The apothecary’s shop had survived; it was where it should have been, opposite the stone pillory in the town square. The ingredients for the lumbago balsam were found, admittedly not immediately, but only after Reynevan had recited “Visita Inferiora Terrae,” a password of the international alchemists’ community based on the Emerald Tablet. That finally overcame the apothecary’s mistrust. Credit must also go to Samson Honeypot, who at a certain moment began to slaver and look like he was about to vomit. The apothecary gave them everything they asked for, on condition that they left.

The town square was teeming with soldiers. The Polish language was being spoken all around them. In its most simplified version. Consisting chiefly of blunt, soldierly words.

“Well, that’s you done for,” Scharley observed, staring at the domed bell in the belfry of the parish church. “Prokop’s got you by the balls. He will certainly keep you close by, but there’s no knowing what plans he has for you. I doubt, however, that they’ll correspond to yours. He’s got you, Reinmar. And us, too.”

“You and Samson can always go back to Rapotín.”

“No, we can’t,” said Scharley, pretending to be looking at some sheepskin coats on a stall. “Even if we wanted to. Prokop’s men are following us—I spotted the tail they pinned on us. They’d sound the alarm at once, I vouch, the moment we tried heading towards one of the town gates.”

“None of us considers Prokop a fool,” said Samson. “Rumours about the shadow of suspicion falling on Reynevan must have reached him.”

“Of course they have,” said Reynevan, adjusting the bag with the apothecary’s purchases on his shoulder. “And now he’s testing us. Very well, so let’s make sure the test is to our advantage. Don’t try to escape from the town for now, and I will go to the castle according to my orders and begin treating him.”

Odry Castle possessed a bathhouse, a modern, stone, elegant bathhouse. But Prokop the Shaven was a traditionalist and a lover of simplicity. He preferred traditional ways, a wooden shack standing among riverside willows, where water was poured from pails directly onto hot stones and clouds of steam suffocated you. Inside the shack were benches made of rough planks which you sat on as you slowly turned red, like a crayfish in boiling water. You sat, wiping the sweat streaming from your eyelids, sipping cold ale to sooth your steam-scorched throat.

And so they sat, naked as jaybirds, pouring water onto the hissing stones, in clouds of steam, skin flushed and faces dripping with sweat. Prokop the Shaven, also called the Great, director operationum Thaboritarum, the Tábor’s commander-in-chief; Bedřich of Strážnice, the Orebite preacher, once the most important figure in the New Tábor of Moravia; and the young Hejtman Jan Pardus, not as yet renowned for anything special. Dobko Puchała of the Wieniawa arms, renowned for a hell of lot.

And Reynevan, currently the Chief Hjetman’s personal physician.