“Which of our men were given the poison?” he said and turned to look at Schilling. “When? How?”

“I know not. The poison was only concocted at Sensenberg, somebody else took care of the rest.”

“But you, the Black Riders, snatched people to be experimented on. When were you ordered to do so? Until when did it go on?”

“We began,” said Bruno Schilling, clearing his throat and wiping his forehead. “We began the abductions in the winter of 1425, after Candlemas, and we went on until Easter. Then we were ordered to desist.”

Urban Horn said nothing for a long time, tapping his fingers on the table.

Reynevan looked at Schilling, not concealing what he thought. The renegade avoided his gaze.

A warm wind fanned their faces as they stood on the ramparts facing the direction it was blowing from, which was the south, from the Oderskie Wierchy.

“I cut myself shaving this morning,” Horn said grimly.

“That’s nothing,” said Reynevan, reassuring him, although he was far from calm himself. “Perferro requires a more severe trauma to the tissues, has to infect the circulatory system… The lymph, and actually it is—”

“All of us,” said Horn, not waiting to find out what it actually was. “All of us may be carrying it. Me, you—”

“The assassins’ targets were the hejtmans, important men. I don’t include myself among them.”

“You are admirably humble. Pity I hear little conviction in your voice. That Smil Půlpán of the Náchod Orphans wasn’t especially high-ranking, either. Not wanting to brag, I consider us to be much more important. But the best moment to administer the poison is during banquets and Půlpán most certainly feasted with high-ranking hejtmans. As did I. As did you… Ha, but you were wounded last year and you’re still alive. And Schilling claimed they stopped using the poison after 1425.”

“That isn’t at all what he claimed. He only said they stopped snatching people for experiments in 1425. But I have proof they went on poisoning and are continuing to do so.”

“Do you mean Neplach? It’s obvious he was killed by that poison. But he might have taken it earlier. He never engaged in fighting, so a good deal of time might have passed before he cut himself with something iron.”

“I mean Smil Půlpán. I was there when he was wounded in Frankenstein, a year ago, when an iron bolt tore off his ear. But he died a week ago, when I excised that carbuncle with a steel blade.”

“Ha, indeed, indeed. And it confirms completely what you overheard in the Cistercian grange. The bishop and Grellenort planned the killings and Smiřický gave them the targets. That was in September of 1425. A month later, in October, Jan Hvězda, the Tábor’s head hejtman, was shot with a crossbow bolt. The wound didn’t look serious, but Hvězda didn’t survive it.”