The innkeeper, a corpulent woman in a perfectly clean apron and horned cap, approached and asked about something. Her voice sounded jangling, but melodic. Ciri pointed a finger at her open mouth, patted herself on the stomach, after which she cut off one of the silver buttons on her jacket and laid it on the table. Seeing a strange glance, she set to cutting off another button, but the woman stopped her with a gesture and a hissing, though nicely ringing, word.

The value of a button turned out to be a bowl of thick vegetable soup, an earthenware pot of beans and smoked bacon, bread and a jug of watered-down wine. Ciri thought she’d probably burst into tears at the first spoonful. But she controlled herself. She ate slowly. Delighting in the food.

The innkeeper came over, jingling questioningly, and laid her cheek on her pressed-together hands. Would she stay the night?

‘I don’t know,’ said Ciri. ‘Perhaps. In any case, thank you for the offer.’

The woman smiled and went out into the kitchen.

Ciri unfastened her belt and rested her back against the wall. She wondered what to do next. The place–particularly compared to the last few–was pleasant, and encouraged her to stay longer. She knew, though, that excessive trust could be dangerous, and lack of vigilance fatal.

A black cat, exactly like the one on the inn sign, appeared from nowhere and rubbed against her calf, arching its back. She stroked it, and the cat gently butted her palm, sat down and began licking the fur on its breast. Ciri gazed into space, her sight drifting elsewhere…

She saw Jarre sitting by the fireplace in a circle of some unattractive looking scruffs. They were all knocking over small vessels containing a red liquid.

‘Jarre?’

‘That’s what you should do,’ said the boy, looking into the flames of the fire. ‘I read about it in The History of Wars, a work written by Marshal Pelligram. You should do that when the motherland is in need.’

‘What should you do? Spill blood?’

‘Yes. Precisely. The motherland is calling. And partly for personal reasons.’

‘Ciri, don’t sleep in the saddle,’ says Yennefer. ‘We’re almost there.’

There are large crosses painted in whitewash on the houses of the town they are arriving in, on all the doors and gates. Thick, reeking smoke, smoke is billowing from pyres with corpses burning on them. Yennefer seems not to notice it.

‘I have to make myself beautiful.’

A small mirror is floating in front of her face, over the horse’s ears. A comb is dancing in the air, tugging through her black curls. Yennefer is using witchcraft, she doesn’t use her hands at all, because…

Because her hands are a mass of clotted blood.

‘Mummy! What have they done to you?’