“That Bielawa is no kin of mine,” said Kuczera, as though he were excusing himself. “He has been excommunicated, which means he is finished, his days are numbered. But Grellenort cannot do much with what you told him; he won’t accomplish more than us. Two Sundays ago, we happened quite by chance upon Bielawa’s trail, as did the town hall constables. Quite by chance. God knows what he wanted in Wrocław or what he was plotting, where he was hiding, what accomplices he had or how many.”

“Grellenort is a sorcerer,” Hayn of Czirne said grimly. “Black magic will accomplish what you could not.”

Hooves once again thudded in the courtyard as Douce of Pack spurred her horse into a fierce gallop. A Franciscan monk walking across the courtyard flattened himself again the wall, a page in the bishop’s livery dodged behind a pillar and a scribe barely managed to jump aside, spilling and scattering an armful of documents. Czirne and Hunt looked at each other in silence. They knew something about the girl, knew what had brought Ulryk of Pack to Wrocław. Douce, a sweet wench with blue-green eyes and the mouth of an angel, had killed in Klępino two tramps and the village halfwit with a spear, for no reason at all, which had rightly angered the Klępino priest. Sir Ulryk had gone to the bishop with a supplication to try to quieten the infernal priest who was railing from the pulpit against the entire Pack family.

Hayn of Czirne cleared his throat.

“Your daughter is most bold, Sir Ulrik,” he said. “In the saddle, I mean.”

“God didn’t give me a son,” replied Ulryk, as though excusing himself. “Sometimes I think perhaps it was for the best. Nature, they say, strives for balance. If I’d had one, he’d surely have liked crocheting.”

“The first thing the honourable Lord Grellenort did,” reported the spy, wringing his cap in his hands, “was to question m’lord Sir Kuczera of Hunt. He used magic, in two ways. Firstly, in order to test his truthfulness. Secondly, to frighten him. But Lord Hunt wasn’t to be frightened. I don’t know what he told Lord Grellenort, but whatever it was, Lord Grellenort was displeased and irate.”

“He’s always angry,” said Bishop Konrad, grimacing and drinking deep from a cup. “Go on, Grajcarek.”

“After that,” said the spy, licking his lips, “Lord Grellenort ran off to the town hall to question the town guard. Then he returned to the Church of the Holy Cross on Ostrów Tumski and asked the priests about the Reverend Otto Beess, but learned nothing apart from the fact that the canon had gone to Rogów on the first Sunday in Lent and was residing there. Lord Grellenort also went to the Golden Goblet tavern and questioned Lord Eisenreich’s men… Apparently Reinmar Bielawa had saved his wounded stepson—”