‘Yes, Count,’ confirmed the ambassador. ‘The minister of foreign affairs stressed emphatically that he wished to see you immediately on arrival, which is why I’m taking you directly to Ensenada. In the evening I shall send a boat to the palace, for I would like to entertain you over supper—’

‘Your Excellency will deign to forgive me,’ Dijkstra interrupted, ‘but my duties won’t allow me to take you up on it. I have a prodigious amount of matters to deal with and little time, so I must manage them at the cost of pleasure. We shall sup another day. In happier, more peaceful times.’

The ambassador bowed and furtively sighed with relief.

He entered Ensenada, naturally, by a rear entrance. For which he was very glad. An impressive but damned long staircase of white marble led straight from the Great Canal to the main entrance of the royal winter residence, beneath a magnificent frontage supported on slender columns. The stairs leading to one of the numerous rear entrances were incomparably less spectacular, but far easier to negotiate. In spite of that, Dijkstra, as he walked, bit his lip and swore softly under his breath, so that the major-domo, lackeys and guardsmen escorting him wouldn’t hear.

More stairs and more climbing awaited him inside the palace. Dijkstra cursed again sotto voce. Probably the damp, cold and uncomfortable position in the boat was why his leg, with its smashed and magically healed ankle, had begun to make itself known with a dull, nagging pain. And a nasty memory. Dijkstra ground his teeth. He knew that the Witcher–the man responsible for his suffering–had also had his bones broken. He had profound hopes that they also pained the Witcher and wished in his heart of hearts that it would pain him as long and as severely as possible.

Dusk had already fallen outside and Ensenada’s corridors were dark. The route Dijkstra was taking behind a silent major-domo was, nonetheless, lit by a sparse row of lackeys with candlesticks. And outside the doors of the chamber to which the major-domo was leading him stood guardsmen with halberds, so erect it seemed spare halberds had been stuck up their backsides. The lackeys with candles stood more densely there, so the luminance was blinding. Dijkstra was somewhat astonished by the pomp with which he was being received.

He entered the chamber and immediately stopped being astonished. He bowed low.

‘Greetings to you, Dijkstra,’ said Esterad Thyssen, King of Kovir, Poviss, Narok, Velhad and Talgar. ‘Don’t stand by the door, come closer. Put etiquette aside, it’s an unofficial audience.’

‘Your Majesty.’

Esterad’s wife, Queen Zuleyka, responded to Dijkstra’s reverential bow with a slightly absent-minded nod, not interrupting her crocheting for a moment.

There wasn’t a soul in the chamber apart from the royal couple.

‘Precisely.’ Esterad had noticed his glance. ‘Just the two of us will chat. I beg your pardon, just the three of us. For something tells me it’ll be better this way.’