‘We ended up alone, she and I,’ he continued a moment later, ‘and all around us corpses and fire. Ciri was grovelling in a puddle, and the water and blood were beginning to steam. A house collapsed, and I could see very little through the sparks and smoke. The horse wouldn’t go any closer. I called to her, appealed to her to come to me. My voice had almost gone, trying to outshout the conflagration. She saw and heard me but didn’t react. The horse wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t control it. I had to dismount. There was no way I could lift her with one arm, and I had to hold the reins with the other; the horse was struggling so much it almost threw me. When I lifted her she began to scream. Then she tensed up and fainted. I wrapped her in my cloak which I had wetted in a puddle; in mud, muck and blood. And we rode on. Straight through the fire.

‘I don’t know by what miracle we managed to get out of there. But a breach in the wall suddenly appeared and we were by the river. Unluckily, it turned out, for it was the spot the fleeing Nordlings had chosen. I discarded my officer’s helmet, for they would have recognised me right away by it, even though the wings had burned off. The rest of my clothing was so blackened it couldn’t have betrayed me. But had the girl been conscious, had she screamed, they would have put me to the sword. I was lucky.

‘I rode a few furlongs with them, and then fell back and hid in the bushes by a river bearing dead bodies.’

He fell silent, coughed slightly, and felt his bandaged head with both hands. And blushed. Or was it merely the glare of the flames?

‘Ciri was so dirty. I had to undress her… She didn’t resist, didn’t scream. She just trembled, eyes closed. Each time I touched her to clean her or dry her, she tensed and stiffened… I know, I ought to have spoken to her, calmed her… But suddenly I couldn’t find the words in your language… In my mother’s language, which I’ve known from a child. Unable to find the words, I tried to calm her by touch, by gentleness… But she stiffened and whimpered… Like a baby…’

‘That haunted her in her nightmares,’ Geralt whispered.

‘I know. Mine too.’

‘What then?’