And all in the eerie and unnatural light of the fireworks bursting in the sky.

‘Stop it!’ Dandelion yelled. ‘Stop it, you bloody fools!’

Cahir artfully knocked the ground out from under Geralt, and smote him in the teeth as he was trying to get up. And punched him again. Geralt crouched, tensed and kicked him, not in his crotch where he had aimed, but in the thigh. They grappled again, fell and rolled over, thumping one another wherever they could, blinded by the punches and the dust and sand getting into their eyes.

Then suddenly they came apart, rolling in opposite directions, cowering and shielding their heads from the blows raining down on them.

Having unfastened her sturdy, leather belt, Milva had seized it by the buckle, wound it around her fist, fallen on the fighters and begun to flog them with lusty blows, with all her might, sparing neither the strap nor her arm. The belt whistled and fell with a dry crack first on Cahir’s then on Geralt’s arms, back and shoulders. When they parted, Milva hopped from one to the other like a grasshopper, thrashing them evenly, so that neither of them received any less or any more than the other.

‘You thick thickheads!’ she yelled, cracking Geralt across the back. ‘You doltish dolts! I’ll teach you both a lesson!’

‘Enough?’ she yelled even louder, lashing Cahir’s arms, with which he was shielding his head. ‘Had enough? Calmed down now?’

‘Stop!’ the Witcher howled. ‘Enough!’

‘Enough!’ echoed Cahir, who was huddled up in a ball. ‘That’ll do!’

‘That will suffice,’ said the vampire. ‘That really will suffice, Milva.’

The archer was panting heavily, wiping her forehead with her fist, belt still wound around it.

‘Bravo,’ said Angoulême. ‘Bravo, aunty.’

Milva turned on her heel and thrashed her across the shoulders with all her might. Angoulême screamed, sat down and burst into tears.

‘I told you,’ Milva puffed, ‘not to call me that. I told you!’

‘It’s all right!’ In a somewhat shaking voice Dandelion reassured the merchants and travellers, who had run over from the neighbouring campfires. ‘Just a misunderstanding between friends. A lovers’ tiff. It’s already been patched up!’

The Witcher probed a wobbly tooth with his tongue and spat out the blood dripping from his cut lip. He felt the welts beginning to rise on his back and shoulders, and his ear–which had been lashed by the strap–seeming to swell to the dimensions of a cauliflower. Beside him, Cahir clumsily hauled himself up from the ground, holding his cheek. Broad, red marks quickly spread over his exposed forearm.

Rain smelling of sulphur–ash from the last firework–was falling on the ground.

Angoulême sobbed woefully, holding her shoulders. Milva threw aside her belt, then after a moment’s hesitation knelt, embraced and hugged her without a word.

‘I suggest,’ said the vampire frigidly, ‘that you shake hands. I suggest never, ever, revisiting this matter.’