“This talking has made me tired, Geralt. Briefly: there were two after Primula, Ilka and Venimira. Everything happened in the same way, to the point of boredom. First, a mixture of fear and reserve, then a thread of sympathy thy reinforced by small but precious gifts, then ‘Bite me, eat me up,’ Daddy’s return, a tender farewell and an increasingly discernible depletion of the treasury. I decided to take longer breaks to be alone. Of-course, I’d long ago stopped believing that a virgin’s kiss would transform the way I looked. And I’d come to terms with it. And, what’s more, I’d come to the conclusion that things were fine as they were and that there wasn’t any need for changes.”

“Really? No changes, Nivellen?”

“It’s true. I have a horse’s health, which came with the way I look, for one. Secondly, my being different works on girls like an aphrodisiac. Don’t laugh! I’m certain that as a human, I’d have to give a mighty good chase to get at a girl like, for example, Venimira, who was an extremely beautiful maid. I don’t suppose she’d have glanced twice at the fellow in the portrait. And thirdly: safety. Father had enemies, and a couple of them had survived. People whom the crew, under my pitiful leadership, had sent to their graves, had relatives. There’s gold in the cellar. If it wasn’t for the fear inspired by me, somebody would come and get it, if only peasants with pitchforks.”

“You seem quite sure,” Geralt remarked, playing with an empty chalice, “that you haven’t offended anyone in your present shape. No father, no daughter. No relative or daughter’s betrothed—”

“Leave off, Geralt.” Nivellen was indignant. “What are you talking about? The fathers couldn’t contain themselves for joy. I told you, I was incredibly generous. And the daughters? You didn’t see them when they got here in their dresses of sackcloth, their little hands raw from washing, their shoulders stooped from carrying buckets. Even after two weeks with me, Primula still had marks on her back and thighs from the strap her knightly father had beaten her with. They walked around like princesses here, carried nothing but a fan and didn’t even know where the kitchen was. I dressed them up and covered them with trinkets. At the click of a finger, I’d conjure up hot water in the tin bath Father had plundered for my mother at Assengard. Can you imagine? A tin bath! There’s hardly a regent, what am I saying, hardly a lord who’s got a tin bath at home. This was a house from a fairy tale for them, Geralt. And as far as bed is concerned, well… Pox on it, virtue is rarer today than a rock dragon. I didn’t force any of them, Geralt.”

“But you suspected someone had paid me to kill you. Who would have?”

“A scoundrel who wanted the contents of my cellar but didn’t have any more daughters,” Nivellen said emphatically. “Human greed knows no limits.”