“Two thousand four hundred groschen?” Lord Bergow suddenly roared. “Two thousand four hundred? You’ve lost your fucking mind, Hurkovec! Lice must have sucked the sense out of your dull head! You’re either bereft of your senses or you take me for a fool! If it’s the first, I’ll only have you flogged; if the second—you’ll be hanged like a dog!”
“A single Hussite…” Pimple-Face grunted. “That’s why the price… But we can bargain—”
“I’ll give two thousand four hundred for him without bargaining.” Janko Schaff unexpectedly joined in. “But not as a gift. I bow before m’Lady Pack’s beauty, but let her run someone else through. I want him in one piece.”
“Which suggests that you know who it is, Lord Schaff,” said Köckeritz, arms akimbo, “and how much he’s worth. But won’t share the information, eh?”
“He doesn’t have to,” said Lothar Gersdorf, “for I also know who it is. I recognise him. He’s a Silesian, Reinmar of Bielawa. Said to be a sorcerer. An alchemist. A heretic and a Hussite spy to boot. He made an attempt on Duke Johann’s life in Ziębice when I was present. He was allegedly hired by the Hussites to commit that crime, but I’m inclined to believe it was the result of crazed jealousy and concerned a lady. The Devil only knows where the truth lies, but the fact is that Bielawa is wanted throughout Silesia. And there must be a bounty on his head since Sir Janko is ready to pay two thousand four hundred for him without even haggling. But nothing will come of it. The Hussite spy will make a pretty bauble on the scaffold in Bautzen town square, it will be a beautiful execution. Folk will flock from miles around to see it. I’ll beat down your price, Schaff. Bautzen, gentlemen, gives three thousand!”
“What is a sorcerer, a Hussite spy and a hired killer doing in my castle?” asked Lord Bergow slowly and forcibly. “At whose instigation is he here? Eh?”
“I’ve offered that Silesian of yours to m’Lady Douce as a gift,” said Hartung Klüx, as though he hadn’t heard. “And I’ll pay—”
“I doubt you have coin enough,” interrupted Gersdorf.
“This concerns my honour and knightly virtue!” roared Klüx. “I’m ready to lay down my life, never mind the three thousand groschen! I shall easily find the sum, if necessary!”
“But will you find six?” asked Ulrik of Biberstein, who hadn’t spoken for some time. “For I top that. I’ll give six thousand groschen for him. And let no one bleat about honour, for this is a matter of honour. Don’t ask me to explain. But if this is indeed Reinmar Bielawa, he must be mine. I’ll give six thousand for him. Sir Otto of Bergow? What say you?”
Bergow looked at him for a long time. Then swept his gaze over them all.
“I say: nothing doing.” He raised his head. “I annul the transaction and withdraw this Bielawa from sale.”
“But why?” Biberstein asked.
“Because,” said Otto of Bergow, with a steady gaze, “it pleases me to do so.”
“Very well.” Biberstein hawked at length and spat. “It’s your castle, your will, your right. Except if that’s your will, I’ve lost interest in being your guest. Let’s thus finish the business and be gone.”
“Indeed.” Lothar Gersdorf nodded.
“Agreed,” said Janko Schaff, also nodding. “I’m also somewhat in a hurry, so let’s strike the deal and say our farewells.”
“In that case, so that you won’t think badly of me,” declared Lord Bergow, clearly appeasing them, “there’ll be a rebate. A special price, as I’d give a brother. Like it was in Kutná Hora eight years ago. Sixty groschen a head. I’ll throw the women and youngsters in for nothing.”
“And let’s not beat each other down but divide them among us,” suggested Gersdorf. “Bautzen, Zgorzelec, Löbau, Frydland and Jelenia Góra. First of all, we’ll divide up the women and striplings evenly, two a head, and the rest—”
“The rest can’t be divided evenly.” Köckeritz quickly reckoned up. “It won’t be fair.”
“It will, upon my soul,” said Bergow, beckoning his soldiers towards him. “It will be bloody fair, no one will lose out. Hey, take them! Those three! Bind them!”
Before Pimple-Face’s martahuzes could react, they were tied up. Only when they had been shoved over to join their recent captives did they begin to struggle, yell and rage, but blows from truncheons, whips and spear shafts quickly and brutally quelled them.
“Sire…” whined Pimple-Face, whom no one had touched. “What… What… Why, they’re my men—”
“Perhaps you’d like to join them? Do you wish to?”
“No, not a bit of it.” Pimple-Face’s mouth twisted into a broad and repulsive grimace. “Not at all! Do they mean anything to me? I’ll find new ones.”
“Indeed, one always can. So go. Ah, I almost forgot…”
“Eeeh?”
Otto of Bergow smiled at him, then nodded towards Douce of Pack, who was holding a javelin across her saddle. Douce flashed her teeth and her blue-green eyes.
“You brought a spy and a murderer to my castle. Run to the gate. Fly! Swiftly!”
Pimple-Face blanched, turning as white as a fish’s belly. He quickly recovered his senses, spun on his heel and dashed towards the gate like a whippet. He ran fast. Very fast. It looked like he might make it.
But he didn’t.
Chapter Ten
In which it turns out that nothing sharpens mental processes like hunger and thirst. But when it becomes necessary to solve a mystery, pissing on human remains gives the best results. Especially on All Souls’ Day.
“Reinmar of Bielawa from Silesia.” Otto of Bergow, Lord of Trosky Castle, eyed Reynevan from head to foot and back again. “Sorcerer. Alchemist. Hussite spy. And on top of that a hired killer. A wide range of skills, if I may say so. Which skill did you bring to my castle? You do not answer? Never mind. I know anyway.”
Reynevan said nothing. He had a lump in his throat, couldn’t swallow. The dungeon was dreadfully cold and stank horribly. The stench, it appeared, came from an opening in the floor covered by a heavy iron grating. Although the descent beneath the tower down a winding staircase had taken quite some time, the level they found themselves on wasn’t the lowest. There was something even lower. The dungeons beneath the Maiden must have extended down to the very guts of the Earth.
Servants stuck their torches into iron cressets. The grating in the floor scraped as it was opened. They lowered a ladder into the musty-smelling, dark opening.
“Climb down.” Bergow confirmed Reynevan’s hunch. “Be quick.”
They didn’t let him climb down to the very bottom. Instead they shook the ladder hard and Reynevan fell from a height, landing heavily on the compacted, rock-hard floor. The fall knocked the wind out of him.
“I once had here an arrogant mage, well read and smooth-tongued, who claimed that a dungeon like this one is called an oubliette,” shouted Lord Bergow from above, blocking off the scrap of light entering through the opening. “I’ve never heard anyone apart from that wizard use the word. It’s meant to derive from the word for ‘forget’ in Gallic, ho-ho. I shall enlighten you as to why: the grating will soon be replaced and you will be forgotten. Quite forgotten also as far as bread and water are concerned. Which is why I prefer the local Czech name hladomorna over the Gallic one. You will be starved to death, Lord of Bielawa. Unless you smarten up and reveal to me who hired you; on whose orders you were to kill me. I warn you, lies and deceit won’t help. I already know who’s behind the assassination attempt. You only have to supply the details. And the proof.”