“Don’t be cocksure, my son. Don’t underestimate your opponents. Don’t presume they are stupider than you. Don’t deceive yourself that they can’t outrun you, anticipate your actions or outsmart you. Back then in Schaffhausen, in the case of the Jew, Haddar, a similar oversight almost cost you your life. The current situation, I believe, is similar. Somebody you underestimated, who outsmarted you and got there first. Guessing that whoever has the maiden, has Reynevan. And has something to blackmail Reynevan with—”

“I understand,” said the Wallcreeper, cutting her off and standing up. “Now I understand what it was all about. I suspected something of the kind, but you have put me back on the right track. Now I understand why Wrocław… Farewell, Mother. I have to go and deal with something. I’ll drop by soon.”

The neufra, without uttering a word, gestured with her eyes at the goblet with a lavender drop at the bottom.

“Very well. I’ll bring you more.”

He found Father Felicjan in the service section of the bishop’s court, near the kitchen, sitting on a barrel and voraciously eating something from an earthenware bowl. When he saw the Wallcreeper, he choked on it. The Wallcreeper had no intention of wasting time. A punch knocked the bowl from the altarist’s hands, then he seized the front of the man’s cassock, hauled him to his feet, shook him and slammed him against the wall with such force that some copper pots fell and scattered with a clang. Father Felicjan goggled, wheezed and then coughed up and spat out the remains of a half-chewed mushroom pieróg onto the Wallcreeper’s doublet. The Wallcreeper took a swing and with all his might struck the altarist in the face with a reverse blow, and then dragged Felicjan, wailing, into the kitchen courtyard, covered in feathers and silver fish scales. Felicjan lunged for Grellenort’s legs and seized him around the knees, but a punch hurled him to the ground. He tried to get away on all fours, but the Wallcreeper caught up with him and kicked him hard in the backside. The altarist tumbled nose first into a pile of cabbage leaves and vegetable peelings. The Wallcreeper snatched a poker from the dumbstruck cook’s assistant, struck Felicjan once and twice and then gave him a sound hiding. The altarist howled, screamed out and wept. The kitchen girls and cooks fled in panic, abandoning pots, cauldrons and kettles.

“I’ve been meaning to do that for a long time,” said the Wallcreeper, dropping the poker and standing over the altarist. “For a long time, I’ve thought to give you a hiding, you rat, you scoundrel in a cassock, you fucking mendacious priest. But there was no time, until today. Treat this as an advance payment. Against what you will receive from the bishop. When he finally learns that you are informing on him to Inquisitor Hejncze.”