“BRAAAK! Ghaaa-braaak!” roared Coodcoodak suddenly, to loud applause. Geralt didn’t know which animal he was imitating, but he didn’t want to meet anything like it. He turned his head and caught the queen’s venomously green glance. Drogodar, his lowered head and face concealed by Ms curtain of gray hair, quietly strummed his lute.

“Ah, Geralt,” said Calanthe, with a gesture forbidding a servant from refilling her goblet. “I speak and you remain silent. We’re at a feast. We all want to enjoy ourselves. Amuse me. I’m starting to miss your pertinent remarks and perceptive comments. I’d also be pleased to hear a compliment or two, homage or assurance of your obedience. In whichever order you choose.”

“Oh well, your Majesty,” said the witcher, “I’m not a very interesting dinner companion. I’m amazed to be singled out for the honor of occupying this place. Indeed, someone far more appropriate should have been seated here. Anyone you wished. It would have sufficed for you to give them the order, or to buy them. It’s only a question of price.”

“Go on, go on.” Calanthe tilted her head back and closed her eyes, the semblance of a pleasant smile on her lips.

“So I’m honored and proud to be sitting by Queen Calanthe of Cintra, whose beauty is surpassed only by her wisdom. I also regard it as a great honor that the queen has heard of me and that, on the basis of what she has heard, does not wish to use me for trivial matters. Last winter Prince Hrobarik, not being so gracious, tried to hire me to find a beauty who, sick of his vulgar advances, had fled the ball, losing a slipper. It was difficult to convince him that he needed a huntsman, and not a witcher.”

The queen was listening with an enigmatic smile.

“Other rulers, too, unequal to you in wisdom, didn’t refrain from proposing trivial tasks. It was usually a question of the murder of a stepson, stepfather, stepmother, uncle, aunt—it’s hard to mention them all. They were all of the opinion that it was simply a question of price.”

The queen’s smile could have meant anything.

“And so I repeat”—Geralt bowed his head a little—“that I can’t contain my pride to be sitting next to you, ma’am. And pride means a very great deal to us witchers. You wouldn’t believe how much. A lord once offended a witcher’s pride by proposing a job that wasn’t in keeping with either honor or the witcher’s code. What’s more, he didn’t accept a polite refusal and wished to prevent the witcher from leaving his castle. Afterward, everyone agreed this wasn’t one of his best ideas.”

“Geralt,” said Calanthe, after a moment’s silence, “you were wrong. You’re a very interesting dinner companion.”

Coodcoodak, shaking beer froth from his whiskers and the front of his jacket, craned his neck and gave the penetrating howl of a she-wolf in heat. The dogs in the courtyard, and the entire neighborhood, echoed the howl.