“Well”—Dhun raised his gnarled hand and started to count with great difficulty, folding his fingers over, one at a time—“one thing at a time. Forsooth, ye be a wise man. Well, it be like this. He looks, sir, like a deovel, for all the world like a deovel. Where did he come from? Well, nowhere. Crash, bang, wallop and there we have him: a deovel. And bother us, forsooth he doesnae bother us overly. There be times he even helps.”

“Helps?” cackled Dandilion, trying to remove a fly from his beer. “A devil?”

“Don’t interrupt, Dandilion. Carry on, Dhun, sir. How does he help you, this, as you say—”

“Deovel,” repeated the freeman with emphasis. “Well, this be how he helps: he fertilizes the land, he turns the soil, he gets rid of the moles, scares birds away, watches over the turnips and beetroots. Oh, and he eats the caterpillars he does, they as do hatch in the cabbages. But the cabbages, he eats them too, forsooth. Nothing but guzzle, be what he does. Just like a deovel.”

Dandilion cackled again, then flicked a beer-drenched fly at a cat sleeping by the hearth. The cat opened one eye and glanced at the bard reproachfully.

“Nevertheless,” the witcher said calmly, “you’re ready to pay me to get rid of him, am I right? In other words, you don’t want him in the vicinity?”

“And who”—Dhun looked at him gloomily—“would care to have a deovel on his birthright soil? This be our land since forever, bestowed upon us by the king and it has nought to do with the deovel. We spit on his help. We’ve got hands ourselves, have we not? And he, sir, is nay a deovel but a malicious beast and has got so much, forgive the word, shite in his head as be hard to bear. There be no knowing what will come into his head. Once he fouled the well, then chased a lass, frightening and threatening to fuck her. He steals, sir, our belongings and victuals. He destroys and breaks things, makes a nuisance of himself, churns the dykes, digs ditches like some muskrat or beaver—the water from one pond trickled out completely and the carp in it died. He smoked a pipe in the haystack he did, the son-of-a-whore, and all the hay it went up in smoke—”

“I see,” interrupted Geralt. “So he does bother you.”

“Nay.” Dhun shook his head. “He doesnae bother us. He be simply up to mischief, that’s what he be.”

Dandilion turned to the window, muffling his laughter.

The witcher kept silent.

“Oh, what be there to talk about,” said Nettly who had been silent until then. “Ye be a witcher, nae? So do ye something about this deovel. It be work ye be looking for in Upper Posada. I heard so myself. So ye have work. We’ll pay ye what needs be. But take note: we don’t want ye killing the deovel. No way.”

The witcher raised his head and smiled nastily. “Interesting,” he said. “Unusual, I’d say.”