‘Eh?’

‘Tax,’ the official repeated, and pouted his lips in a grimace probably copied from someone much more important. ‘What are you doing? Been infected by your cousin? If you make a profit, you have to pay taxes. Or you’ll have to do time in the dungeon.’

‘Me?’ Dainty roared. ‘Me, make a profit? All I have is losses, for fuck’s sake! I—’

‘Careful, Biberveldt,’ the Witcher hissed, while Dandelion kicked the halfling furtively in his hairy shin. The halfling coughed.

‘Of course,’ he said, struggling to put a smile on his chubby face, ‘of course, Mr Schwann. If you make a profit, you have to pay taxes. High profits, high taxes. And the other way around, I’d say.’

‘It is not for me to judge your business, sir,’ the official said, making a sour face. He sat down at the table, removing from the fathomless depths of his toga an abacus and a scroll of parchment, which he unrolled on the table, first wiping it with a sleeve. ‘It is my job to count up and collect. Now, then… Let us reckon this up… That will be… hmmm… Two down, carry the one… Now, then… one thousand five hundred and fifty-three crowns and twenty pennies.

A hushed wheeze escaped Dainty Biberveldt’s lips. The masons muttered in astonishment. The innkeeper dropped a bowl. Dandelion gasped.

‘Very well. Goodbye, lads,’ the halfling said bitterly. ‘If anybody asks; I’m in the dungeon.’

II

‘By tomorrow at noon,’ Dainty groaned. ‘And that whoreson, that Schwann, damn him, the repulsive creep, could have extended it. Over fifteen hundred crowns. How am I to come by that kind of coin by tomorrow? I’m finished, ruined, I’ll rot in the dungeons! Don’t let’s sit here, dammit, let’s catch that bastard doppler, I tell you! We have to catch it!’

The three of them were sitting on the marble sill of a disused fountain, occupying the centre of a small square among sumptuous, but extremely tasteless, merchants’ townhouses. The water in the fountain was green and dreadfully dirty, and the golden ides swimming among the refuse worked their gills hard and gulped in air from the surface through open mouths. Dandelion and the halfling were chewing some fritters which the troubadour had swiped from a stall they had just passed.

‘In your shoes,’ the bard said, ‘I’d forget about catching it and start looking around for somebody to borrow the money off. What will you get from catching the doppler? Perhaps you think Schwann will accept it as an equivalent?’

‘You’re a fool, Dandelion. When I catch the doppler, I’ll get my money back.’

‘What money? Everything he had in that purse went on covering the damage and a bribe for Schwann. It didn’t have any more.’

‘Dandelion,’ the halfling grimaced. ‘You may know something about poetry, but in business matters, forgive me, you’re a total blockhead. Did you hear how much tax Schwann is charging me? And what do you pay tax on? Hey? On what?’