‘I beg your pardon?’ responded a tall, thin woman with hair the colour of grey steel falling over her back, bound around her brow with a wreath of mistletoe.

‘I am Geralt… The Witcher… A friend of Emiel Regis…’

‘Again, please. I didn’t catch that.’

‘Geraaaaalt! A friend of the vampiiiire’s!’

‘Oh! You ought to have said so at once!’

At a sign from the druidess, the tree creature put them on the ground. Not very gently. Milva was unconscious, with blood dripping from her nose. Geralt stood up with difficulty and kneeled before her.

The steely-haired flaminika stood beside them and gave a slight cough. Her face was very lean, even haggard, evoking unpleasant associations of a skull covered in skin. Her cornflower-blue eyes were kind and gentle.

‘I believe she has broken ribs,’ she said, looking at Milva. ‘But we shall soon remedy that. Our healers will give her help immediately. I regret what has happened. But how was I to know who you were? I didn’t invite you to Caed Myrkvid or give my permission for you to enter our sanctuary. Emiel Regis vouched for you, admittedly, but the presence of a witcher in our forest, a paid killer of living creatures…’

‘I shall get out of here without a moment’s delay, honourable flaminika,’ Geralt assured her. ‘As soon as I—’

He broke off, seeing druids with flaming torches walking up to the pyre and the effigy full of people.

‘No!’ he cried, clenching his fists. ‘Stop!’

‘That cage,’ said the flaminika, seeming not to hear him, ‘was originally meant to serve as a winter manger for starving animals, was meant to have stood in the forest, stuffed with hay. But when we seized those scoundrels, I recalled the nasty rumours and calumnies which people spread about us. Very well, I thought, you can have your Wicker Hag. You made it up as a horrific nightmare, so I shall treat you to that nightmare…’

‘Order them to stop,’ the Witcher gasped. ‘Honourable flaminika… Don’t set light to it… One of the bandits has important information for me…’

The flaminika folded her arms on her chest. Her cornflower-blue eyes were still soft and gentle.

‘Oh, no,’ she said dryly. ‘No chance. I don’t believe in the institution of turning imperial evidence. Wriggling out of a punishment is immoral.’

‘Stop!’ The Witcher yelled. ‘Don’t set fire to it! Stooo—’

The flaminika made a short gesture with her hand and Little Tree, still standing nearby, stamped down its roots and laid a bough on the Witcher’s shoulder. Geralt sat down with a thump.

‘Light it!’ the flaminika ordered. ‘I’m sorry, Witcher, but it must be thus. We druids cherish and venerate life in all its forms. But sparing the lives of criminals is sheer stupidity. Only terror deters criminals. So we shall give them an example of it. I pin great hopes on not having to repeat this example.’