A large force of Nilfgaardian soldiers are stationed here, explained the guttersnipe, but not permanently, only during breaks in marches and searches for partisans of the Free Slopes organisation. They’ll be setting up a powerful Nilfgaardian garrison here when a great, stone stronghold is constructed on the site of the old castle. A stronghold built of stone hard-won from the quarry. The people splitting the stone are prisoners of war. From Lyria, from Aedirn, and lately from Sodden, Brugge and Angren. And Temeria. Four hundred prisoners are employed here in Riedbrune. A good five hundred work in the ore quarries, underground and open-cast mines in the vicinity of Belhaven and over a thousand are building bridges and levelling roads in the Theodula pass.

There had also been a scaffold in the town square when Geralt had visited, but a much more modest one. There hadn’t been so many devices arousing hideous associations on it, and there hadn’t been so many revolting and putrid decorations hanging from the gallows, stakes, forks and poles.

That’s thanks to Mr Fulko Artevelde, the prefect recently installed by the military authorities, explained the guttersnipe, looking at the scaffold and the fragments of human anatomy gracing it. Mr Fulko has given the hangman business again. There’s no fooling around with Mr Fulko, he added. He’s a stern master.

The diamond prospector–the guttersnipe’s mate, who they found in the tavern–didn’t make a good impression on Geralt. For he happened to be in that tremblingly pale, half-sober, half-drunk, half-real, almost nightmarish state which drinking for several nights and days without stopping puts a fellow into. The Witcher’s heart sank. It looked as though the sensational news about the druids might have originated in simple delirium tremens.

The drink-sodden prospector answered their questions astutely, however, and with good sense. He wittily retorted to Dandelion’s accusation that he didn’t look like a diamond prospector by saying that he would if he ever found a diamond. He described the dwelling place of the druids by Loch Monduirn explicitly and precisely, without exaggerated embellishment or an overinflated fantasising manner. He took the liberty of asking what his interlocutors wanted from the druids and, when treated to a contemptuous silence, warned them that entering the druidic oak groves meant certain death, since the druids were wont to grab intruders, shove them in a basket called the Wicker Woman and burn them alive to the accompaniment of prayers, chants and incantations. The groundless rumour and foolish superstition, it turned out, had dogged the druids, resolutely keeping up, never lagging more than two furlongs behind.

Further conversation was interrupted by nine soldiers in black uniforms with the sign of the sun on their spaulders, armed with guisarmes.

‘Would you be,’ asked the sergeant commanding the soldiers, tapping his calf with an oaken truncheon, ‘the witcher Geralt?’

‘Yes,’ Geralt answered after a moment’s reflection. ‘I would.’