Francesca drew a platter of fruit closer to her, stretched out her hand and muttered a spell. ‘I apologize for this fairground show of telekinesis,’ she smiled, and ordered a red apple to rise from the table. ‘But with the help of this levitating fruit it will be easier for me to clarify everything. This red apple is the gene for Lara, the Elder Blood. The green apple represents the latent gene. The pomegranate is a pseudo gene, the activator. Let us begin. This is Riannon, the red apple. Her son, Amavet, the pomegranate. Amavet’s daughter, Muriel the Rogue Beauty and her daughter Adalia are pomegranates also, the last in the decline. And here is the second line with Fiona, Riannon’s daughter as the green apple. Her son, Corbett, king of Cintra, green. The son of Corbett and Elen of Kaedwen, Dagorad, green. Have you notice, in the two successive generations of males descendants only, the gene is lost, it is too weak. But now, there is a connection with the pomegranate and the green apple, Adalia, Princess of Maribor and Dagorad, king of Cintra. And the daughter of these two is Calanthe. A red apple. A resurgent of the strong Lara gene.’ ‘The gene from Fiona,’ Margarita Laux-Antille nodded, ‘met with the activator of Amavet’s through marital incest. No one took notice of the kinship? None of the royal heralds and chroniclers paid any attention to the open incest?’ ‘It was not so open. Anna Kameny did not broadcast that her twins were bastards, because her husband’s family would have then stripped her and the children of their coat of arms, titles and possessions. Of course various rumours stubbornly hovered around and not only among the commoners. Calanthe, tainted by incest, had to find a husband in far off Ebbing, where the rumours had not arrived.’ ‘Add to your Pyramid, two red apples, Enid,’ said Margarita. ‘Now, according to the accurate observation of Lady Assire, the resurrected Lara gene goes smoothly through the female line.’ ‘Yes. This is Pavetta, the daughter of Calanthe. And Pavetta’s daughter, Cirilla. The only one at this time who is heiress to the Elder Blood, the Lara gene carrier.’ ‘The only one?’ Sile de Tansarville asked sharply. ‘You are very sure of yourself, Enid.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Sile rose suddenly, extended her fingers covered with rings in the direction of the fruit platter and levitated the rest of the fruit, destroying and transforming Francesca’s whole scheme into a multicoloured mess. ‘This is what I mean,’ she said coldly, pointed to the chaos of the fruit. ‘For these are the possible genetic combinations. And we know only what we see here. That is, nothing. Your mistake has been avenged, Francesca, by producing an avalanche of mistakes. The gene appeared by chance, after a hundred years, during which events may have occurred, of which we have no knowledge. Events kept secret, hidden, covered up. Children of premarital, extramarital, secret adoption, even swapped. Incest. Crossbreeding, the blood of forgotten ancestors which then revives in later generations. To conclude: a hundred years ago you had the gene in your hand and it escaped you. Mistake, Enid, mistake, mistake! Too much spontaneity, too many accidents. Too little control, too little interference with chance.’ ‘We were not,’ Enid an Gleanna, pursed her lips, ‘dealing with rabbits, which can be locked in a cage and their parks chosen for them.’ Fringilla, following the gaze of Triss Merigold, saw Yennefer’s hands clench suddenly the carved arms of her chair.