‘And now the most important thing.’ Vilgefortz savoured what he was saying. ‘It may worry you, or it may gratify you, but know that you won’t give birth to the infant. Who knows, perhaps it would also have been a great chosen one with extraordinary abilities, the saviour of the world and the king of nations? No one, however, is able to guarantee that, and I, furthermore, have no intention of waiting that long. I need blood. More precisely, placental blood. As soon as the placenta develops I shall remove it from you. The rest of my plans and intentions, my splendid one, will not, as you now comprehend, concern you, so there’s no point informing you about them, it would only be an unnecessary frustration.’

He fell silent, leaving a masterly pause. Ciri couldn’t control her trembling mouth.

‘And now,’ the sorcerer nodded theatrically, ‘I invite you to the chair, Miss Cirilla.’

‘It would be worth having that bitch Yennefer watching this.’ Bonhart’s teeth flashed beneath his grey moustaches. ‘She deserves it!’

‘Indeed she does.’ Small white balls of froth appeared again in the corners of Vilgefortz’s smiling mouth. ‘Impregnation is, after all, a sacred thing, solemn and ceremonial, a mystery at which one’s entire close family should assist. And Yennefer is, after all, your quasi-mother, and in primitive cultures the mother virtually takes an active part in her daughter’s consummation ceremony. Go on, bring her here!’

‘But regarding that impregnation…’ Bonhart bent over Ciri, whom the sorcerer’s shaven-headed acolytes had begun to undress. ‘Couldn’t one, Lord Vilgefortz, do it more normally? As nature intended?’

Skellen snorted, nodding his head. Vilgefortz frowned slightly.

‘No,’ he responded coolly. ‘No, Mr Bonhart. One couldn’t.’

Ciri, as though only now realising the gravity of the situation, uttered an ear-splitting scream. Once, and then a second time.

‘Well, well.’ The sorcerer grimaced. ‘We entered the lion’s den, bravely, with head and sword held high, and now we’re afraid of a small glass tube? For shame, young lady.’

Ciri, not caring about shame, screamed so loudly the laboratory vessels jingled.

And the whole of Stygga Castle suddenly responded with yelling and commotion.

‘There’ll be trouble, boys,’ repeated Zadarlik, scraping dried dung from between the stones of the courtyard with the metal-tipped butt of his ranseur. ‘Oh, you’ll see, there’ll be trouble for us poor wretches.’

He looked at his comrades, but none of the guards commented. Neither did Boreas Mun speak. He had remained with the guards at the gate, from choice, not because of orders. He could have, like Silifant, followed Tawny Owl, could have seen with his own eyes what would happen to the Lady of the Lake, what fate she would suffer. But Boreas didn’t want to watch it. He preferred to stay here, in the courtyard, beneath the open sky, far from the chambers and halls of the upper castle, where they had taken the girl. He was certain that not even her screams would reach here.