‘Ha!’ The King of Kovir thumped his sceptre down on the bedside table. ‘In sooth, the prophet Lebioda was shrewd! Instead of giving, cause someone else to give? That appeals to me, those are in sooth flowing words! Study the wisdom of that prophet, my darling Zuleyka. I’m certain you will discover among it something that permits me to solve the problem of Redania and the army that Redania wishes to raise using my money.’

Zuleyka leafed through the book for a long time before she finally began to read.

‘ “A pupil of the prophet Lebioda once spake to him: ‘teach me, master, how I am to act. For my neighbour is desirous of my favourite dog. If I give him my pet, my heart will break from sorrow. If, though, I do not give it, I shall be downhearted, for I shall pain my neighbour through my refusal. What to do?’ ‘Do you have,’ asked the prophet, ‘something you love less than your pet dog?’ ‘I have, master,’ the pupil replied, ‘an impish cat, a tiresome pest. And I love him not at all.’ And thus spake the prophet Lebioda: ‘Take that impish cat, that tiresome pest, and give it to your neighbour. Then you will know happiness. You will be rid of the cat, and will delight your neighbour. For most often it is so, that our neighbour does not desire a gift, but to be given’.” ’

Esterad was silent for some time and his brow was knitted.

‘Zuleyka?’ he finally asked. ‘Was that really the same prophet?’

‘ “Take that impish cat—” ’

‘I heard it the first time!’ the king yelled, but immediately restrained himself.

‘Forgive me, most beloved. The point is I don’t understand what cats have to do with…’

He fell silent. And pondered deeply.

After eighty-five years, when the situation had changed enough to allow talk about certain issues and persons, Guiscard Vermuellen, Duke of Creyden, grandson of Esterad Thyssen and son of his oldest daughter, Gaudemunda, spoke. Duke Guiscard was then a venerable old man, but he clearly remembered the events he had witnessed. It was Duke Guiscard who revealed where the million bizants came from, the million with which Redania equipped its cavalry for the war against Nilfgaard. That million didn’t come–as had been thought–from Kovir’s treasury, but from the hierarch of Novigrad. Esterad Thyssen, Guiscard disclosed, obtained the Novigradian money from his shares in the maritime trade companies being set up. The paradox was that those companies were set up with the active cooperation of Nilfgaardian merchants. Thus it appeared that Nilfgaard itself–to some degree–had financed the fielding of the Redanian army.