‘Is invidia speaking through you, Vattier, by any chance? And does it not give your reports colour and fervour?’

‘I merely state the facts, Your Highness.’

‘I want–’ the emperor stood up abruptly ‘–to see the facts. I’m tired of hearing about them.’

It was an extremely hard day. Vattier de Rideaux was weary. In his schedule for that day he had planned an hour or two of paperwork, intended to protect him from drowning in pending documents, but the thought of it made him shudder. No, he thought, easy does it. It can wait. I’m going home… No, not yet. My wife can wait. I’ll go to Cantarella. To my gorgeous Cantarella, with whom I can relax so pleasantly.

He quickly made up his mind. He simply rose, took his cloak and left, a gesture full of disgust holding off his secretary, who was trying to force a leather portfolio of urgent documents onto him. Tomorrow! Tomorrow is another day!

He left the palace by the rear exit, which opened onto the gardens, and walked along a path lined with cypresses. He passed an ornamental pond, where a carp introduced by Emperor Torres was approaching the venerable age of a hundred and thirty-two years, as testified by a golden commemorative medal attached to the gills of the immense fish.

‘Good evening, viscount.’

Vattier released the dagger concealed in his sleeve with a short movement of his forearm. The hilt slid into his hand by itself.

‘Very risky, Rience,’ he said coldly. ‘Very risky, showing your burned countenance in Nilfgaard. Even as a magical teleprojection.’

‘You noticed? And Vilgefortz assured me that if you didn’t touch me you wouldn’t guess it was an illusion.’

Vattier put the dagger away. He had not guessed it was an illusion at all, but now he knew.

‘You are too great a coward, Rience,’ he said, ‘to show yourself here in person. You know what would befall you if you did.’

‘Is the emperor still so determined to seize me? And my master Vilgefortz?’

‘Your insolence is disarming.’

‘Go to hell, Vattier. We’re still on your side, Vilgefortz and I. Well, I admit we tricked you with the counterfeit Cirilla, but it was done in good faith, in good faith, may I be drowned if I lie. Vilgefortz believed that since the real one had vanished, a fake one was better than none at all. We reckoned it was all the same to you—’

‘Your insolence has stopped being disarming and has begun to be insulting. I have no intention of wasting time talking to an insulting mirage. When I finally get my hands on you we shall have a conversation, a long conversation. So until that time… apage, Rience.’

‘What’s come over you, Vattier? In the past, if even the Devil himself appeared to you, you wouldn’t forget to investigate–before the exorcism–if you couldn’t, by any chance, profit in some way.’