‘You’re alive thanks to what they poured down your throat. Did they bring you here?’

‘They dragged me here on a sledge. I asked after you but they said nothing. I was certain you’d caught an arrow. You vanished so suddenly… But you’re hale and hearty, not even in fetters, and not only that, prithee, you rescued Princess Cirilla… A pox on it, you get by everywhere, Geralt, and you always fall on your feet.’

The Witcher smiled but did not respond. Frexinet hacked, turned his head away and spat out saliva tinged pink.

‘Well,’ he added. ‘And you’re sure to be the reason they didn’t finish me off. They know you, bloody eerie wives. That’s the second time you’ve got me out of trouble.’

‘Oh, come on, baron.’

Frexinet, moaning, tried to sit up, but abandoned the attempt.

‘Bollocks to my barony,’ he panted. ‘I was a baron back in Hamm. Now I’m something like a governor at Ervyll’s court in Verden. I mean I was. Even if I get out of this forest somehow, there’s no place for me in Verden now, apart from on the scaffold. This little weasel, Cirilla, slipped out of my hands and my protection. Do you think the three of us went to Brokilon for the hell of it? No, Geralt, I was fleeing too, and could only count on Ervyll’s mercy if I brought her back. And then I happened on those accursed eerie wives… If not for you I’d have expired in that hollow. You’ve rescued me again. It’s destiny, that’s as clear as day.’

‘You’re exaggerating.’

Frexinet shook his head.

‘It’s destiny,’ he repeated. ‘It must have been written up there that we’d meet again, Witcher. That you’d save my skin again. Remember, people talked about it in Hamm after you lifted that bird curse from me.’

‘Chance,’ Geralt said coldly. ‘Pure chance, Frexinet.’

‘What chance? Dammit, if it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably still be a cormorant—’

‘You were a cormorant?’ Ciri cried in excitement. ‘A real cormorant? A bird?’

‘I was,’ the baron grinned. ‘I was cursed by… by a bitch… Damn her… for revenge.’

‘I bet you didn’t give her a fur,’ Ciri said, wrinkling up her nose. ‘For a, you know… muff.’

‘There was another reason,’ Frexinet blushed slightly, then glowered angrily at the little girl. ‘But what business is it of yours, you tyke!’

Ciri looked offended and turned her head away.

‘Yes,’ Frexinet coughed. ‘Where was I… Aha, when I was cursed in Hamm. Were it not for you, Geralt, I would have remained a cormorant till the end of my days, I would be flying around the lake, shitting on tree branches, deluding myself that the shirt made of nettle fibres stubbornly woven by my dear sister would save me. Dammit, when I recall that shirt of hers, I feel like kicking somebody. That idiot—’

‘Don’t say that,’ the Witcher smiled. ‘She had the best of intentions. She was badly informed, that’s all. Lots of nonsensical myths circulate about undoing curses. You were lucky, anyway, Frexinet. She might have ordered you to dive into a barrel of boiling milk. I’ve heard of a case like that. Donning a nettle shirt, if you think about it, isn’t very harmful to the health, even if it doesn’t help much.’