“It’s Scharley,” Reynevan guessed without difficulty. “The next building. The officina ferraria. In the village of Rudki, if I remember rightly. A great deal of smoke, so the foundry is also large. Who did it belong to? Oh, yes, I forgot. It’s of no interest to me.”

“It belonged to us. To the Fuggers.”

“What?”

“It’s a Fuggers foundry,” said the clerk, shrugging. “Scharley has just set fire to the company’s property. War damage, Reinmar, affects everybody, everybody incurs losses. It would be suspicious if the Fuggers were an exception. We were going to close the foundry in any case, it was failing. You look peculiar, Reinmar. As though struck dumb. Curious. I hear you’ve been warring these last five years, and yet there are still things that astonish you?”

“There still are. But fewer and fewer.”

“What explains your presence here?” Reynevan decided to risk asking. “In forests full of wolves and bandits, during a war and in the smoke of fires? Exposed to risk, to discomfort and hardships? You got up from the desk behind which you usually direct the world and left your luxurious office. Why?”

“One loses touch with real life behind a desk,” replied the official a moment later. “Hiding behind documents, one stops seeing the real world; behind invoices, bills of exchange and letters of credit, one stops seeing the living person. Routine sets in—and routine is a fatal thing. Furthermore, it’s good to have some excitement from time to time. Experience adventure and the taste of risk. Feel the blood flowing more swiftly in the veins. Feel—”

He didn’t finish. A group of horsemen hurtled out at them from the undergrowth. Some of them were wearing white cloaks. With black crosses.

Reynevan just managed to wind up the lever of his crossbow and fire from the hip. The bolt passed through the neck of the horse charging at him; it reared and tumbled down with its rider. Others attacked them, brandishing weapons. Beside him, a Fire Starter swayed in the saddle on being slashed with a sword. Reynevan managed to seize his battleaxe, brought it down hard on the helmet of one of the attackers, hit him again before their horses parted and saw blood spurting from the dented hounskull. At that moment, blood splashed his face as the riders in white cloaks and crosses mercilessly carved up the Fuggers servants who were putting up meagre resistance. Wounded Fire Starters tumbled to the ground one after the other.

“Alive!” yelled a knight in enamelled armour, clearly the commander. “Take them alive!”