“Reynevan,” Horn replied seriously, “there’s a war on. We’re fighting it on all fronts. It’s not an ordinary war, but a religious war; there’s never been one like it. A religious war differs from other wars in that men on both sides of the front often end up changing their religion. Today a Hussite, tomorrow a papist; today a Catholic, tomorrow a Calixtine. You had a clear example yesterday, in the person of Sir Jan of Kravaře. Sir Jan had been one of the bitterest enemies of the Chalice and the ideas of Huss. Along with Přemek of Opava and the Bishop of Olomouc, he represented a bastion of militant Catholicism in Moravia. You couldn’t count the Hussites he has ordered burned at the stake or hanged from bare branches. And what happened today? He has changed religion and sides. The Chalice and the Tábor have acquired a powerful ally owing to that change. And you gained your freedom and your life was saved. All in all, our cause has benefited from it. We are waging a religious war. But we shall leave fanaticism and zealous fervour to the masses we send into battle. We—men of higher ideas—ought to aspire to a broader perspective. Pragmatism, laddie. Pragmatism and practicalism.”

“Have I understood your analogy? That man there, that—”

“Bruno Schilling. You understood. And quickly, at that. He’s no longer a Black Rider, not of the Company of Death. He’s changed religion. And sides.”

“A renegade?”

“Pragmatism, Reynevan, don’t forget. Not a renegade, not a traitor, not Judas Iscariot, but a gain. To our cause.”

“Listen, Horn—”

“Enough. That’s enough, end of discussion. I didn’t tell you all this gratuitously, I didn’t keep coming back to pragmatism without reason. You’ll soon appear before Neplach. Remember then the lesson I’ve just given you. Make use of it.”

“But I—”

“Enough talk! Sovinec lies before us.”

They didn’t stay long in Sovinec. Reynevan in particular didn’t stay there at all. He was given a fresh horse as soon as he passed through the gate, beside a forge resounding to the clank of metal. His new escort was also there: five extremely lugubrious foot soldiers. All in all, an hour hadn’t passed before he was on the road again, and behind him the towering column of the bergfried—the most recognisable feature of Sovinec—rising above the forested ridges of the hills, shrank in size the further away he rode.

A short time later, Urban Horn caught up with them.

“It’s as if you can’t part with me,” Reynevan commented tartly. Horn gestured for him to fall back behind the escort. “Could it be you know something I don’t? For example, that you won’t see me alive again?”

Horn just shook his head and reined in his horse.

“I want to give you some advice. Parting advice.”