“Brunwart, m’lord. A servant at the convent. ’Eard you yelling something outside the gate. But in vain, because that maid isn’t there.”

“Speak! Tell me what you know!”

“Did you say something about money…”

They rode east along the Chemnitz road. Excited by the information he had obtained, Reynevan was leading again and again forcing the pace.

“They fled from the convent,” he repeated one more time, once they had slowed down. “Jutta and another maiden. A priest, the other girl’s lover, helped them to escape—”

“Let’s hope it was the other girl’s,” said Rixa, mugging roguishly and falling silent at his angry look.

“They rode east, towards Dresden,” he continued, “along the Via Regia. It’s obvious that they are heading home… We must catch up with them.”

“They left the convent over a week ago,” observed Samson. “If we’re to believe the servant. They’re a long way ahead. And my horse… I don’t want to worry you, but there’s something wrong with his gait.”

“No wonder,” said Rixa, snorting. “It’s no joke carrying such a giant. How much do you weigh, dybbuk? Twenty-five stone?”

“We must find him a fresh horse,” said Scharley, standing up in the stirrups. “I can hear yours, too, Reinmar, wheezing like a pair of bellows. We need new steeds. What do you say to those?”

He pointed towards the forest, from which a procession of peasants was just emerging along a track.

The peasants—around a dozen of them—were leading some horses. And they were dressed—or rather dressed up—very strangely. And very untypically for peasants.

“I know those horses,” said Reynevan. “And those black cloaks. And those black visors—”

Before he had finished speaking, Scharley and Rixa were already urging their horses into a gallop.

In spite of wearing enormous slippers, the peasants displayed the fleetness of deer and the agility of mountain goats. Having abandoned the loot they were carrying, they loped through the thicket and snow-filled hollows with the grace of antelopes, sped away so swiftly the pursuers had no chance of catching them. Scharley and Rixa only managed to catch one of them, the most advanced in years and probably suffering from flat feet, which Reynevan diagnosed on the basis of his waddling gait.

Dragged by the collar, the peasant cried, yelled, begged for mercy and called on God; all of it very incoherently and practically incomprehensibly. Fortunately, Scharley knew the secret of talking to the residents of rural hamlets. He kicked the peasant hard in the arse, making him suddenly straighten up, after which he punched him in the nape. The result was instantaneous.