The legend grew. The listeners–in a veritable trance–drank in the carefully measured words of the storyteller telling of the Witcher and the sorceress. Of the Tower of the Swallow. Of Ciri, the witcher girl with the scar on her face. Of Kelpie, the enchanted black mare.

Of the Lady of the Lake.

That came later, years later. Many, many years later.

But right now, like a seed swollen after warm rain, the legend was sprouting and growing inside people.

May came, suddenly. First at night, which flared up and sparkled with the distant fires of Beltane. When Ciri, strangely excited, leaped onto Kelpie and galloped towards the campfires, Geralt and Yennefer took advantage of the opportunity for a moment of intimacy. Undressing only as much as was absolutely necessary, they made love on a sheepskin coat flung onto the ground. They made love hurriedly and with abandon, in silence, without a word. They made love quickly and haphazardly. Just to have more of it.

And when they had both calmed down, trembling and kissing away each other’s tears, they were greatly surprised how much happiness such hurried lovemaking had brought them.

‘Geralt?’

‘Yes, Yen.’

‘When I… When we weren’t together, did you go with any other women?’

‘No.’

‘Not once?’

‘Not once.’

‘Your voice didn’t even waver. So I don’t know why I don’t believe you.’

‘I only ever thought about you, Yen.’

‘Now I believe you.’

May came unexpectedly. During the daytime, too. Dandelions spattered and dotted the meadows yellow, and the trees in the orchards became fluffy and heavy with blossom. The oak woods, too distinguished to hurry, remained dark and bare, but were already being covered in a green haze and at the edges grew bright with green splashes of birch.

One night, when they were camping in a valley covered in willows, the Witcher was woken by a dream. A nightmare, where he was paralysed and defenceless, and a huge grey owl raked his face with its talons and searched for his eyes with its curved beak. He awoke. And wasn’t sure if he hadn’t been transported from one nightmare into another.

There was a brightness billowing over their camp that the snorting horses took fright at. There was something inside the brightness, something like a dark interior, something shaped like a castle hall with a black colonnade. Geralt could see a large table around which sat ten shapes. Ten women.

He could hear words. Snatches of words.

…bring her to us, Yennefer. We order you.

You may not order me. You may not order her! You have no power over her!

I’m not afraid of them, Mamma. They can’t do anything to me. If they want, I’ll stand before them.

…is meeting the first of June, at the new moon. We order you both to appear. We warn you that we shall punish disobedience.