IV

Pushing through the crowd with difficulty, Geralt emerged right in front of a stall laden with copper skillets, pots and frying pans, sparkling in the rays of the twilight sun. Behind the stall stood a red-bearded dwarf in an olive-green hood and heavy sealskin boots. The dwarf’s face bore an expression of visible dislike; to be precise he looked as though any moment he intended to spit on the female customer sifting through the goods. The customer’s breast was heaving, she was shaking her golden curls and was besetting the dwarf with a ceaseless and chaotic flow of words.

The customer was none other than Vespula, known to Geralt as the thrower of missiles. Without waiting for her to recognise him, he melted swiftly back into the crowd.

The Western Market was bustling with life and getting through the crowd was like forcing one’s way through a hawthorn bush. Every now and then something caught on his sleeves and trouser legs; at times it was children who had lost their mothers while they were dragging their fathers away from the beer tent, at others it was spies from the guardhouse, at others shady vendors of caps of invisibility, aphrodisiacs and bawdy scenes carved in cedar wood. Geralt stopped smiling and began to swear, making judicious use of his elbows.

He heard the sound of a lute and a familiar peal of laughter. The sounds drifted from a fabulously coloured stall, decorated with the sign: ‘Buy your wonders, amulets and fish bait here’.

‘Has anyone ever told you, madam, that you are gorgeous?’ Dandelion yelled, sitting on the stall and waving his legs cheerfully. ‘No? It cannot be possible! This is a city of blind men, nothing but a city of blind men. Come, good folk! Who would hear a ballad of love? Whoever would be moved and enriched spiritually, let him toss a coin into the hat. What are you shoving your way in for, you bastard? Keep your pennies for beggars, and don’t insult an artist like me with copper. Perhaps I could forgive you, but art never could!’

‘Dandelion,’ Geralt said, approaching. ‘I thought we had split up to search for the doppler. And you’re giving concerts. Aren’t you ashamed to sing at markets like an old beggar?’

‘Ashamed?’ the bard said, astonished. ‘What matters is what and how one sings, and not where. Besides, I’m hungry, and the stall-holder promised me lunch. As far as the doppler is concerned, look for it yourselves. I’m not cut out for chases, brawls or mob law. I’m a poet.’

‘You would do better not to attract attention, O poet. Your fiancée is here. There could be trouble.’

‘Fiancée?’ Dandelion blinked nervously. ‘Which one do you mean? I have several.’

Vespula, clutching a copper frying pan, had forced her way through the audience with the momentum of a charging aurochs. Dandelion jumped up from the stall and darted away, nimbly leaping over some baskets of carrots. Vespula turned towards the Witcher, dilating her nostrils. Geralt stepped backwards, his back coming up against the hard resistance of the stall’s wall.