirely. Being a witcher doesn’t interest me any longer. I’m retiring.’

‘Like hell!’

‘I’m totally serious. I’m done with being a witcher.’

A long silence fell, broken only by the furious meowing of the kittens which were scratching and biting one another under the table, faithful to the custom of that species, for whom there’s no sport without pain.

‘He’s done with being a witcher,’ Yarpen Zigrin finally repeated in a drawling voice. ‘Ha! I don’t know what to think about it, as King Dezmod said when he was caught cheating at cards. But one may suspect the worse. Dandelion, you travel with him, spend a lot of time with him. Is he showing any other signs of paranoia?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Geralt was stony-faced. ‘Joking aside, as King Dezmod said when the guests at the banquet suddenly began to go blue and die. I’ve said what I intended to say. And now to action.’

He picked up his sword from the back of the chair.

‘This is your sihill, Zoltan Chivay. I return it to you with thanks and a low bow. It has served. It has helped. Saved lives. And taken lives.’

‘Witcher . . .’ The dwarf raised his hands in a defensive gesture. ‘The sword is yours. I didn’t lend it to you, I gave it. Gifts—’

‘Quiet, Chivay. I’m returning your sword. I won’t need it any longer.’

‘Like hell,’ repeated Yarpen. ‘Pour him some vodka, Dandelion, because he sounds like old Schrader when a pickaxe fell on his head down a mine shaft. Geralt, I know you have a profound nature and a lofty soul, but don’t talk such crap, please, because, as it’s easy to see, neither Yennefer nor any other of your magical concubines are in the audience; just us old buggers. You can’t tell old buggers like us that your sword’s not needed, that witchers aren’t needed, that the world’s rotten, that this, that and the other. You’re a witcher and always will be—’

‘No, I won’t,’ Geralt responded mildly. ‘It may surprise you old buggers, but I’ve come to the conclusion that pissing into the wind is stupid. That risking your neck for anybody is stupid. Even if they’re paying. And existential philosophy has nothing to do with it. You won’t believe it, but my own skin has suddenly become extremely dear to me. I’ve come to the conclusion it would be foolish to risk it in someone else’s defence.’

‘I’ve noticed.’ Dandelion nodded. ‘On one hand that’s wise. On the other—’

‘There is no other.’

‘Do Yennefer and Ciri,’ Yarpen asked after a short pause, ‘have anything to do with your decision?’

‘A great deal.’

‘Then everything’s clear,’ sighed the dwarf. ‘Admittedly, I don’t exactly know how you, a professional swordsman, intend to sustain yourself and intend to organise your worldly existence. Even though, however you slice it, I can’t see you in the role of, let’s say, a cabbage planter, nonetheless one must respect your choice. Innkeeper, if you’d be so kind! This is a Mahakam sihill sword from the very forge of Rhundurin. It was a gift. The receiver doesn’t want it, the giver may not take it back. So you take it, fasten it above the fireplace. Change the name of the tavern to The Witcher’s Sword. May tales of treasure and monsters, of bloody wars and fierce battles, of death, be told here on winter evenings. Of great love and unfailing friendship. Of courage and honour. May this sword cheer up the listeners and inspire the storytellers. And now pour me vodka, gentlemen, for I shall continue talking, shall present profound truths and diverse philosophies, including existential ones.’

The cups were filled with vodka silently and solemnly. They looked into each other’s eyes and drank. No less solemnly. Yarpen Zigrin cleared his throat, swept his eyes over his audience and made certain they were sufficiently rapt and solemn.

‘Progress,’ he said with reverence. ‘will lighten up the gloom, for that is what progress is for, as – if you’ll pardon me – the arsehole is for shitting. It will be brighter and brighter, and we shall fear less and less the darkness and the Evil hidden in it. And a day will come, perhaps, when we shall stop believing at all that something is lurking in the darkness. We shall laugh at such fears. Call them childish. Be ashamed of them! But darkness will always, always exist. And there will always be Evil in the darkness, always be fangs and claws, death and blood in the darkness. And witchers will always be needed.’

*

They sat in reflection and silence, so deeply plunged in their thoughts that the suddenly increasing murmur and noise of the town – angry, baleful, intensifying like the buzzing of annoyed wasps – escaped their attention.

They barely noticed as a first, a second and a third shape stole along the silent and empty lakeside boulevard.

Just as a roar exploded over the town, the door to Wirsing’s inn slammed wide open and a small dwarf rushed in, red from effort and panting heavily.

‘What is it?’ Yarpen Zigrin lifted his head.

The dwarf, still unable to catch his breath, pointed towards the town centre. His eyes were frantic.

‘Take a deep breath,’ advised Zoltan Chivay, ‘and tell us what’s going on.’

*

It was later said that the tragic events in Rivia were an absolutely chance occurrence, that it was a spontaneous reaction, a sudden and unpredictable explosion of justified anger, springing from the mutual hostility and dislike between humans, dwarves and elves. It was said that it wasn’t the humans, but the dwarves who attacked first, that the aggression came from them. That a dwarven market trader had insulted a young noblewoman, Nadia Esposito, a war orphan, that he had used violence against her. When, then, her friends came to her defence, the dwarf mustered his fellows. A scuffle broke out and then a fight, which took over the whole bazaar in an instant. The fight turned into a massacre, into a massed attack by humans on the part of the suburbs occupied by non-humans and the district of Elm. In less than an hour, from the time of the incident at the bazaar to the intervention by sorcerers, a hundred and eighty-four individuals had been killed, and almost half of the victims were women and children.

Professor Emmerich Gottschalk of Oxenfurt gives the same version of events in his dissertation.

But there were also those who said something different. How could it have been spontaneous, how could it have been a sudden and unforeseeable explosion, they asked, if in the course of a few minutes from the altercation at the bazaar, wagons had appeared in the streets from which people began to hand out weapons? How could it have been sudden and justified anger if the ringleaders of the mob – who were the most visible and active during the massacre – were people no one knew, and who had arrived in Rivia several days before the riots, from God knows where? And afterwards vanished without trace? Why did the army intervene so late? And so tentatively at first?

Still other scholars tried to identify Nilfgaardian provocation in the Rivian riots, and there were those who claimed it was all concocted by the dwarves and elves together. That they had killed each other to blacken the name of the humans.

Utterly lost among the serious academic voices was the extremely bold theory of a certain young and eccentric graduate, who – until he was silenced – claimed that it was not conspiracies or secret plots that had manifested themselves in Rivia, but the simple and indeed universal traits of the local people: ignorance, xenophobia, callous boorishness and thorough brutishness.

And then everybody lost interest in the matter and stopped talking about it at all.

*

‘Into the cellar!’ repeated the Witcher, anxiously listening to the quickly growing roar and yelling of the mob. ‘Dwarves into the cellar! Without any stupid heroics!’

‘Witcher,’ Zoltan grunted, clenching the haft of his battle axe. ‘I can’t . . . My brothers are dying out there . . .’

‘Into the cellar. Think about Eudora Brekekeks. Do you want her to be a widow before her wedding?’

The argument worked. The dwarves went down into the cellar. Geralt and Dandelion covered the entrance with straw mats. Wirsing, who was usually pale, was now white as cottage cheese.

‘I saw a pogrom in Maribor,’ he stammered out, looking at the entrance to the cellar. ‘If they find them there . . .’

‘Go to the kitchen.’

Dandelion was also pale. Geralt wasn’t especially surprised. Individual accents were sounding in the hitherto indistinct and monotonous roar that reached their ears. Notes that made the hair stand up on their heads.

‘Geralt,’ groaned the poet. ‘I’m somewhat similar to an elf . . .’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

Clouds of smoke billowed above the rooftops. And fugitives dashed out of a narrow street. Dwarves. Of both sexes.

Two dwarves dived into the lake without thinking and began to swim, churning up the water, straight ahead towards the middle. The others dispersed. Some of them turned towards the tavern.

The mob rushed out of the narrow street. They were quicker than the dwarves. Lust for slaughter was winning out in this race.

The screaming of people being killed pierced the ears and made the coloured glass in the tavern’s windows jingle. Geralt felt his hands begin to shake.

One dwarf was literally torn apart, rent into pieces. Another, thrown onto the ground, was turned into a shapeless, bloody mass in a few moments. A woman was stabbed with pitchforks and pikes, and the child she had defended until the end was trampled, crushed under the blows of boot heels.

Three of them – a dwarf and two dwarf women – fled straight towards the tavern. The crowd raced after them, yelling.

Geralt took a deep breath. He stood up. Feeling on him the terrified eyes of Dandelion and Wirsing, he took the sihill, the sword wrought in Mahakam, in the very forge of Rhundurin, down from the shelf over the fireplace.

‘Geralt . . .’ the poet groaned pathetically.

‘Very well,’ said the Witcher, walking towards the exit. ‘But this is the last time! Dammit, it really is the last time!’

He went out onto the porch and jumped straight down from it, filleting with a rapid slash a roughneck in bricklayer’s overalls who was aiming a blow with a trowel at a woman. He cut off the hand of the next one, who was grasping the hair of another woman. He hacked down two men kicking a dwarf on the ground with two swift, diagonal slashes.

And he entered the crowd quickly, spinning around in half-turns. He cut with wide blows, apparently chaotically – knowing that such strokes are bloodier and more spectacular. He didn’t mean to kill them. He just wanted to wound them.

‘He’s an elf! He’s an elf!’ yelled someone in the mob savagely. ‘Kill the elf!’

That’s going too far, he thought. Dandelion perhaps, but I don’t resemble an elf in any way.

He spotted the one who had shouted, probably a soldier, because he was wearing a brigantine and high boots. The Witcher wormed his way into the crowd like an eel. The soldier shielded himself with a javelin held in both hands. Geralt cut along the shaft, chopping off the soldier’s fingers. The Witcher whirled, bringing forth shrieks of pain and fountains of blood with the next broad stroke.

‘Mercy!’ an unkempt young man with crazy eyes fell on his knees in front of him. ‘Spare me!’

Geralt spared him, stopped the movement of his arm and sword, using the momentum intended for the blow to spin away. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the unkempt youth spring to his feet and saw what he was holding. Geralt interrupted the turn to spin back the other way. But he was stuck in the crowd. He was stuck in the crowd for a split second.

All he could do was watch as the three-fanged fork flew towards him.

*

The fire in the grate of the huge hearth went out, and it grew dark in the hall. The strong wind gusting from the mountains whistled in the cracks in the walls, wailed, blowing in through the draughty shutters of Kaer Morhen, the Seat of the Witchers.

‘Dammit!’ Eskel blurted out, stood up and opened the sideboard. ‘“Seagull” or vodka?’

‘Vodka,’ said Coën and Geralt as one.

‘Of course,’ said Vesemir, hidden in the shadows. ‘Of course, naturally! Drown your stupidity in booze. Sodding fools!’

‘It was an accident . . .’ muttered Lambert. ‘She was managing well on the comb.’

‘Shut your trap, you ass! I don’t want to hear your voice! I tell you, if anything’s the matter with the girl—’

‘She’s good now,’ Coën interrupted gently. ‘She’s sleeping peacefully. Deeply and soundly. She’ll wake up a bit sore, and that’s all. She won’t remember at all about the trance or what happened.’

‘As long as you remember!’ panted Vesemir. ‘Blockheads! Pour me one too, Eskel.’

They were silent for a long time, engrossed in the howling of the wind.

‘We’ll have to summon someone,’ said Eskel finally. ‘We’ll have to get some witch to come. It’s not normal what’s happening to that girl.’

‘That’s the third trance already.’

‘But it’s the first time she’s used articulated speech . . .’

‘Tell me again what she said,’ ordered Vesemir, emptying the goblet in one draught. ‘Word for word.’

‘I can’t tell you word for word,’ said Geralt, staring into the embers. ‘And the meaning, if there’s any point looking for meaning in it was: me and Coën are going to die. Teeth will be our undoing. We’ll both be killed by teeth. In his case two. In mine three.’

‘It’s quite likely we’ll be bitten to death,’ snorted Lambert, ‘Teeth could be the downfall of any of us at any moment. Although if that prediction is a real prophecy you two will be finished off by some extremely gap-toothed monsters.’

‘Or by purulent gangrene from rotten teeth,’ Eskel nodded, apparently serious. ‘Except our teeth aren’t rotting.’

‘I wouldn’t make fun of the matter,’ said Vesemir.

The witchers said nothing.

The wind howled and whistled in the walls of Kaer Morhen.

*

The unkempt young man, as though horrified by what he’d done, dropped the shaft. The Witcher cried out in pain in spite of himself and bent over. The trident sticking into his stomach overbalanced him and when he fell onto his knees, it slid out of his body and fell onto the cobbles. Blood poured out with a swoosh and a splash worthy of a waterfall.

Geralt tried to rise from his knees. Instead, he fell over on his side.

The sounds around him resonated and echoed. He heard them as though his head was under water. His vision was also blurred, with distorted perspective and totally false geometry.

But he saw the crowd take flight. Saw them run from the relief. From Zoltan and Yarpen holding battle axes, Wirsing holding a meat cleaver and Dandelion armed with a broom.

Stop, he wanted to cry, where are you going? It’s enough that I always piss into the wind.

But he couldn’t cry out. His voice was choked by a gush of blood.

*

It was getting towards noon when the sorceresses reached Rivia. Down below, viewed from the perspective of the highway, the surface of Loch Eskalott glittered with the sparkling reflections of the castle’s red tiles and the town’s roofs.

‘Well, we’ve arrived,’ stated Yennefer. ‘Rivia! Ha, how strange are the twists of fate.’

Ciri, who had been excited for a long time, made Kelpie dance and take short steps. Triss Merigold sighed imperceptibly. At least she thought it was imperceptible.

‘Well, well.’ Yennefer glared at her. ‘What strange sounds are lifting your virgin breast, Triss. Ciri, ride on ahead and see if you’re already there.’

Triss turned her face away, determined not to provoke or give any pretext. She wasn’t counting on a result. For a long time she had sensed the anger and aggression in Yennefer getting stronger the closer they got to Rivia.

‘You, Triss,’ Yennefer repeated scathingly. ‘Don’t blush, don’t sigh, don’t slaver and don’t wiggle your bum in the saddle. Do you think that’s why I yielded to your request, agreed to you coming with us? For a languorously blissful meeting with your erstwhile sweetheart? Ciri, I asked you to ride on ahead a little! Let us have a talk!’

‘It’s a monologue, not a talk,’ said Ciri impertinently, but she yielded at once under the menacing violet glare, whistled at Kelpie and galloped down the highway.

‘You aren’t riding to a rendezvous with your lover, Triss,’ Yennefer continued. ‘I’m neither so noble, nor so stupid as to give you the chance and him the temptation. Just this once, today, and then I’ll make sure that neither of you has any temptations or opportunities. But today I won’t deny myself that sweet and perverted pleasure. He knows about the role you played. And will thank you for it with his eyes. And I shall look at your trembling lips and shaking hands, listen to your lame apologies and excuses. And do you know what, Triss? I’ll be swooning with delight.’

‘I knew you wouldn’t forget what I did, that you would take your revenge,’ muttered Triss. ‘I accept that, because I was indeed to blame. But I have to tell you one thing, Yennefer. Don’t count too much on my swooning. He knows how to forgive.’

‘For what was done to him, indeed.’ Yennefer squinted her eyes. ‘But he’ll never forgive you for what was done to Ciri. And to me.’

‘Maybe,’ Triss swallowed. ‘Maybe he won’t. Particularly if you do your utmost to stop him. But he definitely won’t bully me. He won’t stoop to that.’

Yennefer swiped her horse with her whip. The horse whinnied, jumped and cavorted so suddenly that the sorceress swayed in the saddle.

‘That’s enough of this discussion!’ she snapped. ‘A little more humility, you arrogant slut! He’s my man, mine and only mine! Do you understand? You’re to stop talking about him, you’re to stop thinking about him, you’re to stop delighting in his noble character . . . Right away, at once! Oh, I feel like grabbing you by that ginger mop of hair—’

‘Just you try!’ yelled Triss. ‘Just try, you bitch, and I’ll scratch your eyes out! I—’

They fell silent, seeing Ciri hurtling towards them in a cloud of dust. They knew right away that something was afoot. And saw at once what it was. Before Ciri even reached them.

Tongues of flame suddenly shot up over the thatched roofs of the now nearby suburbs and over the tiles and chimneys of the city, and smoke belched in billows. Screaming, like the distant buzzing of annoying flies, like the droning of angry bumblebees, reached the sorceresses’ ears. The screaming grew, it increased, counterpointed by single high-pitched cries.

‘What the bloody hell is going on there?’ Yennefer stood up in the stirrups. ‘A raid? A fire?’

‘Geralt . . .’ Ciri suddenly groaned, becoming as white as vellum. ‘Geralt!’

‘Ciri? What’s the matter with you?’

Ciri raised her hand, and the sorceresses saw blood dribbling over it. Along the life-line.

‘The circle has closed,’ said the girl, closing her eyes. ‘A thorn from Shaerrawedd pricked me, and the snake Ouroboros has sunk its teeth into its own tail. I’m coming, Geralt! I’m coming to you! I won’t leave you alone!’

Before either of the sorceresses had time to protest, the girl had turned Kelpie around and galloped off at once.

They had enough presence of mind to immediately urge their own horses into a gallop. But their steeds were no match for Kelpie.

‘What is it?’ screamed Yennefer, gulping the wind. ‘What’s happening?’

‘But you know!’ sobbed Triss, galloping beside her. ‘Fly, Yennefer!’

Before they had dashed among the shacks of the suburbs, before they were passed by the first fugitives fleeing the town, Yennefer already had a clear enough picture of the situation to know that what was happening in Rivia wasn’t a fire, or a raid by enemy troops, but a pogrom. She also knew what Ciri had felt, where – and to whom – she was rushing so quickly. She also knew she couldn’t catch up with her. There was no chance. Kelpie had simply jumped over the panicked people crushed together into a crowd knocking off several hats and caps with her hooves. She and Triss had had to rein in their steeds so abruptly they almost tumbled over their horses’ heads.

‘Ciri! Stop!’

They suddenly found themselves amidst narrow streets full of the running and wailing mob. As she passed, Yennefer noticed bodies lying in the gutters, saw corpses hanging by their legs from posts and beams. She saw a dwarf lying on the ground being kicked and beaten with sticks, saw another being battered with the necks of broken bottles. She heard the shouts of the assailants, the screaming and howling of the beaten. She saw a throng clustering around a woman who had been thrown from a window and the glint of metal bars rising and falling.

The crowd closed in, the roar intensified. It seemed to the sorceresses that the distance between them and Ciri had shortened. The next obstacle in Kelpie’s way was a small group of disorientated halberdiers, whom the black mare treated like a fence and jumped over, knocking a flat kettle hat off one of them. The others simply squatted down in fear.

They burst into a square at full gallop. It was black with people. And smoke. Yennefer realised that Ciri, unerringly led by her prophetic vision, was heading for the very heart, the very centre of events. To the very core of the conflagrations, where murder was rampaging.

For a battle was raging in the street she had turned towards. Dwarves and elves were fiercely defending a makeshift barricade, defending a lost position, falling and dying under the pressure of the howling rabble attacking them. Ciri screamed and pressed herself to her horse’s neck. Kelpie took off and flew over the barricade, not like a horse, but like a huge black bird.

Yennefer rode into the crowd and reined her horse in sharply, knocking a few people over. She was dragged from the saddle before she managed to yell. She was hit on the shoulders, on the back, and on the back of her head. She fell onto her knees and saw an unshaven character in a shoemaker’s apron preparing to kick her.

Yennefer had had enough of people kicking her.

From her spread fingers shot pale blue, hissing fire, cutting like a horsewhip the faces, torsos and arms of the people surrounding her. There was a stench of burning flesh and for a moment howling and squealing rose above the general commotion and hullabaloo.

‘Witch! Elven witch! Enchantress!’

The next character leaped at her with a raised axe. Yennefer shot fire straight in his face. His eyeballs burst, seethed and spilled out onto his cheeks with a hiss.

The crowd thinned out. Someone grabbed her by the arm, and she recoiled, ready to fire, but it was Triss.

‘Let’s flee from here . . . Yenna . . . Flee . . . from here . . .’

I’ve heard her talking in a voice like that before, flashed a thought through Yennefer’s head. With lips like wood that not even a droplet of saliva can moisten. Lips that fear paralyses, that panic makes tremble.

I heard her talking in a voice like that. On Sodden Hill.

When she was dying of fear.

Now she’s dying of fear too. She’s going to die of fear her whole life. For whoever doesn’t overcome the cowardice inside themselves will die of fear to the end of their days.

The fingers that Triss dug into her arm seemed to be made of steel, and Yennefer only freed herself from their grasp with the greatest of effort.

‘Flee if you want to!’ she cried. ‘Hide behind the skirts of your Lodge! I have something to defend! I shan’t leave Ciri alone. Or Geralt! Get away, you rabble! Out of the way if you value your lives!’

The crowd separating her from her horse retreated before the lightning bolts shooting from the sorceress’s eyes and hands. Yennefer tossed her head, ruffling up her black locks. She looked like fury incarnate, like an angel of destruction, a punishing angel of destruction with a flaming sword.

‘Begone, get you home, you swine!’ she yelled, lashing the rabble with a flaming whip. ‘Begone! Or I’ll brand you with fire like cattle.’

‘It’s only one witch, people!’ a resonant and metallic voice sounded from the crowd. ‘A single bloody elven spell-caster!’

‘She’s alone! The other bolted! Hey, children, take up stones!’

‘Death to the non-humans! Woe betide the witch!’

‘To her confusion!’

The first stone whistled past her ear. The second thudded into her arm, making her stagger. The third hit her directly in the face. First the pain exploded intensely in her eyes, then wrapped everything in black velvet.

*

She came to, groaning in pain. Pain shot through both her forearms and wrists. She groped involuntarily, felt the thick layers of bandage. She groaned again, dully, despairingly. Sorry that it wasn’t a dream. And sorry that she’d failed.

‘You didn’t succeed,’ said Tissaia de Vries, sitting beside the bed.

Yennefer was thirsty. She wanted somebody to at least moisten her lips, which were covered in a sticky coating. But she didn’t ask. Her pride wouldn’t let her.

‘You didn’t succeed,’ repeated Tissaia de Vries. ‘But not because you didn’t try hard. You cut well and deep. That’s why I am here with you. Had it only been silly games, had it been a foolish, irresponsible demonstration, I would have nothing but contempt for you. But you cut deeply. Purposefully.’

Yennefer looked at the ceiling vacantly.

‘I shall take care of you, girl. Because I believe it’s worth it. And it’ll require a good deal of work, oh, but it will. I’ll not only have to straighten your spine and shoulder blade, but also heal your hands. When you slit your wrists you severed the tendons. And a sorceress’s hands are important instruments, Yennefer.’

Moisture on her mouth. Water.

‘You shall live,’ Tissaia’s voice was matter-of-fact, grave, stern even. ‘Your time has not yet come. When it does, you will recall this day.’

Yennefer greedily sucked the moisture from a stick wrapped in a wet bandage.

‘I shall take care of you,’ Tissaia de Vries repeated, gently touching her hair. ‘And now . . . We are alone here. Without witnesses. No one will see and I shan’t tell anyone. Weep, girl. Have a good cry. Weep your heart out for the last time. For later you won’t be able to. There isn’t a more hideous sight than a sorceress weeping.’

*

She came to, hawked and coughed up blood. Someone was dragging her across the ground. It was Triss, she recognised her by the scent of her perfume. Not far from them iron-shod hooves rang on the cobbles and yelling resounded. Yennefer saw a rider in full armour, in a white surcoat with a red chevron, pummelling the crowd with a bullwhip from a high lancer’s saddle. The stones being hurled by the mob bounced harmlessly off his armour and visor. The horse neighed, thrashed around and kicked.

Yennefer felt she had a great potato instead of her upper lip. At least one front tooth had been broken or knocked out and was cutting her tongue painfully.

‘Triss . . .’ she gibbered. ‘Teleport us out of here!’

‘No, Yennefer,’ Triss’s voice was very calm. And very cold.

‘They’ll kill us . . .’

‘No, Yennefer. I shan’t run away. I shan’t hide behind the Lodge’s skirts. And don’t worry, I shan’t faint from fear like I did at Sodden. I shall vanquish it inside me. I’ve already vanquished it!’

A great pile of compost, dung and waste in a recess of moss-covered walls rose up near the exit of the narrow street. It was a magnificent pile. A hill, one could say.

The crowd had finally succeeded in seizing and immobilising the knight and his horse. He was knocked to the ground with a terrible thud and the mob crawled over him like lice, covering him in a moving layer.

After hauling Yennefer up, Triss stood on the top of the pile of garbage and raised her arms in the air. She screamed out a spell; screamed it out with true fury. So piercingly that the crowd fell silent for a split second.

‘They’ll kill us,’ Yennefer spat blood. ‘As sure as anything . . .’

‘Help me.’ Triss interrupted the incantation for a moment. ‘Help me, Yennefer. We’ll cast Alzur’s Thunder at them.’

And we’ll kill about five of them, thought Yennefer. Then the rest will tear us to pieces. But very well, Triss, as you wish. If you don’t run away, you won’t see me running away.

She joined in the incantation. The two of them screamed.

The crowd stared at them for a second, but quickly came to their senses. Stones whistled around the sorceresses again. A javelin flew just beside Triss’s temple. Triss didn’t even flinch.

It isn’t working at all, thought Yennefer, our spell isn’t working at all. We don’t have a chance of casting anything as complicated as Alzur’s Thunder. Alzur, it is claimed, had a voice like a bell and the diction of an orator. And we’re squeaking and mumbling, mixing up the words and the intonation pattern.

She was ready to interrupt the chant and concentrate the rest of her strength on some other spell, capable either of teleporting them both away, or treating the charging rabble – for a split second at least – to something unpleasant. But it turned out there was no need.

The sky suddenly darkened and clouds teemed above the town. It became devilishly sombre. And there was a cold wind.

‘Oh my,’ Yennefer groaned. ‘I think we’ve stirred something up.’

*

‘Merigold’s Destructive Hailstorm,’ repeated Nimue. ‘Actually that name is used illegally. The spell was never registered, because no one ever managed to repeat it after Triss Merigold. For mundane reasons. Triss’s mouth was cut and she was speaking indistinctly. Malicious people claim, furthermore, that her tongue was faltering from fear.’

‘It’s hard to believe that.’ Condwiramurs pouted her lips. ‘There’s no shortage of examples of the Venerable Triss’s valour and courage; some chronicles even call her “the Fearless”. But I want to ask about something else. One of the legend’s versions says that Triss wasn’t alone on the Rivian Hill. That Yennefer was there with her.’

Nimue looked at the watercolour portraying the steep, black, razor-sharp hill against a background of deep blue clouds lit from below. The slender figure of a woman with arms outstretched and hair streaming around was visible on the hill’s summit.

The rhythmic rattle of the Fisher King’s oars reached them from the fog covering the surface of the water.

‘If anyone was there with Triss, they didn’t endure in the artist’s vision,’ said the Lady of the Lake.

*

‘Oh, what a mess,’ Yennefer repeated. ‘Look out, Triss!’

In a moment, hailstones, angular balls of ice the size of hen’s eggs, plummeted onto the town from the black cloud billowing above Rivia. They fell so heavily that the entire square was immediately covered in a thick layer. There was a sudden surge in the throng, people fell, covering their heads, they crawled one under the other, ran away, falling over, crowding into doorways and under arcades, and cowering by walls. Not all of them were successful. Some remained, lying like fish on the ice, which was copiously stained with blood.

The hailstones pelted down so hard that the magical shield Yennefer had managed to conjure up over their heads almost at the last moment trembled and threatened to break. She didn’t even try any other spells. She knew that what they had triggered could not be halted, that they had unleashed by accident an element that had to run riot, that they had freed a force that had to reach a climax. And would soon reach that climax.

At least so she hoped.

Lightning flashed. There was a sudden peal of thunder, which rumbled on, and then gave a crack. Making the ground tremble. The hail lashed the roofs and cobblestones; fragments of shattering hailstones flew all around.

The sky brightened up a little. The sun shone. A ray breaking through the clouds lashed the town like a horsewhip. Something escaped Triss’s lips; neither a groan nor a sob.

The hail was still falling, hammering down, covering the square in a thick layer of icy balls gleaming like diamonds. But now the hail was lighter and more patchy, Yennefer could tell from the change in the thudding on the magical shield. And then it stopped. All at once. All of a sudden. Armed men rushed into the square, iron-shod hooves crunched on the ice. The mob roared and fled, whipped by knouts, struck by spear shafts and the flats of swords.

‘Bravo, Triss,’ Yennefer croaked. ‘I don’t know what that was . . . But you did a nice job.’

‘There was something worth defending,’ croaked Triss Merigold. The heroine of the hill.

‘There always is. Let’s run, Triss. Because it probably isn’t over yet.’

*

It was over. The hail that the sorceresses had unleashed on the town cooled down hot heads. Enough for the army to dare to strike and bring order. The soldiers had been afraid before. They knew what they were risking with an attack on the enraged mob, on a rabble drunk on blood and killing that feared nothing and would retreat before nothing. But the explosion of the elements had brought the cruel, many-headed beast under control and a charge by the army accomplished the rest.

The hailstones had caused awful havoc in the town. And a man who a moment earlier had beaten a dwarf woman to death with a swingletree and shattered her child’s head against a wall was now sobbing, was now weeping, was now swallowing back tears and snot, looking at what was left of the roof of his house.

Peace reigned in Rivia. Were it not for the almost two hundred mutilated corpses and a dozen burned down homesteads, one might think nothing had happened. In the district of Elm, on Loch Eskalott, over which the gorgeous arc of a rainbow was shining, weeping willows were reflected beautifully in the smooth, mirror-like water, birds had resumed their singing and it smelt of wet foliage. Everything looked pastoral. Even the Witcher, lying in a pool of blood with Ciri kneeling over him.

*

Geralt was unconscious and as white as a sheet. He lay motionless, but when they stood over him he began to cough, wheeze and spit blood. He began to shake and tremble so hard Ciri couldn’t stop him. Yennefer kneeled down beside her. Triss saw that her hands were shaking. She herself suddenly felt as weak as a kitten, and everything went black. Someone held her up, stopped her from falling. She recognised Dandelion.

‘It’s not working at all.’ She heard Ciri’s voice emanating despair. ‘Your magic isn’t healing him at all, Yennefer.’

‘We arrived . . .’ Yennefer had difficulty moving her lips. ‘We arrived too late.’

‘Your magic’s not working,’ Ciri repeated, as though she hadn’t heard her. ‘What’s it worth then, your confounded magic?’

You’re right, Ciri, thought Triss, feeling a lump in her throat. We know how to cause a hailstorm, but we can’t drive death away. Although the latter would seem to be easier.

‘We’ve sent for a physician,’ said the dwarf standing beside Dandelion hoarsely. ‘But he’s taking his time . . .’

‘It’s too late for a physician,’ said Triss, surprising herself by the calm in her voice. ‘He’s dying.’

Geralt trembled once more, coughed up blood, tensed and went still. Dandelion, supporting Triss, sighed in despair and the dwarf swore. Yennefer groaned. Her face suddenly changed, contorted and grew ugly.

‘There’s nothing more pathetic,’ Ciri said sharply, ‘than a weeping sorceress. You taught me that yourself. But now you’re pathetic, really pathetic, Yennefer. You and your magic, which isn’t fit for anything.’

Yennefer didn’t respond. She was holding Geralt’s limp, paralysed head in both hands and repeating spells, her voice quavering. Pale blue sparks and crackling glimmers danced over her hands and the Witcher’s cheeks and forehead. Triss knew how much energy spells like that used up. She also knew the spells wouldn’t help in any way. She was more than certain that even the spells of expert healers would have been powerless. It was too late. Yennefer’s spells were only exhausting her. Triss was amazed that the black-haired sorceress was holding out so long.

She stopped being amazed, when Yennefer fell silent halfway through the next magical formula and slumped down onto the cobbles beside the Witcher.

One of the dwarves swore again. The other stood with head lowered. Dandelion, still holding Triss up, sniffed.

It suddenly became very cold. The surface of the lake filled with fog like a sorceress’s cauldron, became enveloped in mist. The fog rose swiftly, billowed over the water and rolled onto the land in waves, enveloping everything in a thick, white milk in which sounds grew quieter and died away, in which shapes vanished and forms blurred.

‘And I once renounced my power,’ said Ciri slowly, still kneeling on the blood-soaked cobbles. ‘Had I not renounced it I would have saved him now. I would have healed him, I know it. But it’s too late. I renounced it and now I can’t do anything. It’s as though I’ve killed him.’

The silence was first interrupted by Kelpie’s loud neighing. Then by Dandelion’s muffled cry.

Then they were all struck dumb.

*

A white unicorn emerged from the fog, running very lightly, ethereally and noiselessly, gracefully raising its shapely head. There actually wasn’t anything unusual in that – everybody knew the legends, and they were unanimous about unicorns running very lightly, ethereally and noiselessly and raising their heads with characteristic grace. If anything was strange it was that the unicorn was running over the surface of the water and the water wasn’t even rippling.

Dandelion groaned, but this time in awe. Triss felt herself being seized by a thrill. By euphoria.

The unicorn clattered its hooves on the stone boulevard. It shook its mane. And neighed lengthily and melodically.

‘Ihuarraquax,’ said Ciri. ‘I’d hoped you’d come.’

The unicorn came closer, neighed again, tapped with a hoof and then struck the cobbles hard. He bent his head. The horn sticking out of his domed forehead suddenly lit up with a bright glare, a brilliance that dispersed the fog for a moment.

Ciri touched the horn.

Triss cried out softly, seeing the girl’s eyes suddenly lighting up with a milky glow, saw her surrounded by a fiery halo. Ciri couldn’t hear her, couldn’t hear anyone. She was still holding the unicorn’s horn in one hand, and pointed the other towards the motionless Witcher. A ribbon of flickering brightness that glowed like lava flowed from her fingers.

*

No one could tell how long it lasted. Because it was unreal.

Like a dream.

*

The unicorn, almost blurring in the thickening fog, neighed, struck its hoof, and shook its head and horn, as though pointing at something. Triss looked. She saw a dark shape on the water under the canopy of willow branches hanging over the lake. It was a boat.

The unicorn pointed again with its horn. And quickly began to vanish into the mist.

‘Kelpie,’ said Ciri. ‘Follow him.’

Kelpie snorted. And tossed her head. She followed the unicorn obediently. Her horseshoes rang on the cobbles for a while. Then the sound suddenly broke off. As though the mare had taken wing, disappeared, dematerialised.

The boat was beside the very bank, and in the moments when the fog dispersed Triss could see it clearly. It was a primitively constructed barge, as clumsy and angular as a large pig trough.

‘Help me,’ said Ciri. Her voice was confident and determined.

No one knew at the beginning what the girl meant, what help she was expecting. Dandelion was the first to understand. Perhaps because he knew the legend, had once read one of its poeticized versions. He picked up the still unconscious Yennefer. He was astonished at how dainty and light she was. He could have sworn somebody was helping him carry her. He could have sworn he could feel Cahir’s shoulder beside his arm. Out of the corner of one eye he caught sight of a flash of Milva’s flaxen plait. When he placed the sorceress in the boat he could have sworn he saw Angoulême’s hands steadying the side.

The dwarves carried the Witcher, helped by Triss, who was supporting his head. Yarpen Zigrin positively blinked on seeing both Dahlberg brothers for a second. Zoltan Chivay could have sworn that Caleb Stratton had helped him lay the Witcher in the boat. Triss Merigold was absolutely certain she could smell the perfume of Lytta Neyd, also called Coral. And for a moment she saw amidst the haze the bright, yellow-green eyes of Coën from Kaer Morhen.

That was the kind of tricks played on the senses by the fog, the thick fog over Loch Eskalott.

‘It’s ready, Ciri,’ the sorceress said dully. ‘Your boat is waiting.’

Ciri brushed her hair back from her forehead and sniffed.

‘Apologise to the ladies of Montecalvo, Triss,’ she said. ‘But it can’t be otherwise. I cannot stay when Geralt and Yennefer are departing. I simply cannot. They ought to understand.’

‘They ought to.’

‘Farewell then, Triss Merigold. Farewell, Dandelion. Farewell all of you.’

‘Ciri,’ whispered Triss. ‘Little sister . . . Let me sail away with you . . .’

‘You don’t know what you’re asking, Triss.’

‘Will you ever—?’

‘For certain,’ she interrupted firmly.

She boarded the boat, which rocked and immediately began to sail away. To fade into the fog. Those that were standing on the bank didn’t hear even the merest splash, didn’t see any ripples or movements of the water. As though it wasn’t a boat but an apparition.

For a very short time they could still see Ciri’s slight and ethereal silhouette, saw her push off from the bottom with a long pole, saw her urge on the already quickly gliding barge.

And then there was only the fog.

She lied to me, thought Triss. I’ll never see her again. I’ll never see her, because . . . Vaesse deireadh aep eigean. Something ends . . .

‘Something has ended,’ said Dandelion in an altered voice.

‘Something is beginning,’ Yarpen Zigrin chimed in.

A rooster crowed loudly somewhere in the direction of the town.

The fog quickly began to rise.

*

Geralt opened his eyes, irritated by the play of light and shadow through his eyelids. He saw leaves above him, a kaleidoscope of leaves flickering in the sun. He saw branches heavy with apples.

He felt the soft touch of fingers on his temple and cheek. Fingers he knew. Fingers he loved so much it hurt.

His belly and chest hurt, his ribs hurt and the tight corset of bandages left him in no doubt that the town of Rivia and the three-fanged trident hadn’t been a nightmare.

‘Lie still, my darling,’ Yennefer said gently. ‘Lie still. Don’t move.’

‘Where are we, Yen?’

‘Is it important? We’re together. You and me.’

Birds – either greenfinches or thrushes – were singing. It smelled of grass, herbs and flowers. And apples.

‘Where’s Ciri?’

‘She’s gone away.’

She changed her position, gently freeing her arm from under his head and lay down beside him on the grass so that she could look in his eyes. She looked at him voraciously, as though she wanted to feast her eyes on the sight, as though she wanted to eat him up with her eyes to store it away, for the whole of eternity. He looked at her too, and longing choked him.

‘We were with Ciri in a boat,’ he recalled. ‘On a lake. Then on a river. On a river with a strong current. In the fog.’

Her fingers found his hand and squeezed it strongly.

‘Lie still, my darling. Lie still. I’m beside you. It doesn’t matter what happened, doesn’t matter where we were. Now I’m beside you. And I’ll never leave you. Never.’

‘I love you, Yen.’

‘I know.’

‘All the same,’ he sighed, ‘I’d like to know where we are.’

‘Me too,’ said Yennefer, quietly and not right away.

*

‘And is that the end of the story?’ Galahad asked a moment later.

‘Not at all,’ protested Ciri, rubbing one foot against the other, wiping off the dried sand that had stuck to her toes and the sole of her foot. ‘Would you like the story to end like that? Like hell! I wouldn’t!’

‘So what happened then?’

‘Nothing special,’ she snorted. ‘They got married.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Aaah, what is there to tell? There was a great big wedding. They all came: Dandelion, Mother Nenneke, Iola and Eurneid, Yarpen Zigrin, Vesemir, Eskel . . . Coën, Milva, Angoulême . . . And my Mistle . . . And I was there, I drank mead and wine. And they, I mean Geralt and Yennefer, had their own house afterwards and were happy, very, very happy. Like in a fairy tale. Do you understand?’

‘Why are you weeping like that, O Lady of the Lake?’

‘I’m not weeping at all. My eyes are watering from the wind. And that’s that!’

They were silent for a long time, and looked as the red-hot glowing ball of the sun touched the mountain peaks.

‘Indeed—’ Galahad finally interrupted the silence ‘—it was a very strange story, oh, very strange. Truly, Miss Ciri, the world you came from is incredible.’

Ciri sniffed loudly.

‘Yeees,’ continued Galahad, clearing his throat several times, feeling a little uncomfortable by her silence. ‘But astounding adventures also occur here, in our world. Let’s take, for instance, what happened to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . . . Or to my uncle, Sir Bors, and Sir Tristan . . . Just consider, Lady Ciri, Sir Bors and Sir Tristan set off one day for the West, towards Tintagel. The road led them through forests untamed and perilous. They rode and rode, and looked, and there stood a white hind, and beside it a lady, dressed in black. Truly a blacker black you couldn’t even see in nightmares. And that comely lady, so comely you couldn’t see a comelier one in the whole world, well, apart from Queen Guinevere . . . That lady standing by the hind saw the knights, beckoned and spake thus to them . . .’

‘Galahad.’

‘Yes?’

‘Be quiet.’

He coughed, cleared his throat and fell silent. They were both silent, looking at the sun. They were silent for a long time.

‘Lady of the Lake?’

‘I’ve asked you not to call me that.’

‘Lady Ciri?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ride with me to Camelot, O Lady Ciri. King Arthur, you’ll see, will show you honour and respect . . . While I . . . I shall always love you and revere you—’

‘Get up from your knee, at once! Or maybe not. If you’re there, rub my feet. They’re really frozen. Thank you. You’re sweet. I said my feet! My feet finish at the ankles!’

‘Lady Ciri?’

‘I haven’t gone anywhere.’

‘The day is drawing to a close . . .’

‘Indeed.’ Ciri fastened her boot buckles and stood up. ‘Let’s saddle up, Galahad. Is there somewhere around here we can spend the night? Ha, I see from your expression that you know this place as well as I do. But never mind, let’s set off, even if we have to sleep under an open sky, let’s go a bit further, into a forest. There’s a breeze coming off the lake . . . Why are you looking like that?

‘Aha,’ she guessed, seeing him blush. ‘Are you imagining a night under a filbert bush, on a carpet of moss? In the arms of a fairy? Listen, young man, I don’t have the slightest desire—’

She broke off, looking at his blushing cheeks and shining eyes. At his actually not bad-looking face. Something squeezed her belly and it wasn’t hunger.

What’s happening to me? she thought. What’s happening to me?

‘Don’t dilly-dally!’ she almost shouted. ‘Saddle your stallion!’

When they mounted she looked at him and laughed out loud. He glanced at her, and his gaze was one of amazement and questioning.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ she said freely. ‘I just thought of something. On we go, Galahad.’

A carpet of moss, she thought, suppressing a giggle. Under a filbert bush. With me playing the fairy. Well, well.

‘Lady Ciri . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Will you ride with me to Camelot?’

She held out her hand. And he held out his. They joined hands, riding side by side.

By the devil, she thought, why not? I’d bet any money that in this world a job could be found for a witcher girl.

Because there isn’t a world where there wouldn’t be work for a witcher.

‘Lady Ciri . . .’

‘Let’s not talk about it now. Let’s go.’

They rode straight into the setting sun. Leaving behind them the darkening valley. Behind them was the lake, the enchanted lake, the blue lake as smooth as a polished sapphire. They left behind them the boulders on the lakeside. The pines on the hillsides.

That was all behind them.

And before them was everything.

Turn the page for a glimpse into

The Witcher’s past …

An extract from the next tale of Geralt of Rivia:

SEASON OF STORMS

CHAPTER ONE

It lived only to kill.

It was lying on the sun-warmed sand.

It could sense the vibrations being transmitted through its hair-like feelers and bristles. Though the vibrations were still far off, the idr could feel them distinctly and precisely; it was thus able to determine not only its quarry’s direction and speed of movement, but also its weight. As with most similar predators, the weight of the prey was of cardinal importance. Stalking, attacking and giving chase meant a loss of energy that had to be compensated by the calorific value of its food. Most predators similar to the idr would quit their attack if their prey was too small. But not the idr. The idr didn’t exist to eat and sustain the species. It hadn’t been created for that.

It lived to kill.

Moving its limbs cautiously, it exited the hollow, crawled over a rotten tree trunk, covered the clearing in three bounds, plunged into the fern-covered undergrowth and melted into the thicket. It moved swiftly and noiselessly, now running, now leaping like a huge grasshopper.

It sank into the thicket and pressed the segmented carapace of its abdomen to the ground. The vibrations in the ground became more and more distinct. The impulses from the idr’s feelers and bristles formed themselves into an image. Into a plan. The idr now knew where to approach its victim from, where to cross its path, how to force it to flee, how to swoop on it from behind with a great leap, from what height to strike and lacerate with its razor-sharp mandibles. Within it the vibrations and impulses were already arousing the joy it would experience when its victim started struggling under its weight, arousing the euphoria that the taste of hot blood would induce in it. The ecstasy it would feel when the air was rent by a scream of pain. It trembled slightly, opening and closing its pincers and pedipalps.

The vibrations in the ground were very distinct and had also diversified. The idr now knew there was more than one victim – probably three, or perhaps four. Two of them were shaking the ground in a normal way; the vibrations of the third suggested a small mass and weight. The fourth, meanwhile – provided there really was a fourth – was causing irregular, weak and hesitant vibrations. The idr stopped moving, tensed and extended its antennae above the grass, examining the movements of the air.

The vibrations in the ground finally signalled what the idr had been waiting for. Its quarry had separated. One of them, the smallest, had fallen behind. And the fourth – the vague one – had disappeared. It had been a fake signal, a false echo. The idr ignored it.

The smallest target moved even further away from the others. The trembling in the ground was more intense. And closer. The idr braced its rear limbs, pushed off and leaped.

*

The little girl gave an ear-splitting scream. Rather than running away, she had frozen to the spot. And was screaming unremittingly.

*

The Witcher darted towards her, drawing his sword mid-leap. And realised at once that something was wrong. That he’d been tricked.

The man pulling a handcart loaded with faggots screamed and shot six feet up into the air in front of Geralt’s eyes, blood spraying copiously from him. He fell, only to immediately fly up again, this time in two pieces, each spurting blood. He’d stopped screaming. Now the woman was screaming piercingly and, like her daughter, was petrified and paralysed by fear.

Although he didn’t believe he would, the Witcher managed to save her. He leaped and pushed hard, throwing the blood-spattered woman from the path into the forest, among the ferns. And realised at once that this time, too, it had been a trick. A ruse. For the flat, grey, many-limbed and incredibly quick shape was now moving away from the handcart and its first victim. It was gliding towards the next one. Towards the still shrieking little girl. Geralt sped after the idr.

Had she remained where she was, he would have been too late. But the girl demonstrated presence of mind and bolted frantically. The grey monster, however, would easily have caught up with her, killed her and turned back to dispatch the woman, too. That’s what would have happened had it not been for the Witcher.

He caught up with the monster and jumped, pinning down one of its rear limbs with his heel. If he hadn’t jumped aside immediately he would have lost a leg – the grey creature twisted around with extraordinary agility, and its curved pincers snapped shut, missing him by a hair’s breadth. Before the Witcher could regain his balance the monster sprang from the ground and attacked. Geralt defended himself instinctively with a broad and rather haphazard swing of his sword that pushed the monster away. He hadn’t wounded it, but now he had the upper hand.

He sprang up and fell on the monster, slashing backhand, cleaving the carapace of the flat cephalothorax. Before the dazed creature came to its senses, a second blow hacked off its left mandible. The monster attacked, brandishing its limbs and trying to gore him with its remaining mandible like an aurochs. The Witcher hacked that one off too. He slashed one of the idr’s pedipalps with a swift reverse cut. Then hacked at the cephalothorax again.

*

It finally dawned on the idr that it was in danger. That it must flee. Flee far from there, take cover, find a hiding place. It only lived to kill. In order to kill it must regenerate. It must flee . . . Flee . . .

*

The Witcher didn’t let it. He caught up with it, stepped on the rear segment of the thorax and cut from above with a fierce blow. This time, the carapace gave way, and viscous, greenish fluid gushed and poured from the wound. The monster flailed around, its limbs thrashing the ground chaotically.

Geralt cut again with his sword, this time completely severing the flat head from the body.

He was breathing heavily.

It thundered in the distance. The growing wind and darkening sky heralded an approaching storm.

*

Right from their very first encounter, Albert Smulka, the newly appointed district reeve, reminded Geralt of a swede – he was stout, unwashed, thick-skinned and generally pretty dull. In other words, he didn’t differ much from all the other district clerks Geralt had dealt with.

‘Would seem to be true,’ said the reeve. ‘Nought like a witcher for dealing with troubles. Jonas, my predecessor, couldn’t speak highly enough of you,’ he continued a moment later, not waiting for any reaction from Geralt. ‘To think, I considered him a liar. I mean that I didn’t completely lend credence to him. I know how things can grow into fairy tales. Particularly among the common folk, with them there’s always either a miracle or a marvel, or some witcher with superhuman powers. And here we are, turns out it’s the honest truth. Uncounted people have died in that forest beyond the little river. And because it’s a shortcut to the town the fools went that way . . . to their own doom. Heedless of warnings. These days it’s better not to loiter in badlands or wander through forests. Monsters and man-eaters everywhere. A dreadful thing has just happened in the Tukaj Hills of Temeria – a sylvan ghoul killed fifteen people in a charcoal-burners’ settlement. It’s called Rogovizna. You must have heard. Haven’t you? But it’s the truth, cross my heart and hope to die. It’s said even the wizardry have started an investigation in that there Rogovizna. Well, enough of stories. We’re safe here in Ansegis now. Thanks to you.’

He took a coffer from a chest of drawers, spread out a sheet of paper on the table and dipped a quill in an inkwell.

‘You promised you’d kill the monster,’ he said, without raising his head. ‘Seems you weren’t having me on. You’re a man of your word, for a vagabond . . . And you saved those people’s lives. That woman and the lass. Did they even thank you? Express their gratitude?’

No, they didn’t. The Witcher clenched his jaw. Because they haven’t yet fully regained consciousness. And I’ll be gone before they do. Before they realise I used them as bait, convinced in my conceited arrogance that I was capable of saving all three of them. I’ll be gone before it dawns on the girl, before she understands I’m to blame for her becoming a half-orphan.

He felt bad. No doubt because of the elixirs he’d taken before the fight. No doubt.

‘That monster is a right abomination.’ The reeve sprinkled some sand over the paper, and then shook it off onto the floor. ‘I had a look at the carcass when they brought it here . . . What on earth was it?’

Geralt wasn’t certain in that regard, but didn’t intend to reveal his ignorance.

‘An arachnomorph.’

Albert Smulka moved his lips, vainly trying to repeat the word.

‘Ugh, meks no difference, when all’s said and done. Did you dispatch it with that sword? With that blade? Can I take a look?’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘Ha, because it’s no doubt enchanted. And it must be dear . . . Quite something . . . Well, here we are jawing away and time’s passing. The task’s been executed, time for payment. But first the formalities. Make your mark on the bill. I mean, put a cross or some such.’

The Witcher took the bill from Smulka and held it up to the light.

‘Look at ’im.’ The reeve shook his head, grimacing. ‘What’s this, can he read?’

Geralt put the paper on the table and pushed it towards the official.

‘A slight error has crept into the document,’ he said, calmly and softly. ‘We agreed on fifty crowns. This bill has been made out for eighty.’

Albert Smulka clasped his hands together and rested his chin on them.

‘It isn’t an error.’ He also lowered his voice. ‘Rather, a token of gratitude. You killed the monster and I’m sure it was an exacting job . . . So the sum won’t astonish anyone . . .’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Pull the other one. Don’t play the innocent. Trying to tell me that when Jonas was in charge he never made out bills like this? I swear I—’

‘What do you swear?’ Geralt interrupted. ‘That he inflated bills? And went halves with me on the sum the royal purse was deprived of?’

‘Went halves?’ the reeve sneered. ‘Don’t be soft, witcher, don’t be soft. Reckon you’re that important? You’ll get a third of the difference. Ten crowns. It’s a decent bonus for you anyway. For I deserve more, if only owing to my function. State officials ought to be wealthy. The wealthier the official, the greater the prestige to the state. Besides, what would you know about it? This conversation’s beginning to weary me. You signing it or what?’

The rain hammered on the roof. It was pouring down outside. But the thunder had stopped; the storm had moved away.

Copyright

This edition first published in Great Britain in 2020 by Gollancz

an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

Blood of Elves Copyright © Andrzej Sapkowski 1994

Blood of Elves English Translation Copyright © Danusia Stok 2008

Time of Contempt Copyright © Andrzej Sapkowski 1995

Time of Contempt English Translation Copyright © David French 2013

Baptism of Fire Copyright © Andrzej Sapkowski 1996

Baptism of Fire English Translation Copyright © David French 2014

The Tower of the Swallow Copyright © Andrzej Sapkowski 1997

The Tower of the Swallow English Translation Copyright © David French 2016

The Lady of the Lake Copyright © Andrzej Sapkowski 1999

The Lady of the Lake English Translation Copyright © David French 2017

Blood of Elves originally published in Polish as Krew Elfow

Time of Contempt originally published in Polish as Czas Pogardy

Baptism of Fire originally published in Polish as Chrzest Ognia

The Tower of the Swallow originally published in Polish as Wieża Jaskółki

The Lady of the Lake originally published in Polish as Pani Jeziora

This publication has been funded by the Book Institute -

The © POLAND Translation Program

Published by arrangement with the Patricia Pasqualini Literary Agency.

The moral right of Andrzej Sapkowski to be identified as the author of these works, and the moral right of Danusia Stok and David French to be identified as the translators of these works, has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (eBook) 978 1 473 23246 4

www.gollancz.co.uk

Table of Contents

Title Page

Contents

Blood of Elves

Time of Contempt

Baptism of Fire

The Tower of the Swallow

The Lady of the Lake

Extract from Season of Storms

Copyright