The giant greeted them, took a swig of beer and belched. He was trying gamely to act like a foolish simpleton. But when he talked, his speech gave him away. As did the flashes of intelligence in his eyes when he listened.

“We’ll be working at Saint Maurice’s,” he said, after hearing them out. “Is it the Walloon? I try to steer clear of sorcerers.”

“So you will.”

“Someone to be eliminated?”

“Probably not. At most, someone will get a hiding.”

“A sound one? With permanent results?”

“Can’t be ruled out.”

“Very well. My fee is a quarter of a grzywna in silver, or its equivalent in any coin. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“When do we start? I’m a busy man—”

“We know. And a virtuoso.”

“I work in a bakery,” Jasio Kminek said emphatically. “I’ll have to take leave for this. Thus do I ask: when?”

“In three days,” said Allerdings. “On Tuesday. It’ll be a full moon. Our client prefers Tuesdays and moonlit nights.”

Father Felicjan, back pressed against the post, sighed, groaned and moaned. Feeling was slowly returning to his legs, the numbness being replaced by a growing pain. The pain was insistent enough to hamper his concentration. He had difficulty understanding what they were saying to him, so the thug with the repugnantly ordinary face standing over him had to keep repeating himself. Which clearly infuriated him.

“The Inquisition,” he hissed, “abducted the maid and is holding her in secret. I’m talking about Jutta Apolda. You are to find out where she is being held.”

“Good sir, how am I to do that?” Father Felicjan snivelled. “When I am a miserable worm… I’m nothing. What of it that I serve the bishop? For who am I to the bishop? A servant, a wretched servant. And what interests you, sire, is not a matter for the bishop, but the Holy Office. What ties do I have with the Holy Office, with their confidential matters? What can I know of them?”

“You can know,” the thug hissed, “as much as you gain from eavesdropping, peeping and sniffing out. And it’s well known that you excel in your craft. You have few equals in eavesdropping, peeping and sniffing out.”

“What am I? I am but a servant. A nobody! You confuse me with somebody else.”

“I do not. You are Hanys Gwisdek, commonly known as Little Louse. Currently Father Felicjan, promoted to altarist by the bishop in two churches at once—Saint Elisabeth’s and Saint Michael’s—as a reward for snooping and informing. True, Father Confessor? You informed to Canon Beess and then informed on him. Now you inform on Tylman, Lichtenberg, Borschnitz and others. The bishop has promised to advance your career in the hierarchy and give you further lucrative prebendaries in exchange for information. Do you think the bishop will keep his promises? When he learns the truth about you? The bishop will doubtless forgive you for whoring with the Walloon women—even during Lent. But what will he do when he finds out you also inform on him—and no less zealously? And on Inquisitor Gregory Hejncze?”