‘I don’t know,’ Little Eye frowned. ‘You’d have to ask the locals. But I don’t think it would be a good idea. Look, there are rocks between the land and the Fangs, the entire shore is scored with bays and fjords. When the tide starts going out, gorges and basins full of water are formed there. I don’t know if—’

From the direction of the sea and the barely visible rocks came a splash. And a loud, melodic cry.

‘White Hair!’ the mermaid called, gracefully leaping over the crest of a wave, threshing the water with short, elegant strokes of her tail.

‘Sh’eenaz!’ he called back, waving a hand.

The mermaid swam over to the rocks, stood erect in the foaming, green water and used both hands to fling back her hair, at the same time revealing her torso with all its charms. Geralt glanced at Essi. The girl blushed slightly and with an expression of regret and embarrassment on her face looked for a moment at her own charms, which barely protruded beneath her dress.

‘Where is my man?’ Sh’eenaz sang, swimming closer. ‘He was meant to have come.’

‘He did. He waited for three hours and then left.’

‘He left?’ the mermaid said in a high trill of astonishment. ‘He didn’t wait? He could not endure three meagre hours? Just as I thought. Not a scrap of sacrifice! Not a scrap! Despicable, despicable, despicable! And what are you doing here, White Hair? Did you come here for a walk with your beloved? You’d make a pretty couple, were you not marred by your legs.’

‘She is not my beloved. We barely know each other.’

‘Yes?’ Sh’eenaz said in astonishment. ‘Pity. You suit each other, you look lovely together. Who is it?’

‘I’m Essi Daven, poet,’ Little Eye sang with an accent and melody beside which the Witcher’s voice sounded like the cawing of a crow. ‘Nice to meet you, Sh’eenaz.’

The mermaid slapped her hands on the water and laughed brightly.

‘How gorgeous!’ she cried. ‘You know our tongue! Upon my word, you astonish me, you humans. Verily, not nearly as much divides us as people say.’

The Witcher was no less astonished than the mermaid, although he might have guessed that the educated and well-read Essi would know the Elder Speech better than him. It was the language of the elves, a euphonious version of which was used by mermaids, sea witches and nereids. It also ought to have been clear to him that the melodiousness and complicated intonation pattern of the mermaids’ speech, which for him was a handicap, made it easier for Little Eye.

‘Sh’eenaz!’ he called. ‘A few things divide us, nevertheless, and what occasionally divides us is spilled blood! Who… who killed the pearl divers, over there, by the two rocks? Tell me!’

The mermaid dived down, churning the water. A moment later she spurted back out onto the surface again, and her pretty little face was contracted and drawn into an ugly grimace.