Father Felicjan sobbed heart-rendingly.

“The bishop won’t learn it from me, if that reassures you,” the Wallcreeper went on, adjusting a cuff. “Because it doesn’t concern me. What concerns me is something else… You spy for the Inquisition and I want to know… Hey, Brother—why do I suddenly sense fear? Do you still have something more to hide?”

“I’ll tell you everything!” sobbed Felicjan. “Make a clean breast of it! I didn’t do it willingly! They made me! They attacked me. Beat me up! They threatened me… That if I betrayed them, they’d kill me… I can’t talk about it…”

The Wallcreeper ground his teeth. He seized the priest by the collar, pulled him up and pressed him against a vat of fish with one knee.

“Can’t?” he hissed. “Well, let me help you.”

He grabbed the altarist by the wrist and growled a spell. There was a hiss, and there was smoke. Father Felicjan cringed, his face turned black and a terrible yell shook the floor of the courtyard. The Wallcreeper didn’t let go until he could smell burning flesh. When finally released, the altarist fell to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably, gently holding his burned hand close to his belly.

“Rub ointment into your hand and it’ll be as right as rain in a couple of weeks,” said the Wallcreeper, straightening up. “But your genitals, oh, it’d be much harder to heal your genitals. Talk, whoreson, before I scorch your balls. Are they dear to you? Do they matter to you? Are you fond of them? Well, then, now tell me everything. Don’t conceal anything. Don’t utter a single untruth.”

And Father Felicjan, sobbing, weeping and blubbering, told him everything. He didn’t conceal anything or speak a single untruth.

“It was Reinmar of Bielawa…” he finished, voice faltering. “An excommunicated heretic… He was disguised with a spell, but I recognised his voice… He beat me and tortured me… Threatened to kill me—”

“Inquisitor Gregory Hejncze,” the Wallcreeper summarised, “the man you inform to, is holding a maiden, Jutta of Apolda, somewhere in secret. Reynevan Bielawa ordered you to find out where she is imprisoned. How is he to make contact with you? Who were his accomplices?”

Father Felicjan burst out crying. So pathetically that the Wallcreeper believed in his ignorance.

“What have you found out?”

“Nothing at all…” sobbed the altarist. “How can I? I am but a worm… How can I learn the Inquisition’s secrets?”

“You are a spy of the Inquisition. Meaning Hejncze trusts you to an extent.”

“I’m a miserable wretch—”