“In order to do anything in Wrocław, you need money,” the esquire interrupted. “One is nobody here without money. So, having money one can solve anything, even the knottiest problem. With God’s help you, too, will cope with your problem, Brother. For you shall have money. I shall give you some. Take no offence that I repay you like a true Eisenreich. Like a merchant. For I cannot do it otherwise.”

“I know,” said Reynevan, smiling faintly. “For I am excommunicate.”

Reynevan encountered another stroke of luck just after noon. He didn’t enter the city with Lindenau, having justified fears that the Świdnica Gate, which was open towards the perilous south, was under the close watch of sentries and other municipal forces. Riding along the bank of the Oława, he reached Saint Nicholas’s Gate, where he mingled with peasants making for the city with various goods and livestock to sell.

He encountered no problems at the gate, since the sentries were mainly bored and indolent and the few active ones were directing their attention to exhorting bribes in the form of hens, geese or sides of meat. Soon after the bells of Saint Nicholas’s Church tolled the Sext, Reynevan had put Szczepin behind him and was walking, leading his horse by the bridle, towards the town centre, now mingled with the crowd of other passers-by and wanderers heading that way.

And barely had he passed Sausage Street than he had a slice of luck. A generous slice.

“Reynevan? Can it be you?”

The person who named him turned out to be a young man in a black cloak and black felt cap. As broad-shouldered and ruddy-faced as a farmhand and with a grin as wide as a farmhand’s. Carrying two large parcels under his arms.

“Achilles…” Reynevan overcame his tight throat caused by the unexpected greeting. “Achilles Czibulka!”

“Reynevan.” The young man resembling a farmhand looked around, and the smile suddenly disappeared from his ruddy face. “Reynevan of Bielawa. In Wrocław, a stone’s throw from the town square. Who’d have guessed it? Let’s not stand in full sight, dammit. Come to my apothecary’s shop. It isn’t far. Here, you can carry one. Careful!”

“What are they?”

“Jars. Jars of ointment.”

The apothecary’s shop was indeed nearby, located in Sausage Street just by Salt Square. The sign hanging over the entrance depicted an object resembling a knobbly carrot and the word “Mandragora” painted below it dispelled any doubts. The sign was actually none too impressive, the building small and probably rarely frequented. During the time their friendship had flourished, Achilles Czibulka had possessed neither a sign nor a shop. He had been employed by Master Zachariasz Voigt, the owner of the esteemed apothecary’s shop called the Golden Apple. Now Czibulka could evidently boast his own business.