‘It’s easy to make you take a risk,’ she said. ‘All it takes is a few words about women and children. And so much is said about how unfeeling you witchers are. Geralt, Agloval doesn’t give a hoot about women, children or the elderly. He wants the pearl fishing to begin again because he’s losing money every day they don’t come back with a catch. He’s taking you for a ride with those starving children, and you’re ready to risk your life—’

‘Essi,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m a witcher. It’s my trade to risk my life. Children have nothing to do with it.’

‘You can’t fool me.’

‘Why the assumption that I mean to?’

‘Perhaps because if you were the heartless professional you pretend to be, you would have tried to push up the price. But you didn’t say a word about your fee. Oh, never mind, enough of all that. Are we going back?’

‘Let’s walk on a little.’

‘Gladly. Geralt?’

‘Yes.’

‘I told you I grew up by the sea. I know how to steer a boat and—’

‘Put that out of your head.’

‘Why?’

‘Put that out of your head,’ he repeated sharply.

‘You might,’ she said, ‘have phrased that more politely.’

‘I might have. But you would have taken it as… the Devil only knows what. And I am an unfeeling witcher and heartless professional. I risk my life. Not other people’s.’

Essi fell silent. He saw her purse her lips and toss her head. A gust of wind ruffled her hair again, and her face was covered for a moment by a confusion of golden curls.

‘I only wanted to help you,’ she said.

‘I know. Thank you.’

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes.’

‘What if there is something behind the rumours Agloval was talking about? You know well that mermaids aren’t always friendly. There have been cases—’

‘I don’t believe them.’

‘Sea witches,’ Little Eye continued, pensively. ‘Nereids, mermen, sea nymphs. Who knows what they’re capable of. And Sh’eenaz… she had reason—’

‘I don’t believe it,’ he interrupted. ‘You don’t believe or you don’t want to believe?’

He did not reply.

‘And you want to appear the cold professional?’ she asked with a strange smile. ‘Someone who thinks with his sword hilt? If you want, I’ll tell you what you really are.’

‘I know what I really am.’

‘You’re sensitive,’ she said softly. ‘Deep in your angst-filled soul. Your stony face and cold voice don’t deceive me. You are sensitive, and your sensitivity makes you fear that whatever you are going to face with sword in hand may have its own arguments, may have the moral advantage over you…’

‘No, Essi,’ he said slowly. ‘Don’t try to make me the subject of a moving ballad, a ballad about a witcher with inner conflicts. Perhaps I’d like it to be the case, but it isn’t. My moral dilemmas are resolved for me by my code and education. By my training.’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ she said in annoyance. ‘I don’t understand why you try to—’