The troubadour looked down at the ground and scratched his chin, which was covered in soft, fair bristles. Drouhard, mouth gaping, moved closer.

‘Master… Do us this honour. My wife won’t forgive me if I don’t invite you. Now then… I’ll make it thirty.’

‘Thirty-five,’ Dandelion said firmly.

Geralt smiled and hopefully breathed in the scent of food wafting from the tavern.

‘Agreed, master, agreed,’ Teleri Drouhard said quickly, so quickly it was evident he would have given forty, had the need arisen. ‘And now… My home, if you desire to groom yourself and rest, is your home. And you, sir… What do they call you?’

‘Geralt of Rivia.’

‘And I invite you too, sir, of course. For a bite to eat and something to drink…’

‘Certainly, with pleasure,’ Dandelion said. ‘Show us the way, my dear sir. And just between us, who is the other bard?’

‘The honourable Miss Essi Daven.’

III

Geralt rubbed a sleeve over the silver studs of his jacket and his belt buckle one more time, smoothed down his hair, which was held down with a clean headband, and polished his boots by rubbing one leg against the other.

‘Dandelion?’

‘Mm?’ The bard smoothed the egret feather pinned to his bonnet, and straightened and pulled down his jerkin. The two of them had spent half the day cleaning their garments and tidying them up. ‘What, Geralt?’

‘Behave in such a way as they throw us out after supper and not before.’

‘You must be joking,’ the poet said indignantly. ‘Watch your manners yourself. Shall we go in?’

‘We shall. Do you hear? Somebody’s singing. A woman.’

‘Have you only just noticed? That’s Essi Daven, known as Little Eye. What, have you never met a female troubadour? True, I forgot you steer clear of places where art flourishes. Little Eye is a gifted poet and singer, though not without her flaws, among which impertinence, so I hear, is not the least. What she is singing now happens to be one of my ballads. She will soon hear a piece of my mind which will make that little eye of hers water.’

‘Dandelion, have mercy. They’ll throw us out.’

‘Don’t interfere. These are professional issues. Let’s go in.’

‘Dandelion?’

‘Hey?’

‘Why Little Eye?’

‘You’ll see.’

The banquet was being held in a huge storeroom, emptied of barrels of herrings and cod liver oil. The smell had been killed–though not entirely–by hanging up bunches of mistletoe and heather decorated with coloured ribbons wherever possible. Here and there, as is customary, were also hung plaits of garlic meant to frighten off vampires.

The tables and benches, which had been pushed towards the walls, had been covered with white linen, and in a corner there was a large makeshift hearth and spit. It was crowded but not noisy. More than four dozen people of various estates and professions, not to mention the pimply youth and his snub-nosed fiancée, with her eyes fixed on her husband-to-be, were listening reverentially to a sonorous and melodious ballad sung by a young woman in a demure blue frock, sitting on a platform with a lute resting on her knee. The woman could not have been older than eighteen, and was very slim. Her long, luxuriant hair was the colour of dark gold. They entered as the girl finished the song and thanked the audience for the thunderous applause with a nod of her head, which shook her hair gently.