‘You’ll be coming along with me, then.’

‘How can you be sure I will? Am I under arrest?’

The soldier looked at him in a seemingly endless silence, but somehow strangely without respect. No doubt his eight-man escort gave him the nerve to look in that manner.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘You aren’t under arrest. I received no order to arrest you. If I’d received an order my question would have been different, sir. Very different.’

Geralt adjusted his sword belt rather ostentatiously.

‘And my answer,’ he said icily, ‘would have been different, too.’

‘Now, now, gentlemen,’ Dandelion decided to step in, putting on an expression, which, in his opinion, was the smile of a seasoned diplomat. ‘Why that tone? We’re honest men, we needn’t fear the powers that be, why, we’re willing to help them. Whenever the opportunity arises. But by virtue of that we deserve something from authority, don’t we, officer? If only something as tiny as an explanation of why our civic freedoms are being curtailed.’

‘There’s a war on, sir,’ the soldier replied, not in the least bit disconcerted by the torrent of words. ‘Freedom, as the name suggests, is a matter for peacetime. Any reasons will be elucidated by His Lordship the Prefect. I carry out orders, so don’t get into discussions with me.’

‘Fair enough,’ the Witcher conceded and gave the troubadour a slight wink. ‘Then lead us to the prefecture, good soldier. Dandelion, go back to the others and tell them what’s happened. Do the necessary. Regis will know what to do.’

‘What’s a witcher doing in the Slopes? What do you seek?’

The person asking the questions was a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man with a face rutted with scars and a leather patch over his left eye. In a dark alleyway, the sight of that cyclopean face was capable of wresting a moan of terror from many a breast. But how unjust, when it was the face of Mr Fulko Artevelde, Prefect of Riedbrune, the highest ranking custodian of law and order in the entire region.

‘What does a witcher seek in the Slopes?’ repeated the highest ranking custodian of law and order in the entire region.

Geralt sighed and shrugged, feigning indifference.

‘You know, of course, the answer to your question, prefect. You could only have gleaned the fact that I’m a witcher from the Riverdell forest beekeepers who hired me to protect them on their march. And being a witcher, in the Slopes, or anywhere else, I’m generally in search of the chance to work. So I’m journeying in the direction suggested by the patrons who hired me.’

‘Logical,’ Fulko Artevelde nodded. ‘On the face of it at least. You parted company with the beekeepers two days ago. But you intend to continue your travels southwards, in somewhat peculiar company. With what aim?’