‘Oh, my dear,’ Esterad snapped. ‘One cannot argue like that. Treaties are like marriage: they aren’t entered in to with the thought of betrayal, and once they’re concluded one shouldn’t be suspicious. And if that doesn’t suit somebody, they shouldn’t get married. Because you can’t become a cuckold without being a husband, but you’ll admit that fear of wearing the horns is a pitiful and quite ridiculous justification for enforced celibacy. And cuckolds aren’t a subject for discussion in a marriage. As long as one doesn’t wear horns, that subject isn’t mentioned, and if one’s already wearing them, then there’s nothing to say. And since we’re talking about horns, how is the husband of the fair Marie, the Marquess de Mercey, the Redanian Minister of Finances?’

‘Your Majesty,’ Dijkstra bowed stiffly, ‘has enviable informants.’

‘Indeed I do,’ the king conceded. ‘You’d be astonished how many and how enviable. But you, too, can’t be ashamed of your own. Those you have at my courts, here and in Pont Vanis. Oh, I’ll wager each of them deserves top marks.’

Dijkstra didn’t even blink.

‘Emhyr var Emreis,’ Esterad continued, looking at the nymphs on the ceiling, ‘also has a few good and well placed agents. Which is why I repeat: Kovir’s raison d’état is neutrality and the principle of pacta sunt servanda. Kovir doesn’t break treaties. Not even in anticipation of the other side breaking a contract.’

‘May I observe,’ Dijkstra said, ‘that Redania isn’t urging Kovir to break pacts. Redania is by no means seeking an alliance or military aid against Nilfgaard. Redania wishes… to borrow a small sum, which we shall return—’

‘I can just see you returning it,’ the king interrupted. ‘But these are academic deliberations, for I shan’t loan you a farthing. And don’t ply me with duplicitous casuistry, Dijkstra, it suits you like a bib suits a wolf. Do you have any other, serious, intelligent and apposite arguments?’

‘I do not.’

‘You were lucky,’ Esterad Thyssen said after moment’s silence, ‘that you became a spy. You’d never have made a career in commerce.’

The length and breadth of the world, all royal couples had separate bed chambers. The kings–with extremely varying frequency–visited the queens’ bed chambers, and it also happened that queens paid unexpected visits to the kings’ bed chambers. Afterwards the spouses returned to their own chambers and beds.

The royal couple of Kovir were an exception in this respect too. Esterad Thyssen and Zuleyka always slept together–in one bed chamber, on an immense bed with an immense canopy.

Before falling asleep, Zuleyka–after putting on her spectacles, in which she was ashamed to appear before her subjects–customarily read her Good Book. Esterad Thyssen usually talked.