“Like you,” said Rixa Cartafila of Fonseca, turning around in the saddle, “I also began in Ziębice. I was aware of Duke Jan’s customs. He would transport maidens to indulge himself with them and didn’t like to travel far to that end. Having marked out a circle with a radius of a mile around Ziębice, it would have been possible in no more than two days to find Jutta Apolda, like Rapunzel, looking out of a tiny window in some castle or convent for her fairy-tale prince. But the Inquisition was too quick. They kidnapped Rapunzel and now you won’t see her again.”

He glanced at her and his expression must have spoken volumes, for she grew serious at once.

“Magic won’t help, since they used protective spells,” she said. “Blackmail and bribery are effective methods, but not for a coward and scoundrel like Father Felicjan. But don’t worry. There are other ways. We are riding, as you noticed, along the Jawor road. In Jawor we will visit a person who is usually well informed, and we shall try to persuade them to share that information with us. But that is tomorrow. It’s important that we are there in the morning, and I don’t want to spend the night in Jawor, for there are too many snoopers sniffing around the inns there. Thus we will stop for the night in Rogoźnica at the Stork. It’s safe and the fleas occur in reasonable and tolerable quantities. Rein in your horse. I must tell you something. And warn you.”

“Yes?”

“We are posing as travelling church clerks; they don’t arouse suspicion or even curiosity. As long as they behave normally. Like clerks.”

“Meaning?”

“When staying at an inn they always take one chamber with a single bed. To keep costs down. Customarily.”

“I understand. But what did you want to warn me about?”

Rixa laughed out loud.

The innkeeper at the Stork accepted them as two clerks without a trace of doubt or a second thought, which reinforced still further Reynevan’s conviction that Rixa was using camouflaging spells and empathic magic, not to mention amulets like the Pantaleon, which she certainly had. Without the innkeeper objecting and for a reasonable price, the “clerks” were given the keys to a small room in the loft furnished with a single stool and a single bed. Without further ado, Rixa took off her jerkin and boots, tried the palliasse and flopped back down on it, gesturing for Reynevan to lie beside her.

They lay motionless. A woodworm tapped inside the wall. Mice rustled and scratched in the ceiling. Rixa Cartafila of Fonseca cleared her throat loudly.