‘Ciri and the unicorn,’ interrupted Nimue, looking at the window, at the lake, at the boat and the Fisher King thrashing around in it. ‘Ciri and the unicorn emerge from nothingness like apparitions, suspended over some lake or other… And perhaps it’s constantly the same lake, one that spans times and places like a bridge, at once different, but nonetheless the same?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Apparitions.’ Nimue wasn’t looking at her. ‘Visitors from other dimensions, other planes, other places, other times. Apparitions that change someone’s life. That also change their own life, their own fate… Unbeknownst to them. For them it’s simply… another place. Not that place, not that time… Once again, one more time in a row, not that time—’

‘Nimue,’ Condwiramurs interrupted with a forced smile. ‘It’s me who’s the dream-reader, let me remind you. I’m the expert on dream visions and oneiroscopy. And all of a sudden you begin to prophesy. As though you saw what you’re talking about… in a dream.’

The Fisher King, judging by the sudden intensity of his voice and his cursing, had failed to unhitch the lure and the line had snapped. Nimue said nothing, and looked at the engravings. At Ciri and the unicorn.

‘I really have seen in a dream what I’ve been talking about,’ she finally said, very calmly. ‘I saw it many times in my dreams. And once while awake.’

As it is known, the journey from Czuchów to Malbork may in certain conditions take even five days. And since the letters from the Czuchów Commander to Winrych von Kniprode, Grand Master of the Order, had without fail to reach the addressee no later than on the day of Pentecost, the knight Heinrich von Schwelborn didn’t delay and set off the day after Sunday Exaudi Domine, in order to travel peacefully and with no risk of being late. Langsam, abersicher. The knight’s attitude greatly pleased his escort, which consisted of six mounted crossbowmen, commanded by Hasso Planck, a baker’s son from Cologne. The crossbowmen and Planck were more accustomed to noble gentlemen who swore, yelled, urged and ordered them to gallop at breakneck speed, and afterwards, when they didn’t make it in time anyway, put all the blame on the poor infantry, by lying in a way unbefitting a knight, not to mention one from a religious military order.

It was warm, though overcast. It drizzled from time to time, and the ravines were enveloped in fog. The hills, overgrown by lush greenery, reminded Sir Heinrich of his native Thuringia, his mother, and the fact that he hadn’t had a woman for over a month. The crossbowmen riding at the rear were languidly singing a ballad by Walther von der Vogelweide. Hasso Planck was dozing in the saddle.

Wer guter Fraue Liebe hat

Der schämt sich aller Missetat…