Cahir threw some birch branches on the fire. It had been raining all day and no other fuel would have burned. But the birch, though wet, crackled a little and then flared up in a tall, blue flame.

‘Where are you from, Angoulême?’

‘From Cintra, Witcher. It’s a country by the sea, by the mouth of the Yaruga—’

‘I know where Cintra is.’

‘So why do you ask, if you know all that? Do I fascinate you so?’

‘A little, let’s say.’

They fell silent. The fire crackled on.

‘My mother,’ Angoulême finally said, staring into the flame, ‘was a Cintran noblewoman, from a high-ranking family, I believe. The family had a sea-cat in its coat of arms. I’d show it to you, I used to have a little medallion with that bloody sea-cat on it, from my mother, but I lost it at dice… That family, though–sod them and their sea-cat–disowned me, because my mother was said to have slept with some churl, a stableman, I believe, and so I was a bastard, a disgrace, an ignominious stain on their honour. They gave me away to be raised by distant relatives. Admittedly they didn’t have a cat, dog or any other fucker on their arms, but they weren’t bad to me. They sent me to school and generally didn’t beat me… Though they reminded me pretty often who I was. A bastard, conceived in the straw. My mother visited me maybe three or four times when I was small. Then she stopped. And to be honest, I didn’t give a shit…’

‘How did you fall among criminals?’

‘You sound like an examining magistrate!’ she snorted, contorting her face grotesquely. ‘Among criminals, pshaw! Fallen from virtue, huh?’

She grunted, rummaged around in her bosom and took something out which the Witcher couldn’t see clearly.

‘One-eyed Fulko,’ she said indistinctly, rubbing something vigorously into her gum and inhaling, ‘isn’t a bad old fellow. He took what he took, but left the powder. Want a pinch, Witcher?’

‘No. I’d rather you didn’t take it either.’

‘Why?’

‘I just would.’

‘Cahir?’

‘I don’t use fisstech.’

‘Well, it’s clear I’ve landed up with a couple of goody-goodies.’ She shook her head. ‘You’ll probably start preaching that I’ll go blind, deaf and bald from this stuff, I suppose? And give birth to a crippled child?’

‘Leave it, Angoulême. And finish the story.’

The young woman sneezed loudly.