“If the thief’s still here.” The Witcher ground his teeth. “He might have run for it while I was in the slammer. What did you say was the name of that sorceress who landed me in this?”

“Lytta Neyd, nicknamed Coral. I can guess what you’re planning, my friend. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. She’s a sorceress. An enchantress and a woman in one; in a word, an alien species that doesn’t submit to rational understanding, and functions according to mechanisms and principles incomprehensible to ordinary men. Why am I telling you this, anyway? You know it very well. You have, indeed, very rich experience in this matter… What’s that racket?”

Aimlessly wandering through the streets, they had ended up in the vicinity of a small square resounding with the ceaseless banging of hammers. There was a large cooper’s workshop there, it turned out. Cords of seasoned planks were piled up evenly beneath an awning by the street. From there, the planks were carried by barefoot youngsters to tables where they were attached to special trestles and shaped using drawknives. The carved staves went to other craftsmen, who finished them on long planing benches, standing astride them up to their ankles in shavings. The completed staves ended up in the hands of the coopers, who assembled them. Geralt watched for a while as the shape of the barrel emerged under the pressure of ingenious vices and clamps tightened by screws. Metal hoops hammered onto the staves then created the form of the barrel. Vapour from the large coppers where the barrels were being steamed belched right out into the street. The smell of wood being toasted in a fire—the barrels were being hardened before the next stage in the process—drifted from the courtyard into the workshop.

“Whenever I see a barrel,” Dandelion declared, “I feel like a beer. Let’s go around the corner. I know a pleasant inn.”

“Go by yourself. I’m visiting the sorceress. I think I know which one she is; I’ve already seen her. Where will I find her? Don’t make faces, Dandelion. She, it would seem, is the original source and cause of my troubles. I’m not going to wait for things to develop, I’ll go and ask her directly. I can’t hang around in this town. If only for the reason that I’m rather skint.”

“We shall find a remedy for that,” the troubadour said proudly. “I shall support you financially… Geralt? What’s going on?”

“Go back to the coopers and bring me a stave.”

“What?”

“Fetch me a stave. Quickly.”