‘Who do you include in the rest, apart from the sorcerers?’ Dandelion asked with interest.

‘Certainly not buskers and poetasters,’ Yarpen Zigrin cackled. ‘We include those who put in some work with a battle-axe, not a lute.’

‘Aha,’ Three Jackdaws said, looking up at the starry sky. ‘And how will the cobbler Sheepbagger and his rabble be contributing?’

Yarpen Zigrin spat into the campfire, muttering something in dwarven.

‘The constabulary from Barefield know these bloody mountains and will act as guides,’ Boholt said softly, ‘hence it will be fair to allow them a share of the spoils. It’s a slightly different matter with the cobbler. You see, it will go ill if the peasantry become convinced that when a dragon shows up in the land, instead of sending for professionals, they can casually poison it and go back to humping wenches in the long grass. If such a practice became widespread, we’d probably have to start begging. Yes?’

‘That’s right,’ Yarpen added. ‘For which reason, I tell you, something bad ought to befall that cobbler, before the bastard passes into legend.’

‘If it’s meant to befall him, it’ll befall him,’ Gar said with conviction. ‘Leave it to me.’

‘And Dandelion,’ the dwarf took up, ‘will blacken his name in a ballad, make him look a fool. So that he’ll suffer shame and dishonour, for generations to come.’

‘You’ve forgotten about one thing,’ Geralt said. ‘There’s one person here who could throw a spoke in the wheel. Who won’t assent to any divisions or agreements. I mean Eyck of Denesle. Have you talked to him?’

‘What about?’ Boholt said, grinding his teeth, using a stout stick to move the logs around in the campfire. ‘You won’t get anywhere with Eyck, Geralt. He knows nothing about business.’

‘As we rode up to your camp,’ Three Jackdaws said, ‘we met him. He was kneeling on the rocks, in full armour, staring at the sky.’

‘He’s always doing that,’ Beanpole said. ‘He’s meditating, or saying his prayers. He says he must, because he has orders from the gods to protect people from evil.’

‘Back home in Crinfrid,’ Boholt muttered, ‘we keep people like that on a chain in the cowshed, and give them a piece of coal so they can draw outlandish pictures on the walls. But that’s enough gossip about my neighbours, we’re talking business.’

A petite, young woman with black hair held tightly by a gold hairnet, wrapped in a woollen cloak, noiselessly entered the circle of light.

‘What reeks so much round here?’ Yarpen Zigrin asked, pretending not to see her. ‘Not brimstone, is it?’

‘No,’ Boholt, glancing to the side and sniffing pointedly, ‘it’s musk or some other scent.’

‘No, it has to be…’ the dwarf grimaced. ‘Oh! Why it’s the noble Madam Yennefer! Welcome, welcome.’

The sorceress’s eyes slowly swept over the company, her shining eyes coming to rest for a while on the Witcher. Geralt smiled faintly.

‘May I join you?’

‘But of course, good lady,’ Boholt said and hiccoughed. ‘Sit down here, on the saddle. Move your arse, Kennet, and give the noble sorceress the saddle.’