“If, though,” he continued a moment later, “it’s as Tybald says, make good use of these seven days. I shall not send any reports to Bohemia until a week passes. That ought to suffice you—one can ride a long way in that time. Neplach will find you in any case, sooner or later, but that’s a matter for him and you. It doesn’t interest me. Now begone.”
The freed men looked at him, but it was as though they were looking at an object, a thing which held no meaning for them, to boot. Their eyes were lifeless and vacant. They didn’t say a word, didn’t utter a sound. They simply went out.
There was a long silence.
“Just look at him, Raabe,” said Jon Malevolt, ending the silence. “He sacrificed himself for the cause. Curious, he doesn’t look like an idiot. Aren’t appearances deceptive?”
“When the Hussites get their own Pope,” added Tybald Raabe, “he ought to declare you a saint, Reinmar. If he doesn’t, it’ll mean he’s an ungrateful knob.”
Reynevan stayed in the Silver Bell for a week, sitting with a crossbow in his lap during the day and dozing with a knife under his pillow at night. He was alone—Tybald Raabe and the beguiler had gone into hiding. Too great a risk, they explained. Should something happen, it’s better to be far away. But nothing did happen. No one came to arrest or murder Reynevan. The chances of becoming a martyr were diminishing from one day to the next. Tybald Raabe showed up on the twentieth of November with news and gossip. Jakub Olbram from near Łagiewniki had disappeared. Vanished like a sigh. He had no doubt taken good advantage of the week’s delay that Reynevan had given him. Seven days, announced the goliard, was enough to reach Lübeck and from there take a ship to the end of the world, if needs be. In short: the Vogelsang doesn’t exist, the Vogelsang can be written off, all hope of the Vogelsang can be forsaken. It would have to be reported to Prokop. Immediately. There was no time to waste.
But to be quite certain, let’s wait, suggested Reynevan. Another week. Better yet, a week and a half…
Reynevan, however, had already lost hope, to the extent that he stopped loitering in the Silver Bell Inn killing time by reading Henry Suso’s Horologium sapientiae, which some scholar—unable to pay for his vittles and liquor any other way—must have left there. The next morning, he saddled his horse and rode off. Glancing quite often in the direction of Brzeg and towards the village of Schönau, the estate of Cup-Bearer Berthold Apolda. The Green Lady had claimed that Nicolette wasn’t in Schönau, but perhaps he could find out for himself?
Tybald, who had been stopping by in Gdziemierz more and more often, saw through him quite easily. He wasn’t to be brushed off with excuses and forced Reynevan to confess. After hearing him out, he grew solemn. Such things, he declared, end badly.
“You’ve only just disentangled yourself from an affair with one maid, only just escaped from Biberstein’s clutches by a miracle, and you’re walking into more trouble again? It could cost you dearly, m’lord. Cup-Bearer Apolda isn’t one to be pushed around and the bishop and Grellenort also know how many beans make five; they might already be lying in wait for you near Schönau. As might Jan of Ziębice. Your name is now well known in Silesia.”
“Well known? How so?”
“Rumours are circulating,” answered the goliard. “It’s possible that somebody is deliberately spreading them. Duke Jan has doubled the guard in Ziębice—it’s said the court astrologer warned him of a possible attempt on his life. In the city, people are talking openly about an avenger, about revenge being taken for Adèle. The killings carried out in Ciepłowody are being discussed widely. The affair of the attack on the tax collector is coming back to haunt you. Diverse strange people are appearing and asking diverse strange questions. Suffice it to say,” Tybald Raabe concluded, “it’d be more prudent to ditch your Silesian escapade. And keep well away from Schönau.
“The Vogelsang is no more, but you, Reinmar, still have a mission to accomplish in Silesia. You can expect one of Flutek’s messengers before Christmas. There’ll be things to do, important things; you ought not to bungle them. And if you do and it gets out it was because of your romancing, you’ll answer with your life. Which would be a pity.”
Tybald rode away. But Reynevan—who had previously been undecided—now began to think endlessly about Nicolette.
Jon Malevolt, the anarchist beguiler, appeared in Gdziemierz on the twenty-eighth of November with quite an astonishing proposition. In the nearby forests, he announced, winking and licking his lips meaningfully, reside two sylvan witches, young, curvaceous and friendly, having great needs and scorning monogamy. And serving excellent bigos, what’s more. He, Malevolt, was setting off to the witches for a social visit, but, as they say, the more, the merrier. Seeing Reynevan sighing, hesitating and generally squirming, the beguiler ordered a demijohn of three-year-old mead and took him to one side.
“So you’re in love.” He summed up what he’d discovered, picking his teeth with a fingernail. “You adore and long for her, quite in vain, to make things worse. It appears to be a familiar matter, particularly among you humans. I think you even like it and your poets appear unable to pen a couplet without it. But, brother, you’re Toledo, after all. What—I ask you—is the purpose of love magic? What is the purpose of philia?”
“It would be an insult both to me and to her if I used philia to allure her.”
“What matters is the result, young man, the result! It’s ultimately a question of sexual attraction, which is usually satisfied—forgive my bluntness—by sticking one thing into another. Don’t make faces! There’s no other way, Nature didn’t plan any other. Well, if you’re so virtuous, such a preux chevalier, I won’t insist. Draw her to you, then, in the classical manner. Conjure up some flowers in the winter, a dozen red roses, purchase a dozen iced buns in town and a-courting you will go.”
“The snag is that… I simply don’t know where to search for her.”
“Ha!” The beguiler slapped his knee. “We’ll solve that problem in a trice! Find the object of your desire? A trifle. We just need a little magic. Get up, we’re going.”
“I’m not visiting the witches.”
“It’s your loss, bugger you. I’ll go and sample the bigos… Erm… But most importantly, I’ll bring back some ingredients for a spell… I’ll be back soon and we’ll knuckle down. In order not to waste time, I’ll draw a Scheva on the floor here.”
“You mean the Fourth Pentagram of Venus?”
“I see you know a thing or two. Do you know the inscription, too?”
“Elohim and El Gebil in the Hebrew script and Schii, Eli, Ayib in the Malachim alphabet.”
“Bravo. Very well, I’m off. Expect me… What day is it today?”
“The twenty-eighth of November. Friday before the first Sunday in Advent.”
“Then expect me on Sunday.”
The beguiler kept his word. He appeared first thing on the thirtieth of November, the first Sunday in Advent, and got down to work at once. He looked at the pentagram drawn by Reynevan with a critical eye, checked the inscriptions and nodded to indicate his approval of everything. He stood red wax candles at the corners and lit them, then shook the ingredients—mainly bunches of herbs—from his bag. He affixed a small cast-iron bowl to a tripod.