Geralt didn’t slow his stride, he walked on and his face and eyes were cold and totally indifferent.

Almost at the last moment the striplings parted, stepping back. Dandelion smelled the beer on their breath. And sweat. And fear.

‘You have to get used to it,’ said the Witcher, when they were outside. ‘You have to adapt.’

‘It’s hard sometimes.’

‘That’s no argument. That’s no argument, Dandelion.’

The air was hot, dense and sticky. Like soup.

Outside, in front of the inn, the two boys in black jackets were helping the fair-haired girl wash in a horse trough. The girl snorted, incoherently indicating that she was feeling better and announced that she needed a drink. And of course she’d go to the bazaar to overturn some stalls for a lark, but first she needed a drink.

The girl’s name was Nadia Esposito. That name became etched in the annals. It passed into history.

But Geralt and Dandelion couldn’t have known that then. Neither could the girl.

The narrow streets of the city of Rivia bustled with life, and what seemed to wholly occupy the residents and visitors was trade. It seemed as though everybody was trading in everything there and trying to exchange anything for something more. A cacophony of shouts resounded from all sides–goods were being advertised, people were bargaining heatedly, insulting each other, thunderously accusing each other of cheating, thievery and swindles, as well as other peccadilloes absolutely unconnected to commerce.

Before Geralt and Dandelion had reached Elm they were presented with a great deal of attractive offers. They were offered, among other things, an astrolabe, a brass trumpet, a set of cutlery decorated with the coat of arms of the Frangipani family, stocks in a copper mine, a large jar of leeches, a tattered book entitled An Alleged Miracle or the Medusa’s Head, a pair of ferrets, an elixir to increase potency and–as part of a package deal–a none too young, none too slim and none too fresh woman.

A black-bearded dwarf tried to convince them extremely aggressively to buy a shoddy little mirror in a pinchbeck frame, attempting to prove it was the magical looking glass of Cambuscan, when soon after somebody threw a stone and knocked the ware out of his hand.

‘Lousy kobold!’ bellowed a barefoot and dirty street urchin. ‘Unhuman! Bearded old goat!’

‘And may your guts rot, you human shithead!’ roared the dwarf. ‘May they rot and leak out of your arse.’

People looked on in gloomy silence.

The district of Elm lay right beside the lake, in a bay among alders, weeping willows and–naturally–elms. It was much more quiet and peaceful, no one bought anything or wanted to sell anything here. A light breeze was blowing from the lake, especially pleasant after getting out of the stuffy, flyblown stink of the city.