“And now begone,” said the bona femina. “Glory to the Pan Goddess! Aha, don’t forget: after leaving here, no complaints will be listened to!”

“Don’t eat so greedily,” Scharley said to Reynevan. “You’ll do yourself a mischief.”

Reynevan raised his head above the bowl he was shielding with his forearm, and for a moment he looked as though he didn’t understand. Then he resumed devouring the dumplings and fried pork pieces. Having finished them off, he slid towards himself a pot of żurek rye soup and tore a hunk of bread from a loaf. The penitent watched him in silence.

“How?” Reynevan suddenly asked him, with his mouth full. “How did you do it?”

Scharley sighed.

“After we parted, I didn’t know what had happened to you for a long time. I heard about Częstochowa, naturally; everybody did. But how was I to know you were there? And that they threw you in gaol? To put it briefly: you owe your freedom to Rixa. To her information and her connexions.”

“Even so, it was you,” said Reynevan, putting down the spoon. “It was you who got me out of Lelów.”

“That’s what friends are for. Eat a little more slowly. No one’s going to take the food away from you.”

Reynevan glanced at him, his watery, festering eyes squinting. His eyeballs were bloodshot and covered in a dense meshwork of tiny red veins; he was clearly also suffering from intolerance to light.

“I need a barber-surgeon,” said Reynevan, guessing what Scharley was thinking. “Or an apothecary’s shop. Some medicament for my sore eyes. Eyebright, aloes, faeniculum or herba sancta… But first I need to eat, I must eat something. And you talk.”

“What?”

“Talk,” said Reynevan, reaching across the table for some white sausage from the Easter leftovers. “About what’s been going on in the world while I’ve been away.”

“Plenty has gone on. You’ve been away for exactly three years, though it feels like thirty. The times are historic. You can tell because a lot happens, and what happens, happens quickly. While you were inside, too many historic moments passed you by for me to bring you up to date; I’d have to talk till tomorrow morning, and I have neither the time nor the inclination.”

“Find them both. Please.”

“As you wish. Thus, in order: Pope Martin V died. A new one was elected—”

“Gabriele Condulmer,” said Reynevan. “The heavenly She-wolf of the Malachy Prophecy. And the election took place on Oculi Sunday, the fourth one before Easter. It was once prophesied to me. Apart from the name. What name did he choose?”