‘Make what clearer?’ yelled the Kaedwenian witch. ‘What could be clearer here? Can’t you see? This is Rhys-Rhun Castle! It’s empty! Empty and dirty! It’s a sodding empty ruin! There’s nothing here! Nothing!’

Keira Metz emerged from behind Sabrina’s shoulder, looking like a hellish fiend in her facial camouflage.

‘There isn’t and there hasn’t been anyone in this castle,’ she said calmly, ‘for at least fifty years. For fifty years there hasn’t been a living soul here, not counting the spiders, rats and bats. We made the landing in completely the wrong place.’

‘Have you made sure it isn’t an illusion?’

‘Do you take us for children, Philippa?’

‘Listen, both of you.’ Philippa Eilhart nervously ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Tell the mercenaries and novices they were on manoeuvres. Pay them and return. Return at once. And put a brave face on it, do you hear? Put a brave face on it!’

The oval of the communicator went out. Only the image on the wall screen remained. Rhys-Rhun Castle against the black sky, twinkling with stars. And the lake, with the stars reflected in it.

Fringilla Vigo looked down at the table. She felt as though the pounding blood would soon burst her cheeks.

‘I… really,’ she said at last, unable to bear the silence in the columned hall of Montecalvo Castle. ‘I… really don’t understand…’

‘But I do,’ said Triss Merigold.

‘That castle…’ said Philippa deep in thought, not paying any attention to her comrades. ‘That castle… Rhys-Rhun… will have to be destroyed. Utterly annihilated. And when legends and tales begin to be made up about this whole debacle, it will be necessary to subject them to scrupulous censorship. Do you understand what I mean, ladies?’

‘Only too well,’ nodded Francesca Findabair, who had been silent up until that moment. Ida Emean, also silent, took the liberty of making quite an ambiguous snort.

‘I…’ Fringilla Vigo still seemed stunned. ‘I truly can’t comprehend… how it could have happened…’

‘Oh,’ said Sheala de Tancarville after a very long silence. ‘It’s nothing serious, Miss Vigo. No one’s perfect.’

Philippa snorted softly. Assire var Anahid sighed and raised her eyes towards the plafond.

‘After all,’ added Sheala, pouting her lips, ‘it’s befallen all of us at some time. Each of us, sitting here, has been cheated, taken advantage of, and made a laughing stock of by some man, at some time.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I love you, I’m charmed by your lovely form:

And if you’re not willing, I’ll have to use force.’

‘Father, my Father, he’s gripped me at last!

The Erlkönig’s hurting me, holding me fast!–

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Everything has been, everything has happened. And everything has already been written about.

Vysogota of Corvo

A scorching, stuffy afternoon fell on the forest, and the lake surface, which had been as dark as jade shortly before, now flashed gold and lit up with reflections. Ciri had to shield her eyes with her hand. The glare reflected in the water blinded her, and she felt pain in her eyeballs and temples.