‘It isn’t.’

‘I understand.’

‘No you bloody don’t. Is it far to this tavern?’

‘Just round the corner. Ah, here we are. Can you see the sign?’

‘Yes, I can.’

‘My sincere and humble greetings!’ Dandelion flashed a smile at the wench sweeping the steps. ‘Has anyone ever told you, my lady, that you are gorgeous?’

The wench flushed and gripped her broom tightly. For a moment Geralt thought she would whack the troubadour with the handle. He was mistaken. The wench smiled engagingly and fluttered her eyelashes. Dandelion, as usual, paid absolutely no attention.

‘Greetings to one and all! Good day!’ he bellowed, entering the tavern and plucking the lute strings hard with his thumb. ‘Master Dandelion, the most renowned poet in this land, has visited your tawdry establishment, landlord! For he has a will to drink beer! Do you mark the honour I do you, swindler?’

‘I do,’ said the innkeeper morosely, leaning forward over the bar. ‘I’m content to see you, minstrel, sir. I see that your word is indeed your bond. After all, you promised to stop by first thing to pay for yesterday’s exploits. And I–just imagine–presumed you were lying, as usual. I swear I am ashamed.’

‘There is no need to feel shame, my good man,’ the troubadour said light-heartedly, ‘for I have no money. We shall converse about that later.’

‘No,’ the innkeeper said coldly. ‘We shall converse about it right away. Your credit has finished, my lord poet. No one befools me twice in a row.’

Dandelion hung up his lute on a hook protruding from the wall, sat down at a table, took off his bonnet and pensively stroked the egret’s feather pinned to it.

‘Do you have any funds, Geralt?’ he asked with hope in his voice.

‘No, I don’t. Everything I had went on the jacket.’

‘That is ill, that is ill,’ Dandelion sighed. ‘There’s not a bloody soul to stand a round. Innkeeper, why is it so empty here today?’

‘It’s too early for ordinary drinkers. And the journeymen masons who are repairing the temple have already been and returned to the scaffolding, taking their master with them.’

‘And there’s no one, no one at all?’

‘No one aside from the honourable merchant Biberveldt, who is breaking his fast in the large snug.’

‘Dainty’s here?’ Dandelion said, pleased. ‘You should have said at once. Come to the snug, Geralt. Do you know the halfling, Dainty Biberveldt?’

‘No.’

‘Never mind. You can make his acquaintance. Ah!’ the troubadour called, heading towards the snug. ‘I smell from the east a whiff and hint of onion soup, pleasing to my nostrils. Peekaboo! It’s us! Surprise!’

A chubby-cheeked, curly-haired halfling in a pistachio-green waistcoat was sitting at the table in the centre of the chamber, beside a post decorated with garlands of garlic and bunches of herbs. In his left hand he held a wooden spoon and in his right an earthenware bowl. At the sight of Dandelion and Geralt, the halfling froze and opened his mouth, and his large nut-brown eyes widened in fear.