‘Now,’ Ciri said, patting the mare on her hot neck, ‘let’s see if you’re as fleet as you are beautiful. If you’re a real racer or just a hack. What do you say to a twenty-mile gallop, Kelpie?’

Had someone quietly crept up deep in the night to the remote cottage in the midst of the swamp with its sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, had they peered through the slits in the shutters, they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening to the story told by a teenage girl with green eyes and ashen hair.

They would have seen the dying glow in the fireplace come alive and grow bright, as though sensing what would be told.

But that was not possible. No one could have seen it. The cottage of old Vysogota was well hidden among the reeds in the swamp. In a wilderness permanently covered in mist, where no one dared to venture.

‘The stream’s valley was level, and good for riding, so Kelpie ran like the wind. Of course, I wasn’t riding uphill but downstream. I remembered that curious name: Jealousy. I recalled what Hotspurn had said to Giselher at the station. I understood why he had warned me about that village. There must have been an ambush in Jealousy. When Giselher made light of the offer of the amnesty and working for the guild, Hotspurn deliberately mentioned the bounty hunter quartered in the village. He knew the Rats would swallow the bait, ride there and fall into the trap. I had to get to Jealousy before them, cut off their route and warn them. Turn them back. All of them. Or at least just Mistle.’

‘I conclude,’ Vysogota mumbled, ‘that you didn’t manage to.’

‘At that time,’ she said softly, ‘I thought that a large force, armed to the teeth, was waiting in Jealousy. In my wildest dreams it never occurred to me that the trap was a single man…’

She was silent, staring into the gloom.

‘Nor did I have any idea what kind of man he was.’

Birka had once been a wealthy village, charming and picturesquely situated–its yellow thatch and red tiles crowded into a valley with steep, forested sides, which changed colour with the seasons. In autumn, especially, Birka delighted the artistic eye and sensitive heart.

It was like that until the settlement changed its name. Here is what happened:

A young farmer from a nearby elven colony was madly in love with the miller’s daughter from Birka. The miller’s prankish daughter ridiculed the elf’s wooing and continued to sleep around with neighbours, friends and even relatives. They began to mock the elf and his blind love. The elf–somewhat untypically for his race–exploded with anger and vengeance, exploded horribly. One night, with a strong wind blowing the right way, he started a fire and burned Birka down.