Father Felicjan was indeed advancing. The bishop had promoted him for his services, which mainly consisted of informing on the previous superior, Canon Otto Beess. When Otto Beess fell out of favour after being denounced, Father Felicjan began to be treated differently at the bishop’s court. Quite differently. Father Felicjan thought it was with admiration.
I’m advancing. Ha. I’m advancing.
“Father.”
He shuddered and turned around. The monk who had approached him so soundlessly was not a Premonstratensian, but wore a white Dominican habit. Father Felicjan didn’t know him. Which meant he worked for the Inquisitor.
“Go away, Father. There’s nothing for you here. Begone!”
The Inquisitor’s man, thought Father Felicjan, as he hastily withdrew. A Dominican, one of those famous unchecked and all-powerful “white eminences.” That voice, imperious, like that of the very bishop… Those eyes…
Eyes the colour of iron.
The poorhouse of the Divine Heart of Jesus was located outside the town walls, near the Weavers Gate. The meal was being served as they arrived. Gaunt paupers covered in suppurating sores dragged themselves out of bed, took bowls in their trembling hands, dipped bread in them and crammed it, now softened, into their toothless mouths. Tybald Raabe cleared his throat, looked away and covered his nose with the cuff of his glove. The grey-eyed priest didn’t even notice. Poverty and suffering made no impression on him and had stopped interesting him long ago.
They had to wait. The girl they had gone to see was busy in the poorhouse kitchen.
A foul smell was emanating from there.
They had to wait a while before she joined them.
So that’s Elencza of Stietencron, thought the grey-eyed man. None too appealing. Stooped, grey, thin-lipped. With an empty gaze. And her hair mercifully hidden by a cap and wimple. With her once-fashionable plucked eyebrows slowly growing back.
Elencza Stietencron, a survivor of the massacre where sixteen men—including soldiers—were killed. The only person to get out alive. The stooped plain-looking girl survived. The conclusion suggested itself. The stooped plain-looking girl was no ordinary stooped plain-looking girl.
“Noble Miss Stietencron—”
“Please don’t address me like that.”
“Hmm… Miss Elencza…”
Elencza. An unusual name, too. Rarely encountered. Tybald Raabe tracked down its origin—the daughter of Władysław, Duke of Bytom, bore that name. The grandfather of Hartwig Stietencron, who served the Bytom duke, gave that name to one of his daughters. A tradition was established, in accordance with which Hartwig had christened his only child.
The grey-eyed man signalled something to Tybald Raabe with his eyes. The goliard cleared his throat.
“Miss,” he spoke seriously. “I forewarned you last time. We must ask you a few questions. Regarding… Ścibor’s Clearing.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to remember.”
“You must,” said the grey-eyed man sternly—too sternly. The girl cringed, quite as though he had raised a hand or shaken a fist at her.
“You must.” The priest softened his tone. “It’s a matter of life and death. We have to know. The young nobleman who joined your party two days before the robbery and soon left it—was he among the robbers in the clearing? Miss Elencza! Was Reinmar of Bielawa among the assailants?”
“A young nobleman,” Raabe explained, “whom you know as Reinmar of Hagenau, miss.”
“Reinmar Hagenau…” Elencza Stietencron’s eyes widened. “That… was… Reinmar of Bielawa?”
“The very same.” The grey-eyed man did his best to control his impatience. “Did you recognise him? Was he among the assailants?”
“No! Of course not—”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Because… Because he…” the girl stammered and looked beseechingly at Tybald. “It couldn’t have… Master Raabe… There are rumours… About Reinmar of Bielawa… That… he harmed… the daughter of Lord Biberstein… Master Raabe! It cannot be true!”
Fascination, thought the grey-eyed man, suppressing a grimace. The fascination of the unremarkable girl, in love with a dream, with a painting, with a stanza from Tristan or Erec. Yet another girl who dotes on that Bielawa. One more for his collection. What do they see in him? I’ll never understand women.
“So Reinmar of Bielawa wasn’t among the assailants?” he asked again.
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Are you certain?”
“I am. I’d have recognised him.”
“Were the attackers wearing black armour and cloaks? Were they crying ‘Adsumus’ or ‘We are here’?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
They fell silent. One of the beggars suddenly began to weep. A nurse, a stout nun in the habit of the Poor Clares, calmed him.
The grey-eyed man didn’t turn his head. Or even glance in their direction.
“Miss Elencza. Does your mother… Your stepmother… Does your father’s widow know that you’re here?”
The girl shook her head and her mouth twitched visibly. The grey-eyed man knew what that was all about, for Tybald Raabe had poked around and arrived at the truth. On that ill-fated day, Sir Hartwig Stietencron was taking his daughter to relatives in Bardo, having removed her from his humble estate in order to liberate her from the envious and malicious tyranny of his second wife, her stepmother. In order to save her from the sweaty paws of the stepmother’s two sons, ne’er-do-wells and sots who, after bedding all the local and neighbouring serving wenches, had begun to send lustful glances at Elencza.
“Haven’t you thought about returning?”
“I like it here.”
She likes it here, he repeated in his mind. She didn’t stay long with the relatives she went to after escaping and wandering. She didn’t have time to settle down, accustom herself to it, never mind come to like it. For in December, Bardo was captured, pillaged and burned down by the Hussites, Ambrož’s Orphans from Hradec. Her two relatives, the husband and wife, were killed in the massacre.
Bad luck dogs the girl. Misfortune. Ill fate.
Elencza went to the poorhouse in Ziębice from the embers of Bardo. She stayed for a long time. Arriving as a patient, she plunged into a deep apathy bordering on stupor. Then, after getting better, she began to serve as a nurse to the other sick people. Recently—the intrusive and inquisitive Tybald Raabe had found that out, too—the Strzelin Poor Clares had taken an interest in her and Elencza was being seriously considered for a novitiate.
“And so,” concluded the grey-eyed man, “you will stay here.”
“Yes, I will stay.”
Stay, thought the grey-eyed man. Stay. Much depends on your staying.
Elencza Stietencron.
“Brother Andrzej Kantor?”
“I…” The deacon of the Exaltation of the Cross started on hearing an unexpected voice behind him. “It is I… Oh… My goodness! It’s you!”
The man standing behind him was dressed all in black, with a black cloak, black doublet, black trousers and black, shoulder-length hair. A birdlike face and a nose like a bird’s beak.