“This settler is resisting,” snorted the woman addressed as Fryga. “Claiming that he won’t pay the levy because he’s already paid it, blah, blah, blah. So, we decided to teach the oaf some sense, and then suddenly this grey-haired fellow sprang up from nowhere. A knight, it turns out, a noble man, a defender of the poor and oppressed. Just him alone and he went for our throats.”

“So high-spirited?” chortled one of the horsemen, advancing on Geralt and aiming his pike at him. “Let’s have him dance a jig!”

“Drop your sword,” ordered a horseman in a plumed beret, who seemed to be the commander. “Sword on the ground!”

“Shall I spear him, Shevlov?”

“Leave him, Sperry.”

Shevlov looked down on the Witcher from the saddle.

“You won’t drop your sword, eh?” he commented. “Are you such a hero? Such a hard man? You eat oysters in their shells? Washed down with turpentine? Bow down before no one? And only stand up for the unjustly accused? Are you so sensitive to wrongs? We’ll find out. Poker, Ligenza, Floquet!”

The three armed soldiers obeyed their leader at once, clearly having experience in that regard. They dismounted, their movements well-drilled. One of them held a knife to the settler’s throat, the other yanked the woman by the hair and the third grabbed the child. The child began yelling.

“Drop your sword,” said Shevlov. “This second. Or… Ligenza! Slit the peasant’s throat.”

Geralt dropped his sword. They immediately leaped on him, pressing him against the planks and menacing him with their blades.

“Aha!” said Shevlov, dismounting. “Success!”

“You’re in trouble, peasant champion,” he added dryly. “You’ve obstructed and sabotaged a royal detachment. And I have orders to arrest and put before the courts anyone guilty of that.”

“Arrest?” The man named Ligenza scowled. “Burden ourselves? Throw a noose round his neck and string him up! And that’s that!”

“Or cut him to pieces on the spot!”

“I’ve seen this fellow before,” one of the riders suddenly said. “He’s a witcher.”

“A what?”

“A witcher. A wizard making his living killing monsters for money.”

“A wizard? Urgh, urgh! Kill him before he casts a spell on us.”

“Shut up, Escayrac. Speak, Trent. Where did you see him and in what circumstances?”

“It was in Maribor. In the service of the castellan there, who had hired him to kill some beast. I don’t recall what. But I remember him from his white hair.”

“Ha! So, if he attacked us, somebody must have hired him to.”

“Monsters are witchers’ work. They just defend people from monsters.”

“Aha!” Fryga pushed back her lynx-fur calpac. “I said so! A defender! He saw Ligenza flogging the peasant and Floquet making ready to ravish that woman…”