‘I’m not lying.’

‘Yes you are.’

Geralt said nothing. Braenn, walking in front of them, turned around, probably surprised by the silence. She shrugged and set off.

‘Which way are we going?’ Ciri asked glumly. ‘I want to know!’

Geralt said nothing.

‘Answer, when I ask a question!’ she said menacingly, backing up the order with a loud sniff. ‘Do you know… who’s sitting on you?’

He didn’t react.

‘I’ll bite you in the ear!’ she yelled.

The Witcher had had enough. He pulled the girl off his back and put her on the ground.

‘Now listen, you brat,’ he said harshly, struggling with his belt buckle. ‘In a minute I’ll put you across my knee, pull down your britches and tan your backside. No one will stop me doing it, because this isn’t the royal court, and I’m not your flunkey or servant. You’ll soon regret you didn’t stay in Nastrog. You’ll soon see it’s better being a princess than a snot-nosed kid who got lost in the forest. Because, it’s true, a princess is allowed to act obnoxiously. And no one thrashes a princess’s backside with a belt. At most her husband, the prince, might with his own hand.’

Ciri cowered and sniffed a few times. Braenn watched dispassionately, leaning against a tree.

‘Well?’ the Witcher asked, wrapping his belt around his wrist. ‘Are we going to behave with dignity and temperance? If not, we shall set about tanning Her Majesty’s hide. Well? What’s it to be?’

The little girl snivelled and sniffed, then eagerly nodded.

‘Are you going to be good, princess?’

‘Yes,’ she mumbled.

‘Gloaming will soon fall,’ the dryad said. ‘Let us make haste, Gwynbleidd.’

The forest thinned out. They walked through a sandy young forest, across moors, and through fog-cloaked meadows with herds of red deer grazing. It was growing cooler.

‘Noble lord…’ Ciri began after a long, long silence.

‘My name is Geralt. What’s the matter?’

‘I’m awffy, awffy hungry.’

‘We’ll stop in a moment. It’ll be dark soon.’

‘I can’t go on,’ she snivelled. ‘I haven’t eaten since—’

‘Stop whining.’ He reached into a saddlebag and took out a piece of fatback, a small round of white cheese and two apples. ‘Have that.’

‘What’s that yellow stuff?’

‘Fatback.’

‘I won’t eat that,’ she grunted.

‘That’s fine,’ he said indistinctly, stuffing the fatback into his mouth. ‘Eat the cheese. And an apple. Just one.’

‘Why only one.’

‘Don’t wriggle. Have both.’

‘Geralt?’

‘Mhm?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it. Food’ll do you good.’

‘I didn’t… Not for that. That too, but… You saved me from that centipede… Ugh… I almost died of fright.’

‘You almost died,’ he confirmed seriously. You almost died in an extremely painful and hideous way, he thought. ‘But you ought to thank Braenn.’

‘What is she?’

‘A dryad.’

‘An eerie wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘So she’s… They kidnap children! She’s kidnapped us? Hey, but you aren’t small. But why does she speak so strangely?’

‘That’s just her way, it’s not important. What’s important is how she shoots. Don’t forget to thank her when we stop.’