‘A great deal,’ mumbled Dennis Cranmer. ‘Truly a great deal will be decided…’

‘And put an end to even more.’

‘Everything…’ Jarre belched, decorously covering his mouth with his hand. ‘Everything will end.’

The dwarves eyed him up for a moment, keeping silent.

‘I don’t quite understand you, young man,’ Zoltan Chivay finally said. ‘You wouldn’t like to explain what you have in mind, would you?’

‘In the ducal council…’ Jarre stammered. ‘In Ellander, I mean, it was said that victory in this great war is so important, because… because it’s the great war to end all wars.’

Sheldon Skaggs snorted and spat beer down his beard. Zoltan Chivay burst out laughing.

‘Don’t you believe so, gentlemen?’

Now it was Dennis Cranmer’s turn to snort. Yarpen Zigrin remained serious, looking intently and seemingly with concern at the boy.

‘Look, son,’ he said at last, very seriously. ‘Evangelina Parr is sitting at the bar. She is, one must admit, large. Why, even enormous. But in spite of her size, beyond all doubt, she isn’t a whore to end all whores.’

Turning into a narrow and deserted alley, Dennis Cranmer stopped.

‘I must praise you, Jarre,’ he said. ‘Do you know what for?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t pretend. You don’t have to in front of me. It’s praise-worthy that you didn’t blink when Cirilla was being talked about. It’s even more praiseworthy that you didn’t open your trap then… Hey, hey, don’t make faces. I knew a lot of what went on behind Nenneke’s temple walls, a lot, you can believe me. And if that’s too little for you, then know that I heard what name the merchant wrote on that medallion for you.

‘Keep it up.’ The dwarf tactfully pretended he hadn’t noticed the crimson blush that suffused the boy’s face. ‘Keep it up, Jarre. And not only in the case of Ciri… What are you staring at?’

On the wall of a granary visible at the end of the lane was a lopsided, whitewashed slogan reading MAKE LOVE NOT WAR. Just under that somebody had scribbled in much smaller letters AND TAKE A SHIT EVERY MORNING.

‘Look somewhere else, idiot,’ Dennis Cranmer barked. ‘Just for looking at graffiti like that you can get into trouble, and if you say something at the wrong time, they’ll flog you at the post, they’ll flay the skin off your back. The judgments are swift here! Extremely swift!’

‘I saw the shoemaker in the pillory,’ muttered Jarre. ‘Reputedly for sowing defeatism.’

‘His defeatism,’ the dwarf stated seriously, pulling the boy by his sleeve, ‘probably lay in the fact that when he took his son to his troop he wept, instead of cheering patriotically. They punish differently for more serious sowing. Come, I’ll show you.’