“Niece or not,” Bedřich interjected, “we must avoid her at all costs. Come on, to horse. The quicker we get away from Pszczyna, the better.”

“We will,” said Scharley, clicking his tongue at his horse. “So far it’s going like clockwork.”

He spoke too soon.

“Sire!” called one of the Moravians standing guard outside the wattle fences of the tavern where they had stopped in order to purchase feed. “Sire! Some men approach!”

“Soldiers!” called another. “At least a dozen horse—”

“Form up, weapons at the ready,” ordered Bedřich. “Remain calm, perhaps they will ride on.”

Siestrzeniec unfastened a heavy axe from his saddle and slipped the handle into his belt behind him. Spytek slid the haft of his sword nearer his hand but hid the weapon under his cloak. The Moravians hurried to untie the horses from the hitching post. Samson shut the tavern door and leaned against it.

Scharley caught Reynevan by the arm.

“Take this.”

The weapon he gave him was a crossbow of German make. A hunting weapon with a gorgeously inlayed stock and a steel lath, but quite light. Drawn using a cranequin: consisting of a ratchet working on a small toothed wheel, turned by a windlass.

Hooves thudded on the road, a horse neighed and a unit of thirteen soldiers appeared riding slowly in the direction of Pszczyna along an avenue of crooked willows.

“Will they pass us by or not?” muttered Bedřich.

They did not. They rode into the courtyard. It could be discerned at once that they weren’t ordinary foot soldiers; their uniforms and weapons revealed them to be mercenaries. Reynevan saw that they were leading a captive. A man was trotting beside one of the horses, his bound hands tied to the pommel of a saddle.

The commander of the troop, a thin-faced, moustachioed man, glared at Bedřich and company. The man being led turned his head. And Reynevan’s jaw dropped involuntarily.

The prisoner was Bruno Schilling. The Black Rider, the renegade, the deserter from the Company of Death.

He recognised Reynevan in an instant. His eyes lit up with a gleam, an evil gleam, and his face set in a grimace that Reynevan hadn’t seen before, not once, neither during the journey from the Olza, nor during the six days of the interrogation at Sovinec. He understood at once what the grimace meant.

“They are Hussites!” yelled Schilling tugging on his rope. “Those men over there! Those ones! They are Hussites! Czech spies! Hey! Do you hear me?”

“What?” the commander of the troop asked brusquely. “What are you saying?”

“They are Hussite spies!” Schilling blurted out, almost spitting. “I know them! You are holding me captive, though I be innocent, but they are real malefactors! Arrest them! Bind them in fetters!”