Cries and horses neighing pulled him out of his lethargy as the ground all around him shook with the stamping of hooves. Splashed with mud, Reynevan pressed the icon to his chest and screwed his face up; the blood sticking his eyelids together cracked and he spat blood clots from his mouth. He tried to get up but was unable to. He heard voices above him. He saw moustachioed faces, weapons, arms in iron vambraces and hands in armoured gauntlets. The gauntlets seized him, gripped him like pliers, he felt searing pain and everything went black. He cringed and curled up under the touch, writhed and flexed, retching, plunged into a chasm again, tumbling downwards.

They left him alone until he came around. Again, he heard the neighing and wheezing of horses, many horses. He heard voices. With immense effort, he raised his head. A well-built, chubby-cheeked man in a sable calpac and overcoat trimmed with sable fur cast a piercing gaze down on him from the saddle of a bay stallion with a golden trapping.

It was Zbigniew Oleśnicki, Bishop of Krakow.

“How is he?”

“They beat him, Your Eminence,” a knight in a short tunic with the Pobóg coat of arms hurried to explain. “They beat him soundly. They stabbed and slashed him with knives. Wound on wound… God only knows if he will live.”

“Arguing probably over the division of spoils?”

“Who knows?” said the Pobóg, shrugging. “Perhaps it was because he forbade them… from destroying it… When we found him, he was holding the Holy Mother, we could barely prise it from his grasp—”

“Why are you not pursuing the gang?” asked Zbigniew Oleśnicki and straightened up imperiously in the saddle.

“We stayed to guard the wondrous painting. It’s a sacred thing.”

“Be off and pursue them. Without delay!”

“Yes, sir, Your Eminence.”

One of the bishop’s men caught his horse by the bit, another held a stirrup and proffered a hand. Oleśnicki dismounted and gestured for them to move away. Then he approached. Slowly. Reynevan tried to rise, but his wounded arm failed him. He fell back onto the grass, not taking his eyes off the bishop.

“In Greek, Hodegetria means a guide,” said Oleśnicki, not looking at him, but at the icon. “She who shows the way. I don’t know if she showed you the right one. Or if she inspired you. For she did me.