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couldn’t move his head or find his voice out of sheer fright. But Rience did not seem to require confirmation.
    ‘It is to be understood,’ he stated, ‘that I will know immediately if you are telling the truth, if you try to trick me I will realise straight away, and I won’t be fooled by any poetic ploys or vague erudition. This is a trifle for me – just as paralysing you on the stairs was a trifle. So I advise you to weigh each word with care, you piece of scum. So, let’s get on with it and stop wasting time. As you know, I’m interested in the heroine of one of your beautiful ballads, Queen Calanthe of Cintra’s granddaughter, Princess Cirilla, endearingly known as Ciri. According to eye-witnesses this little person died during the siege of the town, two years ago. Whereas in your ballad you so vividly and touchingly described her meeting a strange, almost legendary individual, the . . . witcher . . . Geralt, or Gerald. Leaving the poetic drivel about destiny and the decrees of fate aside, from the rest of the ballad it seems the child survived the Battle of Cintra in one piece. Is that true?’
    ‘I don’t know . . .’ moaned Dandilion. ‘By all the gods, I’m only a poet! I’ve heard this and that, and the rest . . .’
    ‘Well?’
     
    ‘The rest I invented. Made it up! I don’t know anything!’ The bard howled on seeing Rience give a sign to the reeking man and feeling the rope tighten. ‘I’m not lying!’
    ‘True.’ Rience nodded. ‘You’re not lying outright, I would have sensed it. But you are beating about the bush. You wouldn’t have thought the ballad up just like that, not without reason. And you do know the witcher, after all. You have often been seen in his company. So talk, Dandilion, if you treasure your joints. Everything you know.’
    ‘This Ciri,’ panted the poet, ‘was destined for the witcher. She’s a so-called Child Surprise . . . You must have heard it, the story’s well known. Her parents swore to hand her over to the witcher—’
    ‘Her parents are supposed to have handed the child over to that crazed mutant? That murderous mercenary? You’re lying, rhymester. Keep such tales for women.’
    ‘That’s what happened, I swear on my mother’s soul,’ sobbed Dandilion. ‘I have it from a reliable source . . . The witcher—’
    ‘Talk about the girl. For the moment I’m not interested in the witcher.’
    ‘I don’t know anything about the girl! I only know that the witcher was going to fetch her from Cintra when the war broke out. I met him at the time. He heard about the massacre, about Calanthe’s death, from me . . . He asked me about the child, the queen’s granddaughter . . . But I knew everyone in Cintra was killed, not a single soul in the last bastion survived—’
    ‘Go on. Fewer metaphors, more hard facts!’
    ‘When the witcher learned of the massacre and fall of Cintra he forsook his journey. We both escaped north. We parted ways in Hengfors and I haven’t seen him since . . . But because he talked, on the way, a bit about this . . . Ciri, or whatever-her-name-is . . . and about destiny . . . Well, I made up this ballad. I don’t know any more, I swear!’
    Rience scowled at him.
    ‘And where is this witcher now?’ he asked. ‘This hired monster murderer, this poetic butcher who likes to discuss destiny?’
    ‘I told you, the last time I saw him—’
     
    ‘I know what you said,’ Rience interrupted. ‘I listened carefully to what you said. And now you’re going to listen carefully to me. Answer my questions precisely. The question is: if no one has seen Geralt, or Gerald, the Witcher for over a year, where is he hiding? Where does he usually hide?’
    ‘I don’t know where it is,’ the troubadour said quickly. ‘I’m not lying. I really don’t know—’
    ‘Too quick, Dandilion, too quick.’ Rience smiled ominously. ‘Too eager. You are cunning but not careful enough. You don’t know where it is, you say. But I