“Let’s go,” said Rixa, standing up, pulling on her hood. “I’ve heard it before, I know it by heart. Schlegelholz, you never saw us. Is that clear? I was never here.”

Before they pushed their way through to the exit, a third speaker, head shaved to the skin, hopped onto a bench.

“Do you sit by calmly, Jawor folk? Then you have piss, not blood, in your veins, if you tolerate the stinking Judaists and their damned synagogue in the town. If you allow heretics, mages, infanticides and poisoners to live among you! Thieves and usurers, bloodsuckers like the fucking chief Jew here, Maizl Nachman! He ought to have been clubbed to death long ago!”

“Well, well,” muttered Rixa. “Something new at last, our patience has been rewarded. Now I know who, what and why. I know the fellow. He’s a former Cistercian monk, a fugitive from the monastery in Doberlug. He’s shaved his head to hide the tonsure. He’s an agent of the Inquisition. It looks as though a nice little provocation is being prepared here.”

“The Inquisition? Impossible,” said Reynevan, growing annoyed. “Grzegorz Hejncze would never lower himself to—”

“Not Wrocław. Magdeburg. Don’t look at them, don’t draw attention to yourself. We’re leaving.”

“It doesn’t concern you, Reynevan. It isn’t your war,” said Rixa, adjusting the mail shirt she was wearing and removing a curved backsword from her bundle. She drew it from its sheath and it whistled as she brandished it.

“I’ve checked, asked around,” she said. “There are plenty of them. A large gang has come from Magdeburg. In addition to agents provocateurs there are also killers. Fourteen men. They’ll attack as soon as it gets dark.”

Reynevan unfastened his hunting crossbow, unpacked it and slung a quiver of bolts across his back. He checked his knife and additionally slipped a misericord into his boot. Rixa looked on in silence.

“It doesn’t concern you,” she said. “You don’t have to get involved and risk your neck.”

He looked her in the eyes.

“You said you wouldn’t tease, I remind you. Let’s go.”

They didn’t have to wait long for the Magdeburg Inquisition, who attacked right after dusk fell. Shadowy shapes, moving so fast the eye couldn’t follow them, suddenly emerged from the darkness to appear outside the house in River Street. A battering ram slammed into the door. The house was at the ready and answered. There was a boom and fire spurted from the hatch in the door. There was a surge among the figures and a cry. The battering ram slammed into the door again; this time a long-drawn-out crack announced success. Rixa spat on her hand and seized her backsword.

“Now! Have at them!”