Liebenthal and the others ordered food and drink in the loud, brusque tones expected of knights. Liebenthal again decided to deplete the funds he had received for the journey, so their table was soon filled with dishes of meat and troughs of kasha, jugs of wine and demijohns of cider.
“Aah…” Priedlanz groaned after some time. “This food isn’t half-bad… And the drink’s passable.”
“Jo, jo.” Kuhn belched. “Good, gut. Wia sih’s g’hört.”
“Down the hatch!”
“Good health! Charge our glasses, Bartoš!”
“Your good health!”
“Pity that after the eating and drinking we won’t get a fuck.” Bartoš Stročil sighed. “But tomorrow, dammit, it’ll be different, you’ll see. When we stop in Świdnica. At the mercy of Saint Gregory the Miracle-Worker! I know a little whorehouse in Świdnica, the whores there are like hinds—”
“I trust,” said Liebenthal, twisting his moustaches, “that your information comes from more recent times. What, Stročil? How long ago did you know those hinds? Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out they’re the same age as old Madam Borschnitz now. More old crones!”
“Temper what you say, m’lord,” said Reynevan. “I believe, what’s more, that you insult the honour of the ladies here.”
“Who asked you?” roared Liebenthal. “Why do you open your trap?”
“Hush, gentlemen,” hissed Priedlanz, glancing around restlessly. “A little quieter. People are beginning to stare. And what is it, Bielawa?”
“Lady Borschnitz isn’t by any means old. My father is her age and is not an old man.”
“Who? What?”
“Sixty years isn’t old.” Reynevan raised his voice. “My father—”
“Fuck your father!” roared Liebenthal. “The Devil take your father! Sixty years isn’t old? You clod! Whoever passes sixty is a decrepit, senile, doddering old fool! And that’s that! And you sit quiet and don’t argue, or I’ll punch you in the face!”
“You’re growing ever louder,” snarled Priedlanz. “Not everyone has heard you yet. Take that filthy wretch by the door. I believe he hasn’t.”
“And further,” said Reynevan softly, looking Liebenthal straight in the eyes. “Further, I don’t like the way you refer to ladies, gentlemen. How dishonourably you treat them. One could think you measure all ladies with the same yardstick. Thinking them all alike.”
“Strike me down!” Liebenthal slammed his fist onto the table, making the dishes bounce. “For God’s sake! I can’t stand it!”
“Will you be quiet! Dammit—”
“Lord Bielawa.” Stročil leaned across the table. “What’s come over you, m’lord? Are you drunk or what? Or perhaps sick? First your father, now ladies… What’s the matter?”
“I deny that all ladies are alike.”
“Indeed, they are!” roared Liebenthal. “They are all the fucking same! And serve the same purpose!”
“I don’t believe it!” Reynevan leaped to his feet and waved his arms. “No, gentlemen! I refuse to listen to this! I barely endured it,” he said, his voicing growing louder and higher in pitch, “when you insulted the Holy Father, Pope Martin V, comparing him to an arsehole, calling him a decrepit, senile, doddering old fool! But refusing to revere Our Lady? Saying she doesn’t merit reverence? Saying she’s the same as all women and conceived and gave birth sicut ceterae mulieres? No, I will not listen to this placidly! I’m compelled to take my leave of your company!”
Liebenthal’s and Priedlanz’s jaws dropped. But not all the way. While they were still dropping, the four glum men at the table in the corner leaped to their feet, along with the pikemen in leather jerkins.
“In the name of the Holy Office! You are arrested!”
Liebenthal pushed the table away from him and grabbed his sword as Stročil kicked the bench over, and Priedlanz and Kuhn flashed half-drawn blades. But the four glum men found unexpected allies. A clay pot, thrown with great accuracy and force by one of the pilgrims decorated with scallops, smashed against Kuhn’s forehead. The Bavarian’s back slammed against the wall, and before he came to his senses, he was being held in the powerful grip of two Cistercians. The third Cistercian, a short fellow but stocky and strong, shoulder-barged Liebenthal and punched him with a short but accurate left hook and then with a right. Liebenthal punched back, the monk dodged—minimally, but enough for the punch to barely brush his tonsure—then hit Liebenthal with a nice uppercut, followed by an even nicer straight right. Right in the nose. Liebenthal, blood covering his face, vanished under the swarm of pikemen who had set about him. Other men had already overpowered Stročil and Priedlanz.
“You are arrested,” repeated one of the glum men, none of whom had participated in the brawl. “You are arrested in the name of the Holy Office. For blasphemy, sacrilege and offending religious feelings.”
“Fuck your arses!” roared Priedlanz, face down on the ground.
“That will be noted.”
“Fucking whoresons!”
“That, too.”
It probably doesn’t need adding that Reynevan had long since left the tavern. As soon as the row began, he ran for it.
The stable lad had fulfilled his request and left one of the horses saddled. It was still long enough before sundown for the gate not to be locked, but near enough for there not to be a soul on the road, no one who could give the pursuers any directions. And Reynevan didn’t doubt that he would be followed as soon as the matter was explained. He would be followed, he knew, not only by his recent escort, but all the glum men he unerringly recognised as servants of the Inquisition. He had to increase the distance as quickly as possible, get as far away as he could in order for the approaching dusk to hinder his pursuers. When darkness fell, he had to be far away. At all costs. Even if he had to ride his horse into the ground.
Luck continued to help him; for the time being, the horse wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue in the gallop. It only began to lather up and pant when they reached the forest. Reynevan had to slow down there anyway. In the forest, it was almost completely dark.
His luck ended once it became totally dark. As he rode across a bridge over a stream, the thud of hooves echoed on the timbers, drowning out the thudding of other hooves. A rider, dressed in black and invisible in the gloom, emerged from the darkness like a phantom. Before Reynevan could react, he was pulled from the saddle. He fought back but the black rider had literally superhuman strength. He lifted him up and cast him down onto the rocky ground.
There was a flash, pain, paralysis. Then the hard ground appeared to melt beneath him, sucking him into a billowing silence. Into a bottomless abyss of soft oblivion.
He regained consciousness in a semi-supine position. And in fetters. His wrists were tied on his lap, his legs bound at the ankles. During the course of the last ten days, he thought, it’s the fifth time someone has seized me, the fifth time I’ve been somebody’s prisoner. It must be a record.
That was his first thought. Which preceded a more sensible one, considering the situation: Who actually caught me this time?