Horn said nothing for a long time and gave the impression he was engrossed in listening to the owls hooting.

“You won’t reveal anything, you say. Splendid, Reinmar. I’m very glad to hear it. Goodnight.”

The winter, it appeared, had yielded utterly to the spring, and there were no signs that the winter meant to fight back. It was the day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the eighth of March, Anno Incarnationis Domini 1429.

Horn was waiting for Reynevan in the hunting chamber of Sovinec Castle, which was decorated with numerous hunting trophies.

“We’re leaving,” Reynevan began without further ado as soon as they sat down. “Today. Scharley and Samson are packing our saddlebags.”

Horn was silent for a long time.

“I mean to storm, capture and burn down Sensenberg,” Horn finally announced. “I mean to finish off the Black Riders, once and for all. I mean to put an end to Birkart Grellenort, after first using him to discredit and annihilate Konrad of Oleśnica, the Bishop of Wrocław. I tell you this that you might know my plans, although you certainly guessed them anyway from the questions I asked of Schilling. And I ask you straight: do you wish to take part in it? Be present? And contribute?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not before freeing Jutta. Jutta is more important to me. Nothing and no one is more important, understand?”

“I do. And now I shall tell you something. Listen. And try to understand me.”

“Horn, I—”

“Just listen. I am neither Horn nor Urban,” Horn began. “An acquired Christian name, an acquired surname. In actuality I am Roth. Bernhard Roth. My mother was Małgorzata Roth, a Beguine from the Świdnica Beguinage. She was murdered by Konrad, currently the Bishop of Wrocław.

“You must know what happened to the Beghards and Beguines in Silesia. Barely three years after the Vatican Council in Vienne proclaimed them heretics, Bishop Henryk of Wierzbno ordered a great witch-hunt. A hastily convened Dominican-Franciscan tribunal tortured and sent to the stake over four dozen men, women and children. In spite of that, the Beghards survived and were not disbanded either during the subsequent waves of persecution in 1330, when Schwenckefeld raged murderously, or in 1372, when the Black Death visited us. The pyres blazed and the Beghards survived. When in 1393 another witch-hunt was undertaken, my mother was fourteen. She may have survived until then because her behaviour was modest in the Beguinage; she remained inconspicuous, slaving away day and night in the hospital of Saint Michael.