‘Meaning, it’s shaky here. The ground’s shaky and the times are shaky. Gangs, Nilfgaardians, partisans from the Free Slopes… And diverse foreign elements, half-elves. Each one raring to commit assault…’

‘Meaning?’ Angoulême wrinkled her nose.

‘Meaning you owe me money, Flaxenhair. And rather than pay it back, you’re getting deeper into debt. Serious debt, because you might get a whack on the head for what you’re asking, and not with a bare hand, but an axe. What kind of business is that for me? Will it pay if I do know something about the half-elf, eh? Will I get anything out of it? For if it’s only risk and no profit—’

Geralt had had enough. The conversation was boring him, the jargon and the dwarf’s mannerisms annoying him. As quick as lightning he caught the dwarf by the beard, yanked down and pushed him over. Golan Drozdeck tripped over the can of paint and fell. The Witcher leaped on him, pressed his knee against his chest and flashed a knife in front of his eyes.

‘You may profit,’ he growled, ‘by escaping with your life. Talk.’

Golan’s eyes looked as though they would pop out of their sockets and go for a stroll.

‘Talk,’ Geralt repeated. ‘Tell us what you know. Otherwise, when I slash your throat open you’ll drown before you bleed to death.’

‘The Rialto…’ the dwarf stammered. ‘The Rialto pit…’

The Rialto mine didn’t differ very much from the Petite Babette mine, or from the other mines and quarries that Angoulême, Geralt and Cahir had passed on the way, which were called Autumn Manifest, Old Mine, New Mine, Juliet Mine, Celestine, Common Cause and Lucky Pit. Work was in full swing in all of them, soil and ore being carted out of every shaft and pit to be tipped onto a sluice and washed in the sifters. There was an abundance of the characteristic red mud in all of them.

Rialto was a large mine, located near the top of the hill. The crown had been sliced away and formed a quarry. The actual washing station was located on a terrace carved out of the hillside. Here, at the foot of a vertical wall–in which shafts and drifts gaped–was a sluice, sifters, gutters and other mining paraphernalia. There was also a veritable village of wooden huts, sheds, shacks and hovels covered in bark.

‘I don’t know anyone here,’ said the girl, tying her reins to the fence. ‘But let’s try and talk to the overseer. Geralt, if you could, maybe don’t seize him by the throat immediately or threaten him with a shiv. First we’ll talk—’

‘Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Angoulême.’