‘We’ve reached agreement with Nilfgaard in matters as difficult as Dol Angra and Riverdell,’ said Dijkstra apparently casually. ‘It would be stupid—’

‘I won’t have such remarks!’ roared Henselt, this time so loudly that not even a buffalo would have matched him. ‘I won’t put up with such remarks, particularly from spies, of all people! I’m the king, for fuck’s sake!’

‘That’s quite plain,’ snorted Meve. Demavend, his back to them, was looking at the escutcheons on the wall, smiling contemptuously, quite as if the game was not about his kingdom.

‘Enough,’ panted Henselt, eyes roving around. ‘Enough, enough by the Gods, or my blood will boil. I said: not a span of land. No, but no, repossession! I won’t agree to my kingdom being reduced by so much as a span, even half a span of land! The Gods entrusted me with the honour of Kaedwen and only to the Gods will I give it up! The Lower Marches is our land… Our… eth… ethic… ethnic land. The Lower Marches have belonged to Kaedwen for centuries…’

‘Upper Aedirn,’ Dijkstra spoke again, ‘has belonged to Kaedwen since last year. To be precise, since the twenty-fourth of July last year. From the moment a Kaedwenian occupying force invaded it.’

‘I request,’ Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen said without being asked, ‘for it to be minuted ad futuram rei memoriam that the Empire of Nilfgaard had nothing to do with that annexation.’

‘Apart from the fact that it was pillaging Vengerberg at the time.’

‘Nihil ad rem!’

‘Indeed?’

‘Gentlemen!’ Foltest admonished.

‘The Kaedwenian Army,’ rasped Henselt, ‘entered the Lower Marches as liberators! My soldiers were welcomed there with flowers! My soldiers—’

‘Your bandits.’ King Demavend’s voice was calm, but it was apparent from his face how much effort it was costing him. ‘Your brigands, who invaded my kingdom with a murderous hassa, murdered, raped and looted. Gentlemen! We have gathered here and have been debating for a week, we’re debating about what the future face of the world should be. By the Gods, is it to be a face of crime and pillage? Is the murderous status quo to be maintained? Are plundered goods to remain in the hands of the thug and the marauder?’

Henselt seized a map from the table, tore it up with a violent movement and hurled it towards Demavend. The King of Aedirn didn’t even move.

‘My army,’ wheezed Henselt, and his face took on the colour of good, old wine, ‘captured the Marches from the Nilfgaardians. Your woeful kingdom didn’t even exist then, Demavend. I shall say more: had it not been for my army you wouldn’t even have a kingdom today. I’d like to see you driving the Black Cloaks over the Yaruga and beyond Dol Angra without my help. Thus the statement that you’re king by my grace wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration. But here my generosity ends! I said I won’t give up even a span of my land. I won’t let my kingdom be diminished.’