The marshal of the court silenced the guests and gave a long speech, smoothly shifting from grandiloquence to bombast and back again. Geralt devoted all his attention to watching the crowd, hence he only listened with half an ear. King Belohun—the marshal of the court proclaimed to all and sundry—was genuinely glad that so many people had come, was overjoyed to welcome everybody on such an auspicious occasion and wished them precisely the same as they wished him. The wedding ceremony would be taking place in the afternoon, and until then the guests were invited to eat, drink and be merry and avail themselves of the numerous attractions planned for the event.

The braying of the trumpets proclaimed the end of the official part. The royal procession began to leave the gardens. Among the guests, Geralt had managed to observe several small groups behaving quite suspiciously. One group in particular bothered him, because they hadn’t bowed to the procession as low as the others and were attempting to shove their way towards the palace gate. He drifted towards the double file of soldiers in blue and red. Lytta walked beside him.

Belohun strode with his eyes fixed straight ahead. The bride-to-be was looking around, occasionally nodding at the guests greeting her. A gust of wind raised her veil for a moment. Geralt saw her large blue eyes. He saw those eyes suddenly find Lytta Neyd amid the throng. And saw the eyes light up with hatred. Pure, unadulterated, distilled hatred.

It lasted a second and then the trumpets resounded, the procession passed and the guardsmen marched on. The suspiciously behaving little group had, as it turned out, only been aiming at the table laden with wine and hors d’oeuvres, which they besieged and stripped ahead of the other guests. Performances began on makeshift stages dotted here and there: musicians played fiddles, lyres, pipes and recorders, and choirs sang. Jugglers took turns with tumblers, strongmen made way for acrobats, and tightrope walkers were replaced by scantily clad dancers with tambourines. People became merrier and merrier. The ladies’ cheeks began to glow, the gentlemen’s foreheads to glisten with sweat, and the speech of both the former and the latter became very loud. And somewhat incoherent.

Lytta pulled him beyond a pavilion. They surprised a couple that had concealed themselves there for explicitly sexual purposes. The sorceress wasn’t bothered and paid almost no attention to them.

“I don’t know what’s afoot,” she said. “And I don’t know why you’re here, though I can guess. But keep your eyes open and anything you do, do with prudence. The royal betrothed is none other than Ildiko Breckl.”

“I won’t ask you if you know her. I saw that look.”