‘How many mice you have here, Vysogota!’ Ciri said, breaking off her story and looking down at the floor, where a veritable mouse circus was taking place in the circle of light thrown by the oil lamp. One could only imagine what was happening in the gloom beyond the light.

‘A cat would come in useful. Or, better still, two.’

‘The rodents,’ the hermit coughed, ‘are coming inside because winter is drawing nigh. And I had a cat. But it wandered off somewhere, the good-for-nothing, and never came back.’

‘It was probably taken by a fox or marten.’

‘You never saw that cat, Ciri. If something took it, it would have had to be a dragon. Nothing smaller.’

‘Was he that ferocious? Oh, that’s a pity. He wouldn’t have let these mice scamper all over my bed. Pity.’

‘Yes, it is a pity. But I think he’ll return. Cats always do.’

‘I’ll build up the fire. It’s cold.’

‘It is. The nights are perishingly cold now… And it’s not even halfway through October yet… Go on, Ciri.’

For a while Ciri sat motionless, staring into the fireplace. The fire sprang to life with the new wood, crackled, roared, and threw golden light and flickering shadows onto the girl’s scarred face.

‘Go on.’

Master Almavera pricked, and Ciri felt the tears tingling in the corners of her eyes. Although she had prudently intoxicated herself before the operation with wine and white powder, the pain was almost unbearable. She clenched her teeth. She did not groan, naturally, but pretended not to pay attention to the needle and to scorn the pain. She tried blithely to take part in the conversation the Rats were having with Hotspurn, an individual who wished to be thought of as a merchant, but who–apart from the fact that he lived off merchants–had nothing in common with trade.

‘Dark clouds have gathered above your heads,’ Hotspurn said, his dark eyes sweeping over the Rats’ faces. ‘Isn’t it bad enough that the Prefect of Amarillo is hunting you, that the Varnhagens are pursuing you, that the Baron of Casadei—?’

‘Him?’ Giselher grimaced. ‘I can understand the prefect and the Varnhagens, but what has that Casadei got against us?’

‘The wolf is dressed in sheep’s clothing,’ Hotspurn said, smiling, ‘and pitifully bleats baa, baa, no one likes me, no one understands me. Wherever I appear they throw stones at me. They shout “Hallo”. Why, oh why? Why such unfairness and injustice? The daughter of the Baron of Casadei, my dear Rats, after her adventure by the River Wagtail, grows ever weaker and feverish…’

‘Aaah,’ Giselher recalled. ‘That carriage with those four spotted horses! That maiden?’

‘That one. Now, as I said, she ails, wakes up in the night screaming, recalling Mr Kayleigh… But especially Miss Falka. And the brooch, a keepsake of her departed mamma, which Miss Falka wrested from her dress. Various words are repeated all the while.’