The guinea fowl scurrying around by the wattle fencing noticed him first, raising the alarm with a hellish screeching. Some children playing in the farmyard dashed towards the cottage. A woman appeared in the doorway. Tall, fair-haired and wearing an apron over a coarse linen frock. He rode closer and dismounted.

“Greetings,” he said. “Is the man of the house at home?”

The children—all of them little girls—clung to their mother’s skirts and apron. The woman looked at the Witcher and any search for friendliness in those eyes would have been in vain. No wonder. She caught a good sight of the sword hilt over his shoulder. Of the medallion on his neck. And of the silver studs on his gloves which the Witcher was by no means hiding. Rather, he was flaunting them.

“The man of the house,” he repeated. “I mean Otto Dussart. I want to talk to him about something.”

“What?”

“It’s private. Is he at home?”

She stared at him in silence, slightly tilting her head. She had rustic looks and he guessed she might be aged anything between twenty-five and forty-five. A more precise assessment—as with the majority of village women—was impossible.

“Is he at home?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll wait until he returns,” he said, tossing the mare’s reins over a pole.

“You might have to wait a while.”

“I’ll hold out somehow. Although in truth I’d prefer to wait inside than by the fence.”

The woman eyed him up and down for a moment. Him and his medallion.

“Accept our invitation, guest,” she said finally. “Step inside.”

“Gladly,” he answered, using the customary formula. “I won’t transgress the rules of hospitality.”

“You won’t,” she repeated in a slow, drawling voice. “Yet you wear a sword.”

“Such is my profession.”

“Swords injure. And kill.”

“So does life. Does the invitation still apply?”

“Please enter.”

One entered—typically for such homesteads—through a gloomy, cluttered passage. The main chamber turned out to be quite spacious, light and clean, with only the walls near the range and chimney bearing sooty streaks. Otherwise, the walls were painted freshly white and decorated with gaily embroidered wall hangings. Various household utensils, bunches of herbs, plaits of garlic and strings of capsicums enlivened the walls. A woven curtain separated the chamber from the larder. It smelt of cooking. Cabbage, to be precise.

“Please be seated.”

The housewife remained standing, crumpling her apron in her hands. The children crouched by the stove on a low bench.

The medallion on Geralt’s neck was vibrating. Powerfully and constantly. It fluttered under his shirt like a captured bird.

“You ought to have left the sword in the passage,” the woman said, walking over to the range, “It’s indecent to sit down to table with a weapon. Only brigands do so. Be you a brigand—?”