His brother, Peterlin, stabbed and pierced by swords. And one of the men who stabbed him, who delivered the blows, who killed Peterlin, was lying, covered in a blanket, ten paces away, on the other side of the campfire, coughing and sniffing. Under the vigilant stares of the two Moravians whom Horn had instructed to guard him.

Guard him? Or perhaps protect him.

They set off in the early morning. In quite low spirits, which the weather didn’t want to attune with, however. From dawn the sun had been shining splendidly and by around three o’clock it was pleasantly warm. The spring of 1429 came early.

As they rode, Reynevan ostentatiously kept himself apart and looked the other way whenever Horn tried to make eye contact. Horn quite quickly wearied of his behaviour.

“Stop bloody sulking,” he drawled, trotting over. “It is as it is, you can’t change the situation. So get used to it. And accept it.”

Reynevan nodded towards the sick man: “Accept the fact that my brother’s murderer, the blackguard who tried to kill me last night, is riding along on a black horse over there, as if nothing happened? Though he should be swinging from a bare branch?”

The sick man, riding a dozen paces ahead of them, the Black Rider, Bruno Schilling—Reynevan still couldn’t decide what to call him—appeared to sense they were talking about him, for he kept glancing over furtively. The two Moravians watched him constantly.

“You ordered them, I see, to have taut crossbows at the ready,” observed Reynevan. “That’s not enough, Horn, not nearly enough. I once played a part in killing one of them. Four bolts—sunk up to the fletching—were needed to finish him off.”

“Thank you for the advice. But leave it to me. I know what I’m doing.”

“If you knew, if you were transporting him as a prisoner to be questioned, you’d order him bound and transported in an armoured wagon, like the one we travelled in to the exchange yesterday. But you’re taking good care of him, looking after him. He’s a murderer. An assassin, an unthinking machine, killing to order. A member of the Company of Death that terrorises Silesia! There’s no way of calculating how many people they have killed. Our people, men loyal to our cause. People who helped us and collaborated with us. And you—even though you’re well aware of it—haven’t even ordered him bound.”