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above all, he did not intend to be there.
'You will be present at the execution.' The man raised his head, picked a letter up from the
table and broke the seal. 'Officially. As the Governor of the Province of Cintra. You will stand
in for me. I don't intend to watch it. That's an order, Coehoorn.'
'Yes, sir!' The marshal did not even try to hide his embarrassment and discomfort. The man
who had given the order did not allow anything to be kept from him. And rarely did anyone
succeed in doing so.
The man glanced at the open letter and almost immediately threw it into the fire, into the
hearth.
'Coehoorn.'
'Yes, your Highness?'
'I am not going to wait for Rience's report. Set the magicians to work and have them prepare a
telecommunication link with their point of contact in Redania. Let them pass on my verbal
orders, which must immediately be sent to Rience. The order is to run as follows: Rience is to
stop pussyfooting around, and to stop playing with the witcher. Else it could end badly. No
one toys with the witcher. I know him, Coehoorn. He is too clever to lead Rience to the Trail.
I repeat, Rience is to organise the assassination immediately, to take the witcher out of the
game at once. He's to kill him, and then disappear, bide his time and await my orders. If he
comes across the enchantress's trail before that he is to leave her alone. Not a hair on
Yennefer's head is to be harmed. Have you remembered that, Coehoorn?'
'Yes, sir.'
'The communique is to be coded and firmly secured against any magical deciphering.
Forewarn the wizards about this. If they bungle it, if any undesirables learn of my order, I will
hold them responsible.'
'Yes, sir.' The marshal hawked and pulled himself up straight.
'What else, Coehoorn?'
'The count . . . He is here already, your Highness. He came at your command.'
'Already?' He smiled. 'Such speed is worthy of admiration. I hope he didn't exhaust that black
horse of his everyone envies so much. Have him come in.'
'Am I to be present during the conversation, your Highness?'
'Of course, Governor of Cintra.'
Summoned from the antechambers, the knight entered the chamber with an energetic, strong
and noisy stride, his black armour grating. He stopped short, drew himself up proudly, threw
his wet, muddy black cloak back from his shoulder, and laid his hand on the hilt of his mighty
sword. He leaned his black helmet, adorned with wings of a bird of prey, on his hip. Coehoorn
looked at the knight's face. He saw there the hard pride of a warrior, and impudence. He did
not see any of the things that should have been visible in the face of one who had spent the
past two years incarcerated in a place from which - as everything had indicated -he would
only leave for the scaffold. A faint smile touched the marshal's lips. He knew that the disdain
for death and crazy courage of youngsters stemmed from a lack of imagination. He knew that
perfectly well. He had once been such a youngster himself.
The man sitting at the table rested his chin on his interlaced fingers and looked at the knight
intently. The youngster pulled himself up taut as a string.
'In order for everything to be perfectly clear,' the man behind the table addressed him, 'you
should understand that the mistake you made in this town two years ago has not been
forgiven. You are getting one more chance. You are getting one more order. My decision as to
your ultimate fate depends on the way in which you carry it out.'
The young knight's face did not twitch, and nor did a single feather on the wings adorning the
helmet at his hip.
'I never deceive anyone, I never give anyone false illusions,' continued the man. 'So let it be
known that, naturally, the prospect of saving your neck from the executioner's axe exists only
if you do not make a mistake this time. Your chances of a full pardon are small. Your chances
of my forgiving and forgetting are . . . nonexistent.'
The young knight in the black armour did not flinch this time either, but Coehoorn detected
the flash in his eyes. He doesn't believe him, he thought. He doesn't believe him and is
deluding himself. He is making a great mistake.
'I command your full attention,' continued the man behind the table. 'Yours, too, Coehoorn,
because the orders I am about to give concern you too. They come in a moment, for I have to
give some thought to their substance and delivery.'
Marshal Menno Coehoorn, Governor of the Province of Cintra and future Commander-in-
Chief of the Dol Angra army, lifted his head and stood to attention, his hand on the pommel
of his sword. The same attitude was assumed by the knight in black armour
with the bird-of-prey-winged helmet. They both waited. In silence. Patiently. The way one
should wait for orders, the substance and presentation of which were being pondered by the
Emperor of Nilfgaard, Emhyr var Emreis, Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd, the White
Flame Dancing on the Grave-Mounds of Enemies.
Ciri woke.
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