‘What for?’

‘For debts, would you believe? He didn’t stay long though, because someone bought him out after paying off the debts along with the interest. The transaction took place through a bank, with the anonymity of the benefactor preserved. I tried to uncover the identity of this benefactor but admitted defeat after checking four banks in turn. Whoever bought Rience out was a pro. And cared a great deal about preserving their anonymity.’

Codringher fell silent and then coughed loudly, pressing a handkerchief to his mouth.

‘And suddenly, as soon as the war was over, Mr Rience showed up in Sodden, Angren and Brugge,’ he continued after a moment, wiping his lips and looking down at the handkerchief. ‘Changed beyond recognition, at least as regards his behaviour and the quantities of cash he had to throw around. Because, as far as his identity went, the brazen son of a bitch didn’t bother with secrecy: he continued to use the name “Rience”. And as Rience he began to search intensively for a certain party; to be precise a young, female party. He visited the druids from the Angren Circle, the ones who looked after war orphans. One druid’s body was found some time later in a nearby forest, mutilated, bearing the marks of torture. Rience showed up afterwards in Riverdell—’

‘I know,’ interrupted Geralt. ‘I know what he did to the Riverdell peasant family. And I was expecting more for my two hundred and fifty crowns. Up to now, your only fresh information has been about the sorcerers’ school and the Kaedwen secret service. I know the rest. I know Rience is a ruthless killer. I know he’s an arrogant rogue who doesn’t even bother to use aliases. I know he’s working for somebody. But for whom, Codringher?’

‘For some sorcerer or other. It was a sorcerer who bought him out of that dungeon. You told me yourself – and Dandelion confirmed it – that Rience uses magic. Real magic, not the tricks that some expellee from the academy might know. So someone’s backing him, they’re equipping him with amulets and probably secretly training him. Some officially practising sorcerers have secret pupils and factotums like him for doing illegal or dirty business. In sorcerers’ slang it’s described as “having someone on a leash”.’

‘Were he on a magician’s leash Rience would be using camouflaging magic. But he doesn’t change his name or face. He hasn’t even got rid of the scar from the burn Yennefer gave him.’

‘That confirms precisely that he’s on a leash,’ said Codringher, coughing and wiping his lips again with his handkerchief, ‘because magical camouflage isn’t camouflage at all; only dilettantes use stuff like that. Were Rience hiding under a magical shield or illusory mask, it would immediately set off every magical alarm, and there are currently alarms like that at practically every city gate. Sorcerers never fail to detect illusory masks. Even in the biggest gathering of people, in the biggest throng, Rience would attract all of their attention, as if flames were shooting out of his ears and clouds of smoke out of his arse. So I repeat: Rience is in the service of a sorcerer and is operating so as not to draw the attention of other sorcerers to himself.’