Reynevan retreated, tripped and fell. Schilling jumped forwards, yelling triumphantly. Scharley appeared out of nowhere and slashed him hard across the belly with the falchion. The renegade coughed, looked down at the spurting blood and raised his knife. Scharley cut him again, this time across his right shoulder. Blood gushed two yards up in the air and Schilling fell to his knees but still didn’t release the knife. Scharley smote him again. And again. The renegade fell down for a second time. The third time he stopped making any movements.

“Terra sit ei levis,” said Bedřich, crossing himself. “May the earth… and so on. I’m almost afraid to ask… Did you know him?”

“A passing friendship,” replied Scharley, wiping his blade.

“But it’s over now,” added Reynevan. “We’ll strike him from our list of acquaintances. Thank you, Scharley. My brother also thanks you from the beyond.”

“In any case,” said Bedřich and grimaced, looking down at his cut hand, “this friend is responsible for the deaths of these Pszczyna warriors whose worldly remains are now being buried in a dung heap. Were it not for him we’d have lied our way out of it without fighting. Now we must flee from here and fast. Physician, could you bandage my hand?”

“One moment,” said Reynevan, removing his jerkin and blood-soaked shirt. “Hold on a little longer. I’ll just get a needle and thread. I need to sew myself up in a few places, too.”

They rode on, without sparing their horses. Reynevan wasn’t the only one to be sewn up and who was now riding, bent over in the saddle, hissing and cursing. Spytek of Melsztyn had received a slight wound in the thigh in the fight with the Pszczyna mercenaries, one of the Moravians had been stabbed in the ribs and Siestrzeniec’s esquire had been hit hard on the head.

But they were all riding and holding on. They groaned and grunted but didn’t slow the pace.

“Bedřich? How’s your arm?”

“Just a scratch. I asked for a dressing so as not to stain my trousers. They’re new.”

“Have you been wounded before? With iron?”

“At the Battle of Břeclav, on the twenty-sixth, a Hungarian pike in the shin. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

“Schilling…” said Reynevan, deciding to broach a grim subject. “If Schilling was here, it means that he escaped from prison. And that may mean… It may mean that Horn—”

“No,” the penitent interrupted at once. “I don’t believe it. Horn wouldn’t let himself be caught unawares. But while we’re about it—”

“We will have to check,” Reynevan finished. “Let’s take a look at Sovinec. Right after we return to Odry.”

“That will be soon,” said Samson Honeypot, calmly. “In three—at most four—days.”

“Samson?”