‘Nothing… Yurga… Do you really remember all the names?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I’ll see what your memory’s like… The last one. The fourteenth. What name is it?’

‘What a doubter you are. You don’t believe in anything. You want to find out if I’m lying? I told you, didn’t I, that every youngster knows those names. The last one, you say? Well, the last one is Yoël Grethen of Carreras. Perhaps you knew him?’

Geralt rubbed his eyelid with his wrist. And he glanced at the menhir. At all the names.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t.’

VIII

‘Geralt, sir?’

‘Yes, Yurga?’

The merchant lowered his head and said nothing for some time, winding around a finger the remains of the thin strap with which he was repairing the Witcher’s saddle. He finally straightened up and gently tapped the servant driving the cart on the back with his fist.

‘Mount one of those spare horses, Pokvit. I’ll drive. Sit behind me on the box, Geralt, sir. Why are you hanging around the cart, Pokvit? Go on, ride on! We want to talk here, we don’t need your eyes!’

Roach, dawdling behind the cart, neighed, tugged at the tether, clearly envious of Pokvit’s mare trotting down the highway.

Yurga clicked his tongue and tapped the horses lightly with the reins.

‘Well,’ he said hesitantly. ‘It’s like this, sir. I promised you… Back then on the bridge… I made a promise—’

‘You needn’t worry,’ the Witcher quickly interrupted. ‘It’s not necessary, Yurga.’

‘But it is,’ the merchant said curtly. ‘It’s my word. Whatever I find at home but am not expecting is yours.’

‘Give over. I don’t want anything from you. We’re quits.’

‘No, sir. Should I find something like that at home it means it’s destiny. For if you mock destiny, if you deceive it, then it will punish you severely.’

I know, thought the Witcher. I know.

‘But… Geralt, sir…’

‘What, Yurga?’

‘I won’t find anything at home I’m not expecting. Nothing, and for certain not what you were hoping for. Witcher, sir, hear this: after the last child, my woman cannot have any more and whatever you’re after, there won’t be an infant at home. Seems to me you’re out of luck.’

Geralt did not reply.

Yurga said nothing either. Roach snorted again and tossed her head.

‘But I have two sons,’ Yurga suddenly said quickly, looking ahead, towards the road. ‘Two; healthy, strong and smart. I mean, I’ll have to get them apprenticed somewhere. One, I thought, would learn to trade with me. But the other…’

Geralt said nothing.

‘What do you say?’ Yurga turned his head away, and looked at him. ‘You demanded a promise on the bridge. You had in mind a child for your witcher’s apprenticeship, and nothing else, didn’t you? Why does that child have to be unexpected? Can it not be expected? I’ve two, so one of them could go for a witcher. It’s a trade like any other. It ain’t better or worse.’

‘Are you certain,’ Geralt said softly, ‘it isn’t worse?’