‘He’s sick,’ the Witcher said and smiled affectedly. ‘It’s for his own good. Don’t crowd, good people, the poor thing needs air.’

‘Did you hear?’ Chappelle asked calmly but resonantly, suddenly pushing his way through the throng. ‘Please do not form a public gathering here! Please disperse! Public gatherings are forbidden. Punishable by a fine!’

In the blink of an eye the crowd scattered to the sides, only to reveal Dandelion, approaching swiftly, to the sounds of his lute. On seeing him, Vespula let out an ear-splitting scream, dropped the frying pan and fled across the square.

‘What happened?’ Dandelion asked. ‘Did she see the Devil?’

Geralt stood up, holding the bundle, which had begun to move weakly. Chappelle slowly approached. He was alone and his personal guard was nowhere to be seen.

‘I wouldn’t come any closer,’ Geralt said quietly. ‘If I were you, Lord Chappelle, sir, I wouldn’t come any closer.’

‘You wouldn’t?’ Chappelle tightened his thin lips, looking at him coldly.

‘If I were you, Lord Chappelle, I would pretend I never saw anything.’

‘Yes, no doubt,’ Chappelle said. ‘But you are not me.’

Dainty Biberveldt ran up from behind the tent, out of breath and sweaty. On seeing Chappelle he stopped, began to whistle, held his hands behind his back and pretended to be admiring the roof of the granary.

Chappelle went over and stood by Geralt, very close. The Witcher did not move, but only narrowed his eyes. For a moment they looked at each other and then Chappelle leaned over the bundle.

‘Dudu,’ he said to Dandelion’s strangely deformed cordovan boots sticking out of the rolled-up kilim. ‘Copy Biberveldt, and quickly.’

‘What?’ Dainty yelled, stopping staring at the granary. ‘What’s that?’

‘Be quiet,’ Chappelle said. ‘Well, Dudu, are things coming along?’

‘I’m just,’ a muffled grunting issued from the kilim. ‘I’m… Just a moment…’

The cordovan boots sticking out of the kilim stretched, became blurred and changed into the halfling’s bare, hairy feet.

‘Get out, Dudu,’ Chappelle said. ‘And you, Dainty, be quiet. All halflings look the same, don’t they?’

Dainty mumbled something indistinctly. Geralt, eyes still narrowed, looked at Chappelle suspiciously. The minister, however, straightened up and looked all around, and all that remained of any gawkers who were still in the vicinity was the clacking of wooden clogs dying away in the distance.

The second Dainty Biberveldt scrambled and rolled out of the bundle, sneezed, sat up and rubbed his eyes and nose. Dandelion perched himself on a trunk lying alongside, and strummed away on his lute with an expression of moderate interest on his face.

‘Who do you think that is, Dainty?’ Chappelle asked mildly. ‘Very similar to you, don’t you think?’

‘He’s my cousin,’ the halfling shot back and grinned. ‘A close relative. Dudu Biberveldt of Knotgrass Meadow, an astute businessman. I’ve actually just decided…’

‘Yes, Dainty?’

‘I’ve decided to appoint him my factor in Novigrad. What do you say to that, cousin?’

‘Oh, thank you, cousin,’ his close relative, the pride of the Biberveldt clan, and an astute businessman, smiled broadly. Chappelle also smiled.