‘Well, so the coopers saw the stuffed beast and asked me for something equally rarefied to decorate their guild chambers. The kurolishek will be just right. The coopers in Toussaint, as you can guess, are a guild who can’t complain of a shortage of orders and thanks to that are wealthy. They’re bound to give two hundred and twenty. Perhaps even more, I’ll try to haggle. And as far as the feathers are concerned… The barrel bodgers won’t notice if we pull a few pieces from the kurolishek’s arse and sell them to the ducal chancery. The chancery doesn’t pay out of its own pocket, but from the ducal coffers, so they’ll pay not five but ten for a feather without a quibble.’

‘I take my hat off to your shrewdness.’

‘Nomen est omen.’ Reynart de Bois-Fresnes grinned more broadly. ‘Mamma must have sensed something, christening me with the name of the sly fox from the well-known cycle of fables.’

‘You ought to have been a merchant, not a knight.’

‘I ought,’ agreed the knight. ‘But, well, if you’re born the son of a noble lord, you’ll live a noble lord and die a noble lord, having first begat further, ho, ho, noble lords. You won’t change anything, no matter what. Anyway, you reckon up pretty decently, Geralt, but you don’t make a living from merchandising.’

‘I don’t. For similar reasons to you. But with the single difference that I won’t begat anything. Let’s get out of these dungeons.’

Outside, at the foot of the castle walls, they were enfolded by the cold and wind from the hills. The night was bright, the sky cloudless and starry. The moonlight sparkled on the swathes of fresh, white snow lying on the vineyards.

Their tethered horses greeted them with snorts.

‘We ought to meet the customer at once and collect the money,’ said Reynart, looking meaningfully at the Witcher. ‘But you are surely hurrying back to Beauclair, what? To a certain bedchamber?’

Geralt did not reply, as he didn’t answer questions like that on principle. He hauled the kurolishek’s remains onto the pack horse and then mounted Roach.

‘Let’s meet the customer,’ he decided, turning back in the saddle. ‘The night is young, and I’m hungry. And I fancy a drink. Let’s ride to town. To The Pheasantry.’

Reynart de Bois-Fresnes laughed, adjusted a shield with a red and gold chequerboard pattern hanging from the pommel, and climbed up into the high saddle.

‘As you wish, my good fellow. The Pheasantry it is. Yah, Bucephalus!’

They went at a walk down the snow-covered hillside towards the highway, which was clearly marked by a sparse avenue of poplars.

‘You know what, Reynart,’ Geralt suddenly said. ‘I also prefer you as you are now. Talking normally. Back in October you were using infuriating, moronic mannerisms.’