“As I thought,” the priest replied calmly, raising his eyes, which turned out to be the colour of iron. “I expected you’d say that. Which is why I’d only ask you to liaise. For I’d rather talk to your comrade, that Italian… He was explicitly commended to me. Since he is the wisest and most adept among you.”
Fryczko burst out in such loud laughter that the horses began to snort and stamp.
“Well I never! They were mocking you, Pater, joking with you. Vitelozzo Gaetani, the most adept? At what? Boozing, probably. Wisest? He’s a Piedmont oaf, a right clot, an ignorant blockhead. The only thing he’d tell you is his customary: cazzo, fanculo, puttana and porca madonna. He knows nothing else! Do you want to find out the truth? Then ask a sharp-witted man! Me, for example.”
“If it be your will,” the priest replied, squinting, “then I shall. What were the circumstances of the death of Master Hanusz Throst, killed two years ago in the region of Silver Mountain?”
“Ha,” snorted Fryczko, “I guessed as much. But I promised, so I shall tell.”
He sat down on a bench and gestured at another for the priest.
“It was in the month of September, two years since,” he began. “We left Kromolin, and all of a sudden I see that we’re being followed. We set a trap and caught the fellow. And who’s fallen into our hands? You’ll never guess: Reynevan of Bielawa. That sorcerer and criminal, ravisher of maidens. Have you heard about Reynevan of Bielawa, ravisher of maidens?”
“What does a ravisher of maidens have to do with Throst’s death?”
“I shall tell you. Oh, I’ll astonish you, Pater. Astonish you…”
“Brother Kantor? Andrzej Kantor?”
“It is I.” The deacon of the Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross had started on hearing a voice behind him. “It is I…”
The man behind him was wearing a black cloak with flowery embroidery, a waisted grey doublet and a beret decorated with feathers, in the fashion of wealthy merchants and patricians. But there was something about the man that didn’t suggest commerce or the bourgeoisie at all. The deacon didn’t know what. Perhaps the strange grimace of his mouth. Perhaps the voice. Or the eyes. Strange. The colour of iron.
“I have your payment here.” The grey-eyed man took a pouch from inside his doublet. “For turning Reinmar of Bielawa over to the Holy Office. Which took place, according to our records, here in the town of Frankenstein, quintadecimo die mensis Septembris Anno Domini 1425. The payment is somewhat delayed, regrettably, but that’s how our bookkeepers work.”
The deacon had no intention of asking what “our records” and “our bookkeepers” meant. He could guess. He took the pouch from the man. It was much lighter than he’d expected, but he didn’t think there was any sense arguing over trifles.
“I…” He plucked up courage. “I always… The Holy Office can always rely on me… If ever I see someone suspicious… I report it at once… I hasten to the prior… Why, only last Thursday, a stranger was hanging around in the cloth halls—”
“We are especially grateful for that Bielawa,” interrupted the man with eyes the colour of iron. “He was a dreadful criminal.”
“Indeed!” Kantor said excitedly. “A brigand! A sorcerer! He’s said to have killed people. Poisoned them, so they say. He raised his hand against the Duke of Ziębice himself. He beguiled married women in Oleśnica, then ravished them, then used magic to wipe clean their memory. And he took and kidnapped Sir Jan Biberstein’s daughter and raped her by force.”
“By force,” repeated the grey-eyed man, sneering, “when as a sorcerer he could have beguiled her using magic, ravished her any way he liked, then used magic to wipe clean her memory. It seems to lack logic, doesn’t it, my friend?”
The deacon said nothing, mouth open. He wasn’t quite sure what “logic” meant. But he suspected the worst.
“And if you’re as vigilant as you boast,” continued the grey-eyed man, quite indifferently, “did anyone ask about Bielawa? Later, after his arrest? It might have been an accomplice, a Hussite, a Waldensian or a Cathar.”
“There… was… one…” Kantor mumbled despite himself. He was afraid of further questions. In particular: why hadn’t he already informed on the man who asked? And the reason was fear. The terror aroused in him by the man who had asked. Black-haired, dressed in black, with a kind of birdlike physiognomy. And the gaze of the Devil.
“What did he look like?” the grey-eyed man asked sweetly. “Describe him. As precisely as possible. Please.”
To the delight of the man with the iron-grey eyes, there wasn’t a living soul in the parish church. The church’s patron, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, looked down from the central panel of a triptych surrounded by chubby little angels peeping from behind clouds in the empty chancel reeking of incense.
The grey-eyed man knelt in front of the altar and the tabernacle lamp, then stood up and walked quickly towards a side confessional hidden in the darkness of the aisle. But before he managed to sit down in it, from the vestry came the sound of a loud sneeze, a slightly quieter curse, and after the curse a remorseful: “God forgive me.” The grey-eyed man also cursed. But didn’t bother with the “God forgive me.” He reached under his cloak for a small pouch, for it looked as though a bribe would be inevitable.
The man approaching turned out to be a hunched old priest in a well-worn cassock, probably the confessor, since he was shuffling towards the confessional. At the sight of the grey-eyed man, the priest stopped dead and opened his mouth.
“Praise the Lord,” the grey-eyed man greeted him, putting as kind a smile as he could on his face. “Greetings, Father. I have a—”
“Brother…” The confessor’s face suddenly softened, sagging in surprise and disbelief. “Brother Markus! Is it you? It is! You’re alive! You survived! I don’t believe my eyes!”
“Rightly so,” the priest with eyes the colour of iron said coldly. “Because you are in error, Father. My name is Kneufel. Father Jan Kneufel.”
“It’s me, Brother Kajetan! Don’t you recognise me?”
“No.”
“But I do you.” The old confessor placed his hands together. “After all, we spent four years in the monastery in Chrudim… Every day, we prayed in the same church and ate in the same refectory. Every day, we passed each other in the cloisters. Until that dreadful day when those hordes of heretics arrived at the monastery—”
“You confuse me with somebody else.”
The confessor said nothing for a time. Finally his face lit up and a smile contorted his lips.
“I understand!” announced. “You’re incognito! You fear the Devil’s servants and their long and vengeful arms. Needlessly, Brother, needlessly! I don’t know, O divine vagabond, what roads led you here, but now you are among your own. There are many of us here, a whole group, a whole communitas of poor refugees, exuls, driven from the fatherland, exiled from our plundered monasteries and desecrated churches. Among them Brother Heliodor, who barely escaped with his life from Chomutov; then there’s Abbot Wetzhausen from Kladruby; and the fugitives from Strahov, Břevnov and Jaroměř… The lord of these lands, a noble and pious gentleman, is merciful to us. He lets us run a school here and preach about the heretics’ crimes… He protects and defends us. I know you’ve been sorely tried, Brother, I understand you don’t want to reveal yourself. If such be your will, I’ll keep your secret. I shan’t breathe a word. If you wish to go on, I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”