Crach, bowing his red head, knelt on one knee before the queen.

“Who else have you brought, Eist?”

A thickset, robust man with a bushy beard, and a strapping fellow with bagpipes on his back, knelt by Crach an Craite.

“This is the gallant druid Mousesack, who, like me, is a good friend and advisor to King Bran. And this is Draig Bon-Dhu, our famous skald. And thirty seamen from Skellige are waiting in the courtyard, burning with hope to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Calanthe of Cintra.”

“Sit down, noble guests. Tuirseach, sir, sit here.”

Eist took the vacant seat at the narrower end of the table, only separated from the queen by Drogodar and an empty chair. The remaining islanders sat together on the left, between Marshal Vissegerd and the three sons of Lord Strept, Tinglant, Fodcat and Wieldhill.

“That’s more or less everyone.” The queen leaned over to the marshal. “Let’s begin, Vissegerd.”

The marshal clapped his hands. The servants, carrying platters and jugs, moved toward the table in a long line, greeted by a joyful murmur from the guests.

Calanthe barely ate, reluctantly picking at the morsels served her with a silver fork. Drogodar, having bolted his food, kept strumming his lute. The rest of the guests, on the other hand, laid waste to the roast piglets, birds, fish and mollusks on offer—with the red-haired Crach an Craite in the lead. Rainfarn of Attre reprimanded the young Prince Windhalm severely, even slapping his hand when he reached for a jug of cider. Coodcoodak stopped picking bones for a moment and entertained his neighbors by imitating the whistle of a mud turtle. The atmosphere grew merrier by the minute. The first toasts were being raised, and already becoming less and less coherent.

Calanthe adjusted the narrow golden circlet on her curled ash-gray hair and turned to Geralt, who was busy cracking open a huge red lobster.

“It’s loud enough that we can exchange a few words discreetly. Let us start with courtesies: I’m pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s mutual, your Majesty.”

“After the courtesies come hard facts. I’ve got a job for you.”

“So I gathered. I’m rarely invited to feasts for the pleasure of my company.”

“You’re probably not very interesting company, then. What else have you gathered?”

“I’ll tell you when you’ve outlined my task, your Majesty.”

“Geralt,” said Calanthe, her fingers tapping an emerald necklace, the smallest stone of which was the size of a bumblebee, “what sort of task do you expect, as a witcher? What? Digging a well? Repairing a hole in the roof? Weaving a tapestry of all the positions King Vridank and the beautiful Cerro tried on their wedding night? Surely you know what your profession’s about?”

“Yes, I do. I’ll tell you what I’ve gathered, your Majesty.”

“I’m curious.”

“I gathered that. And that, like many others, you’ve mistaken my trade for an altogether different profession.”

“Oh?” Calanthe, casually leaning toward the lute-strumming Drogodar, gave the impression of being pensive and absent. “Who, Geralt, makes up this ignorant horde with whom you equate me? And for what profession do those fools mistake your trade?”