‘What are you driving at, my dear Gyllenstiern?’

‘I shall tell you. I’ve heard that it has recently become tiresome to negotiate with you witchers. The thing is that, whenever a witcher is shown a monster to be killed, the witcher, rather than take his sword and slaughter it, begins to ponder whether it is right, whether it is transgressing the limits of what is possible, whether it is not contrary to the code and whether the monster really is a monster, as though it wasn’t clear at first glance. It seems to me that you are simply doing too well. In my day, witchers didn’t have two pennies to rub together, just two stinking boots. They didn’t question, they slaughtered what they were ordered to, whether it was a werewolf, a dragon or a tax collector. All that counted was a clean cut. So, Geralt?’

‘Do you have a job for me, Gyllenstiern?’ the Witcher asked coldly. ‘If so, tell me what. I’ll think it over. But if you don’t, there’s no sense wasting our breath, is there?’

‘Job?’ the chancellor sighed. ‘No, I don’t. This all concerns a dragon, and that clearly transgresses your limits, Witcher. So I prefer the Reavers. I merely wanted to alert you. Warn you. King Niedamir and I may tolerate the whims of witchers and their classification of monsters into good and bad, but we do not wish to hear about them, much less see them effected in our presence. Don’t meddle in royal matters, Witcher. And don’t consort with Dorregaray.’

‘I am not accustomed to consorting with sorcerers. Why such an inference?’

‘Dorregaray,’ Gyllenstiern said, ‘surpasses even witchers with his whims. He does not stop at categorising monsters into good and bad. He considers them all good.’

‘That’s overstating the case somewhat.’

‘Clearly. But he defends his views with astonishing obstinacy. I truly would not be surprised if something befell him. And the fact he joined us keeping such curious company—’

‘I am not Dorregaray’s companion. And neither is he mine.’

‘Don’t interrupt. The company is strange. A witcher crawling with scruples like a fox’s pelt with fleas. A sorcerer spouting druidic humbug about equilibrium in nature. The silent knight Borch Three Jackdaws and his escort from Zerrikania, where–as is generally known–sacrifices are made before the image of a dragon. And suddenly they all join in the hunt. Strange, isn’t it?’

‘If you insist, then yes it is.’

‘Know then,’ the chancellor said, ‘that the most mysterious problems find–as experience proves–the simplest solutions. Don’t compel me, Witcher, to use them.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, but you do. Thank you for the conversation, Geralt.’

Geralt stopped. Gyllenstiern urged his horse on and joined the king, catching up with the caravan. Eyck of Denesle rode alongside wearing a quilted kaftan of light-coloured leather marked with the impressions of a breastplate, pulling a packhorse laden with a suit of armour, a uniformly silver shield and a powerful lance. Geralt greeted him by raising his hand, but the knight errant turned his head to the side, tightening his thin lips, and spurred his horse on.