‘Hey, Hotspurn? Are you asleep?’

Something oozed onto her chest and side. She touched it with her fingers. Blood.

‘Hotspurn!’ she shoved him off her. ‘Hotspurn, have you died?’

Foolish question, she thought. I mean, I can see.

I can see he’s died.

‘He died with his head on my breast.’ Ciri turned her head away. The glow from the fireplace played red on her disfigured cheek. Perhaps there was a blush there too. Vysogota could not be certain.

‘The only thing I felt then,’ she added, still turned away, ‘was disappointment. Does that shock you?’

‘No. Actually not.’

‘I understand. I’m trying not to embellish the story, not correct anything. Not keep anything back. Although occasionally I feel like it, especially that last part.’ She sniffed, rubbing a knuckle into the corner of her eye.

‘I covered him with branches and stones. Any old thing I could find, I confess. It grew dark, I had to sleep there. The bandits were still hanging around, I could hear their shouts and I was certain they weren’t ordinary bandits. I just didn’t know who they were hunting: me or him. But I had to stay quiet. The whole night. Until dawn. Next to a corpse. Brrr.’

‘At dawn,’ she began again a moment later, ‘the sound of our pursuers had long since faded away and I could set off. I had a mount. The magical bracelet I took from Hotspurn’s arm really worked. The black mare returned. Now she belonged to me. That was my present. That’s the custom on the Isles of Skellige, did you know? A girl has the right to a costly gift from her first lover. So what if mine died before he managed to actually become my lover?’

The mare banged her front hooves on the ground, neighed and turned in profile as though ordering Ciri to admire her. Ciri could not suppress a sigh of admiration at the sight of the dolphin-like neck; straight and slender, but powerfully muscled, the small shapely head with its concave forehead, the high withers and her build of delightful proportions.

She approached cautiously, showing the mare the bracelet on her wrist. The mare gave a long drawn-out snort, flattened her twitching ears, but allowed herself to be caught by the bridle and stroked on her velvety nose.

‘Kelpie,’ Ciri said. ‘You’re as black and agile as a sea-kelpie. You’re as magical as a kelpie. So you’ll be “Kelpie”. And I don’t care if that’s pretentious or not.’

The mare snorted, stuck her ears up, and shook her silky tail, which reached her hocks. Ciri–favouring a high saddle position–shortened the stirrup leathers and felt the unusual, flat saddle. It had no saddle tree or pommel. She fitted her boot to the stirrup and seized the horse by the mane.

‘Nice and easy, Kelpie.’

The saddle, in spite of appearances, was quite comfortable. And for obvious reasons much lighter than standard cavalry saddles.