‘Not in this one,’ agreed Assire var Anahid, looking into the sorceress’s elven eyes. ‘And what about the matter of the Squirrel commando units? What about the elves who fought for the Empire? If I’m not mistaken, this mainly concerns your subjects, Madam Francesca?’

The Daisy of the Valleys stopped smiling. She glanced at Ida Emean, but the silent elf from the Blue Mountains avoided her gaze.

‘Pro publico bono—’ she began and broke off. Assire, also very serious, nodded her understanding.

‘What to do?’ she said slowly. ‘Everything has its price. War demands casualties. Peace, it turns out, does too.’

‘Aye, true in every respect,’ the pilgrim repeated pensively, looking at the elf sitting with head lowered. ‘Peace talks are a market. A country fair. So that some people can be bought, others must be sold. Thus the world runs its course. The point is not to pay too high a price…’

‘And not to sell oneself too cheaply,’ finished the elf, without raising his head.

‘Traitors! Despicable good-for-nothings!’

‘Whoresons!’

‘An’badraigh aen cuach!’

‘Nilfgaardian dogs!’

‘Silence!’ roared Hamilcar Danza, slamming an armoured fist onto the balustrade of the cloister. The archers on the gallery pointed their crossbows at the elves crowded into the cul-de-sac.

‘Calm down!’ Danza roared even more loudly. ‘Enough! Quieten down, gentlemen officers! A little more dignity!’

‘Do you have the audacity to talk of dignity, blackguard?’ yelled Coinneach Dá Reo. ‘We spilled blood for you, accursed Dh’oine! For you and your emperor, who received an oath of fealty from us! And this is how you repay it? You hand us over to those murderers from the North? As felons! As criminals!’

‘Enough, I said!’ Danza slammed his fist hard onto the balustrade again. ‘Acknowledge this fait accompli, gentle-elves! The agreements reached in Cintra, as conditions of the peace treaty being concluded, impose on the Empire the duty to turn over war criminals to the Nordlings—’

‘Criminals?’ shouted Riordain. ‘Criminals? You wretched Dh’oine!’

‘War criminals,’ repeated Danza, paying no attention whatsoever to the unrest below him. ‘Any officers who stand accused of proven charges of terrorism, murdering civilians, killing and torturing captives, massacring the wounded in field hospitals—’

‘You whoresons!’ yelled Angus Bri Cri. ‘We killed, because we were at war!’

‘We killed on your orders!’

‘Cuach’te aep arse, bloede Dh’oine!’

‘It has been ruled!’ repeated Danza. ‘Your insults and shouts won’t change anything. Please go to the guardhouse one at a time and put up no resistance while being manacled.’

‘We should have stayed when they were fleeing across the Yaruga.’ Riordain ground his teeth. ‘We should have stayed and fought on in the commando units. But we, idiots, fools, dolts, kept our soldierly oath! Serves us right!’

Isengrim Faoiltiarna, the Iron Wolf, the most celebrated, now almost legendary commander of the Squirrels, presently an imperial colonel, tore the silver lightning bolts of the Vrihedd Brigade from his sleeve and spaulder, stony-faced, and threw them down in the courtyard. The other officers followed his example. Hamilcar Danza frowned from the gallery as he watched this.