The journey was proceeding peacefully and who knows, perhaps it would have been peaceful all the way, had Sir Heinrich not noticed the glistening surface of a lake down below around noon. And because the following day was Friday and it behove them to get in holy-day food in advance, the knight ordered his men to ride down to the water and look around for a fisherman’s homestead.

The lake was large, and there was even an island on it. No one knew its name, but it was probably called Holy Lake. In this pagan land–as if in mockery–every second lake was called ‘holy’.

Their horseshoes crunched on the shells lying on the shore. Fog hung over the lake, but it was obvious it was uninhabited. There was no sign of a boat, nor a net, nor any living soul. We’ll have to search elsewhere, thought Heinrich von Schwelborn. And if not, too bad. We’ll eat what we have in our saddlebags, even if that means smoked bacon, and in Malbork we’ll make our confession, the chaplain will demand a penance and the sin will be absolved.

He was about to issue an order when something buzzed in his head under his helmet, and Hasso Planck yelled horrifyingly. Von Schwelborn looked and was struck dumb. And crossed himself.

He saw two horses: one white and the other black. A moment later, though, he noticed in horror that the white horse had a spirally twisted horn on its domed forehead. He also saw that a girl was sitting on the black, her ashen hair combed so as to obscure her cheek. The group apparition seemed not to be touching either the ground or the water–it looked as though it were suspended above the fog trailing over the surface of the lake.

The black horse neighed.

‘Whoops…’ said the girl with the grey hair quite distinctly, ‘Ire lokke, ire tedd! Squaess’me.’

‘Saint Ursula, O my patron…’ mumbled Hasso, white as a sheet. The crossbowmen froze open-mouthed, and made the sign of the cross.

Von Schwelborn also crossed himself, after which with a trembling hand he drew a sword from a scabbard strapped under his saddle flap.

‘Heilige Maria, Mutter Gottes!’ he roared. ‘Steh mir bei!’

That day Sir Heinrich didn’t shame his valiant ancestors, the von Schwelborns, including Dietrich von Schwelborn, who had fought bravely at Damietta and was one of the few not to run away when the Saracens conjured up and set a demon on the crusaders. After spurring his horse and having recalled his fearless forebear, Heinrich von Schwelborn charged the apparition among the fresh-water mussels splashing up from under his horse’s hooves.

‘For the Order and Saint George!’

The white unicorn reared up like a heraldic emblem, the black mare danced, and the girl was alarmed, it was clear at first glance. Heinrich von Schwelborn rode on. Who knows how it all would have ended if the fog hadn’t suddenly been blown towards him and the image of the strange group dissolved, disintegrating into a myriad of colours like a stained-glass window smashed by a stone. And everything vanished. Everything. The unicorn, the black horse and the strange girl…