The evening found them in a forest near a settlement. Smoke crawled over the thatched roofs of the cottages, mingling with the mist rising from the meadows. At first, they planned to spend the night in a hay barrack, buried in warm straw, but some dogs sniffed them out and barked at them so fiercely they gave up the idea. Now, almost groping their way in the darkness, they stumbled on a derelict shepherd’s hut at the edge of the forest.

They heard rustling, scraping, squeaking and growling, and every few moments, the pale lights of animals’ eyes flashed in the gloom. They were most probably martens or badgers, but just to be sure, Reynevan tossed onto the campfire the remains of the monkshood picked in the Wąwolnica cemetery and some stonecrop he’d gathered before dusk, muttering a spell to himself as he did so. He wasn’t quite certain if they were the right spells or if he’d remembered them correctly.

Scharley looked on with interest.

“Go on,” he said. “Tell me more, Reinmar.”

Reynevan had already told Scharley about all his difficulties during the “confession” in the Carmelite priory, when he had also presented his plans and intentions in broad outline. The penitent hadn’t commented then, so his interest in discussing the details was even more unexpected now.

“I wouldn’t like the very start of our acquaintance to be soured by misunderstandings and insincerity,” he said, poking a stick around in the fire. “So, I’ll tell you frankly and bluntly, Reinmar, that your plan is only fit to be stuck up a dog’s arse.”

“What?”

“A dog’s arse,” repeated Scharley, modulating his voice like a preacher. “That’s what the plan you presented me with earlier is fit for. Being a judicious and educated young man, you can’t fail to see that, or expect me to take part in it.”

“Canon Otto Beess and I got you out of prison,” said Reynevan, without raising his voice even though he was seething with fury. “Not from love, by any means, but so—and only so—you could assist me. As a judicious penitent, you can’t have failed to see that. And now you choose to inform me that you won’t participate. So I shall also speak frankly and bluntly: go back to prison in the Carmelite priory.”

“I am still in prison in the Carmelite priory. Officially, at least. But you probably don’t understand that.”