“We declare Reinmar Bielawa to be set about with perpetual anathema, to be flung into the abyss with Lucifer and his fallen angels. We number him among the threefold accursed with no hope for purgation. May lux, his light, for ever, for ever amen, be put out, as a sign that this excommunicate be put out of the memory of the Church and of the people. May it come to pass!”

“Fiat! Fiat! Fiat!” uttered the white-surpliced prelates in mournful voices.

Holding the candle away from himself with his arm outstretched, the bishop quickly turned it so that the flame was facing downwards and then released it. The prelates followed suit; the clatter of candles cast onto the floor combined with the smell of hot wax and soot from the wicks. The great bell tolled. Three times. And fell silent. The echo lingered for a long while until it faded into silence, high up under the vault.

There was an intense smell of wax and soot, and of steaming, damp, unwashed clothing. There was a cough; there was a hiccup. Elencza swallowed back tears.

The bell in the nearby Church of Saint Mary Magdalene announced the Nones with a double pulsatio. A moment after, it was followed by the bell of Saint Elizabeth’s, only slightly late. Outside the window of Canon Otto Beess’s chamber, Shoemakers Street resounded with a hubbub and the rattle of wheels. Otto Beess tore his eyes away from a painting depicting the martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, the only decoration on the severe walls save for a shelf with candlesticks and a crucifix.

“You’re taking a great risk, my lad,” he said. Those were the first words he had uttered after opening the door and seeing who was standing there. “You’re taking a great risk, showing up in Wrocław. I wouldn’t even call it a risk. It’s brazen lunacy.”

“Believe me, Reverend Father,” said Reynevan, lowering his eyes, “I wouldn’t come here without good cause—”

“Which I can guess at.”

“Father—”

Otto Beess slammed his hand down on the table and ordered him silent by swiftly raising the other. And said nothing for a long time.

“Just between you and me,” he finally said, “the individual whom—owing to me—you rescued from the Strzegom Carmelite monastery four years ago, following Peterlin’s murder… What did he ask you to call him?”

“Scharley.”

“Scharley, ah. Are you in touch with him?”

“Not lately. But generally speaking, yes.”

“Then should you meet that… that Scharley, tell him I have a bone to pick with him. He let me down sorely. The good sense and cunning he was famed for have gone to hell. Rather than taking you to Hungary, as he was meant to, he took you to Bohemia and dragged you into the Hussites.”