The portrait of a slim girl with fair hair and a sad gaze. Wearing a white dress with green gloves.

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.

The Queen of Cintra and the Empress of Nilfgaard.

Destiny, thought Philippa Eilhart, feeling Dijkstra’s eyes on her.

Poor child, thought Dijkstra, looking at the portrait. She probably thinks it’s the end of her worries and misfortunes. Poor child.

The bells of Cintra rang, frightening the seagulls.

‘Shortly after the end of the negotiations and the signing of the Peace of Cintra—’ the pilgrim picked up the story ‘—a grand holiday, a celebration lasting several days, was held in Novigrad, the crowning moment of which was a great and ceremonial military parade. The day, as befitted the first day of a new era, was truly beautiful…’

‘Are we to understand,’ the elf asked sarcastically, ‘that you were present there, sir? At that parade?’

‘In truth, I was a little late.’ The pilgrim clearly wasn’t the type to be disconcerted by sarcasm. ‘The day, as I said, was beautiful. It promised thus from the very dawn.’

Vascoigne, the commandant of Drakenborg–until recently deputy to the chief of political affairs–impatiently struck his whip against the side of his boot.

‘Faster over there, faster,’ he urged. ‘The next ones are waiting! After that peace treaty signed in Cintra we’re snowed under here.’

The hangmen, having put the nooses around the condemned men’s necks, stepped back. Vascoigne whacked his whip against his boot.

‘If any of you has anything to say,’ he said dryly, ‘now is your last chance.’

‘Long live freedom,’ said Cairbre aep Diared.

‘The trial was fixed,’ said Orestes Kopps, marauder, robber and killer.

‘Kiss my arse,’ said Robert Pilch, deserter.

‘Tell Lord Dijkstra I’m sorry,’ said Jan Lennep, secret agent, condemned for bribery and thievery.

‘I didn’t mean to… I really didn’t mean to,’ sobbed Istvan Igalffy, the fort’s former commandant, removed from his position and arraigned before the tribunal for acts committed against female prisoners, as he tottered on a birch stump.

The sun, as blinding as liquid gold, exploded above the fort’s palisade. The gallows poles cast long shadows. A beautiful, new sunny day rose over Drakenborg.

The first day of a new era.

Vascoigne hit his whip against his boot. He raised and lowered his hand.

Stumps were kicked out from under feet.

All the bells of Novigrad tolled, their deep and plaintive sounds echoing against the roofs and mansards of merchants’ residences, the echoes fading amongst the narrow streets. Rockets and fireworks shot up high. The crowd roared, cheered, threw flowers, tossed up their hats, waved handkerchiefs, favours, flags, why, even trousers.

‘Long live the Free Company!’

‘Hurraaaah!’

‘Long live the condottieri!’

Lorenzo Molla saluted the crowd, blowing kisses to beautiful townswomen.

‘If they’re going to pay bonuses as effusively as they cheer,’ he shouted over the tumult, ‘then we’ll be rich!’

‘Pity,’ said Julia Abatemarco, with a lump in her throat. ‘Pity Frontino didn’t live to see this…’