Elencza, still squeezing Reynevan’s hand hard, sighed deeply and looked up at his face. And sighed again, this time more softly. Reynevan’s face betrayed no emotion. It was expressionless, as though carved from stone. His face was like it was in Oława, thought Elencza in horror. In Oława, on the night of the sixteenth of January.

“The Bible speaks thus about men like Reinmar of Bielawa,” said the bishop, his voice again echoing among the cathedral’s columns and arcades. “If they flee from the decay of the world by knowing the Lord and Saviour, but later, yielding to it again, shall be vanquished, their end is worse than their beginnings. For it would be better for them not to know the way of justice than, having discovered it, turn away from the Holy Commandment given unto them. What is written has been fulfilled with them: the cur returns to what it has vomited up, and the swine once washed… to a muddy puddle.

“To its own puke,” said Konrad of Oleśnica, raising his voice yet louder, “and to a muddy puddle has returned the apostate and heretic Reinmar of Bielawa, robber, sorcerer, violator of virgins, blasphemer, defiler of sacred places, sodomite and fratricide, perpetrator of numerous crimes; a scoundrel, who ultimus diebus Decembris treacherously murdered the good and upstanding Duke Jan, Lord of Ziębice, with a knife in the back.

“Therefore, in the name of God Almighty, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the name of all the Lord’s Saints, by the power invested in us, we excommunicate the apostate Reinmar of Bielawa from the confraternity of the Body and Blood of our Lord. We sever the bond cleaving him to the bosom of the Holy Church and drive him from the congregation of the faithful!”

Nothing could be heard but panting and gasps in the silence that descended in the naves. A stifled cough. A hiccup.

“Anathema sit! Excommunicated is Reinmar of Bielawa! May he be cursed in his house and garden, cursed in living and dying, standing, sitting, working and walking, cursed in the town, in the hamlet and on the soil, in the fields, in the woods, in the meads and the pastures, in the hills and in the vales. May incurable ailments, pestilence, Egyptian boils, haemorrhoids, scabies and scabs fall on his eyes, throat, tongue, mouth, neck, chest, lungs, ears, nostrils, arms and testicles; on every bodily member from the top of his head to his feet. May his house, his table and his bed be cursed, his horse and his dog. May his food and beverages be cursed, and everything he doth possess.”

Elencza felt a tear rolling down her cheek.