The system had been borrowed from the guilds. In many of them an apprentice who had qualified as a journeyman would embark on a trek, during which he would take on casual work in various workshops with various masters, here and there, and finally return after several years to apply to take the final exam and be promoted to master. But there were differences. Forced to travel, journeymen who couldn’t find work were often stared in the face by hunger, and the journey became aimless wandering. One became a dwimveandra through one’s own will and desire, and the Chapter of sorcerers created for the journeymen witches a special endowment fund, which was quite sizeable, from what Geralt heard.

“That horrifying character was wearing a medallion similar to yours,” the poet said, joining the conversation. “He was one of the Cats, wasn’t he?”

“He was. I don’t want to talk about it, Dandelion.”

“The notorious Cats,” said the poet, addressing the sorceress. “Witchers—but failures. Unsuccessful mutations. Madmen, psychopaths and sadists. They nicknamed themselves ‘Cats,’ because they really are like cats: aggressive, cruel, unpredictable and impulsive. And Geralt, as usual, is making light of it in order not to worry us. Because there was a threat and a significant one. It’s a miracle it went off without a fight, blood or corpses. There would have been a massacre, like there was in Iello four years ago. I was expecting at any moment—”

“Geralt asked you not to talk about it,” interrupted Tiziana Frevi, politely but firmly. “Let’s respect that.”

Geralt looked at her affectionately. She seemed pleasant to him. And pretty. Very pretty, even.

Sorceresses, he knew, improved their looks, since the prestige of their profession demanded that they should arouse admiration. But the beautification was never perfect, something always remained. Tiziana Frevi was no exception. Her forehead, just beneath the hairline, was marked by several barely perceptible scars from the chicken pox that she had probably experienced during childhood before she became immune. The shape of her pretty mouth was slightly marred by a wavy scar above her upper lip. Geralt, yet again, felt anger, anger at his eyesight, his eyes, forcing him to notice such insignificant details, which after all were nothing in view of the fact that Tiziana was sitting at a table with him, drinking Est Est, eating smoked trout and smiling at him. The Witcher had rarely seen or known women whose beauty could be considered flawless, but the chances that one of them might smile at him could be calculated at precisely nil.

“He talked about some reward…” said Dandelion, who, when he got onto a subject was difficult to be dislodged from it. “Do any of you know what it was about? Geralt?”

“I have no idea.”