“Reinmar,” said the goliard, licking his lips and lowering his eyes. “The Czechs don’t trust you; various rumours circulate about you… What if it gets out that I spoke to you—”

“To Lusatia or Silesia?” asked Rixa impatiently. “Which way is the expedition headed? For there’s little doubt it will soon begin.”

“I know nothing… But let me think… Lusatia, perhaps?”

“Well, I never,” said Rixa, smiling. “That wasn’t hard. It’s always difficult getting started. And now some details.”

“What do you want from me?” said Tybald Raabe, feigning anger. “What am I? A hejtman or what? I’m a simple agitator, they don’t share strategy with me… But it’s clear to anybody who looks at a map and gives it a little thought… So think a little. Which way will the Tábor go if not along the valley of the Lusatian Nysa?”

“Žitava and Zgorzelec?” asked Reynevan, thinking back to the map he’d seen at Prokop’s base in Odry.

“I wouldn’t rule it out…” said Tybald, clearing his throat. “I wouldn’t rule out a crossing to the right bank of the Kwisa, either. Lubáň, Bolesławiec—”

“Żagań?” Rixa asked in an altered voice.

“It’s possible.”

“When? The date, Tybald.”

“June. I’d say.”

“You’d say?”

“Some are saying Saint John’s Day. Others Saint Vitus’s. I tend towards the latter. But who knows…?”

“Thank you, a hundred times,” said Rixa, giving the goliard a somewhat warmer look. “You have helped very much, I’m utterly grateful. I’d give you a kiss, but I’m shy, I’m really quite bashful. And since you have to go, farewell.”

“Farewell to you, too. Reinmar?”

“Yes?”

“Good luck. I mean it sincerely.”

Five days passed in no time. On Sunday, the twelfth of June, Rabbi Nachman ben Gamaliel called Reynevan and Rixa to him.

“My sister-in-law’s cousin Moishe,” he began without further ado, “gladly accepted the money, as pleased as if he’d bought the Ark of the Covenant cheap. Thus I know who brought an end to Wiryda Hornig’s romance by denouncing her suitor, the apothecary, and putting her into a nunnery, all because of his connexions with the Inquisition. The same man who later became Wiryda’s happy husband. Otto Arnoldus, quite a well-known person, but not necessarily for his virtues. Once a councillor, now burgomeister of the town of Bolesławiec.

“Although the underlying issue was private, not political, your case has something in common with Wiryda Hornig’s, Reinmar. In your shoes, I’d go to Bolesławiec and talk, if not with Burgomeister Arnoldus himself, then with his spouse. She may remember which nunnery they sent her to. There’s a good chance that the Inquisition still uses the same ones.”

“A hundred thanks… We must leave as soon as possible.”

“Yes, yes,” said Maizl Nachman quickly, lowering his voice. “I would advise haste.”