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?”

Father Felicjan swallowed loudly. And said nothing for a long time.

“What you want to know,” he finally mumbled, “is a secret matter of the Inquisition. Regarding heresy. It is a great secret.”

“Great secrets,” said the thug, impatience audible in his voice, “can also be sniffed out. And the greater the secret, the greater the reward. Look, here are twenty Rhenish gold pieces. I give them to you, they are yours. You can keep them when I release you, with no demands exacted. If, however, you supply me with information and it satisfies me, you’ll receive that sum five times over. A hundred florins, Gwisdek. That is five times more than the prebendaries you now receive annually from your two altarages. So think about it, do the reckoning. Perhaps it is worth the effort.”