The evening’s ornament was placed on a large silver tray in the middle, forming the centrepiece of the high table at which Duchess Anarietta and the most distinguished guests were seated. Among truffles, flowers cut from carrots, quartered lemons and artichoke hearts lay a huge sturgeon, and on its back was a whole roast heron, standing on one leg, holding a gold ring in its upraised beak.

‘I vow on the heron,’ cried Peyrac-Peyran, the baron with the bull’s head in his arms whom the Witcher knew well, standing and lifting up his goblet. ‘I vow on the heron to defend knightly honour and the virtue of ladies and I vow never, ever to yield the field to anyone!’

The oath was rewarded with thunderous applause. And the eating began.

‘I vow on the heron!’ yelled another knight, with bushy whiskers pointing pugnaciously upwards. ‘I promise to defend the borders and Her Grace Anna Henrietta to the last drop of my blood! And in order to prove my loyalty, I vow to paint a heron on my shield and fight incognito for a year, concealing my name and arms, calling myself the Knight of the White Heron! I wish Her Grace good health!’

‘Good health! Happiness! Viva! Long live Her Grace!’

Anarietta thanked them with a faint nod of her head, decorated with a diamond-encrusted tiara. She had so many diamonds on her that she could have scratched glass just by passing. Beside her sat Dandelion, smiling foolishly. A little further away, between two matrons, sat Emiel Regis. He was dressed in a black, velvet jacket, looking like a vampire. He was waiting on the ladies and entertaining them with his conversation. They listened with fascination.

Geralt took the platter with the zander garnished with parsley and served Fringilla Vigo, who sat on his left, and was dressed in a gown of mauve satin and a gorgeous amethyst necklace, which sat prettily on her breast. Fringilla, watching him from beneath her black eyelashes, raised her goblet and smiled enigmatically.

‘Your good health, Geralt. I’m glad they put us together.’

‘Don’t count your chickens,’ he replied with a smile, for he was actually in decent humour. ‘The feast has only just begun.’

‘On the contrary. It has lasted long enough for you to have complimented me. How long must I wait?’

‘You are enchantingly beautiful.’

‘Slowly, slowly, with restraint!’ She laughed–he would have sworn–entirely sincerely. ‘At this rate I’m afraid to think where we might end up by the end of the banquet. Start with… Hmm… Say that I have a tasteful dress and that mauve suits me.’

‘Mauve suits you. Although I confess I like you most in white.’

He saw a challenge in her emerald eyes. He was afraid to take it up. He was in such good humour.

Cahir and Milva had been seated opposite. Cahir was sitting between two very young and ceaselessly twittering noblewomen, perhaps the barons’ daughters. The archer, meanwhile, was accompanied by an older, gloomy knight with a pockmarked face, who was as quiet as a stone.