The young man moved away from the steps quickly enough to avoid being pushed. He was, Geralt noticed, prematurely balding, his long, thin hair only beginning somewhere in the region of his crown, which gave a generally rather unprepossessing impression.

“Fuck you and your ban!” yelled the young man from a safe distance. “I don’t need any favours! You aren’t the only ones! I’ll go to the competition! Big-heads! Upstarts! The sign may be gilded, but there’s still dung on your boots. You mean as much to me as that dung. And shit will always be shit!”

Geralt was slightly worried. The balding young man, apart from his unsightly looks, was dressed in quite a grand fashion, perhaps not too richly, but in any case, more elegantly than the Witcher. So, if elegance was the determining criterion…

“And where might you be going, may I ask?” The guard’s icy voice interrupted his train of thought. And confirmed his fears.

“This is an exclusive tavern,” continued the Cerberus, blocking the stairs. “Do you understand the meaning of the word? It’s off limits, as it were. To some people.”

“Why to me?”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The guard looked down on the Witcher from two steps higher up. “You are a foreigner, a walking illustration of that old folk saying. Your cover is nothing to write home about. Perhaps there are other objects hidden in its pages, but I shan’t pry. I repeat, this is an exclusive tavern. We don’t tolerate people dressed like ruffians here. Or armed.”

“I’m not armed.”

“But you look like you are. So kindly take yourself off somewhere else.”

“Control yourself, Tarp.”

A swarthy man in a short velvet jacket appeared in the doorway of the tavern. His eyebrows were bushy, his gaze piercing and his nose aquiline. And large.

“You clearly don’t know who you’re dealing with,” the aquiline nose informed the guard. “You don’t know who has come to visit.”

The guard’s lengthening silence showed he indeed did not.

“Geralt of Rivia. The Witcher. Known for protecting people and saving their lives. As he did a week ago, here, in our region, in Ansegis, when he saved a mother and her child. And several months earlier, he famously killed a man-eating leucrote in Cizmar, suffering wounds in so doing. How could you bar entry to my tavern to somebody who plies such an honest trade? On the contrary, I’m very happy to see a guest like him. And I consider it an honour that he desires to visit me. Master Geralt, the Natura Rerum osteria warmly welcomes you. I’m Febus Ravenga, the owner of this humble house.”