If Scharley was as fast as a cobra, then the huge Samson was like a python, moving with incredible agility. He parried the kick with a lightning-fast counter-kick, deftly blocked the punch with his forearm and jumped aside. Scharley also jumped aside, flashing his teeth. Reynevan, surprising himself, leaped between them.

“Peace!” he spread his arms. “Pax! Gentlemen! Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Behave like civilised people!”

“You fight…” Scharley straightened up. “You fight like a Dominican. But that only confirms my theory. And I still don’t like liars.”

“He might be speaking the truth, Scharley,” said Reynevan.

“Indeed?”

“Indeed. There have been cases like this. There are parallel, invisible existences… Astral worlds… They can be communicated with, and there have also been… cases of visits…”

“What are you drivelling on about, O hope of married women?”

“I’m not drivelling. They lectured on it in Prague! The Zohar mentions it, Rabanus Maurus writes about it in De universo. According to Duns Scotus, materia prima may exist without a physical shape. The tangible human body is only a forma corporeitatis, an imperfect shape, that—”

“Stop, Reinmar,” Scharley interrupted with an impatient gesture. “Temper your ardour. You’re losing your listeners. One, at least, for I’m going to take a shit in the undergrowth before bed. Which, incidentally, will be a hundredfold more productive than what we’re doing here.”

“He went off to defecate,” commented the giant a moment later. “Duns Scotus is turning in his grave, as are Rabanus Maurus and the rest of the Kabbalists. If such authorities don’t convince him, what chance do I have?”

“Slim,” admitted Reynevan, “because you haven’t dispelled my doubts yet, either. Who are you? Where did you come from?”

“You won’t comprehend who I am,” the giant calmly replied, “or where I came from. I don’t fully understand how I ended up here, either. As the poet said: ‘I cannot clearly say how I had entered the wood.’”

Io non so ben ridir com’i’ v’intrai,

tant’era pien di sonno a quel punto

che la verace via abbandonai.

“For a stranger from the beyond,” said Reynevan, overcoming his amazement, “you have a pretty decent command of human languages. And Dante’s poetry.”

“I am…” Samson said after a moment’s silence. “I am a wanderer, Reinmar. And wanderers know much. It’s called the wisdom of roads travelled and places visited. I can’t say any more about that, but I will tell you who is to blame for your brother’s death.”

“What? You know something? Speak!”

“Not now, I must think it through again. I listened to your story and have certain suspicions.”

“Speak, by God!”

“The mystery of your brother’s death resides in that charred document you rescued from the fire. Try to recall its contents—fragments of sentences, words, letters, anything. Decipher the document and I shall identify the culprit. Regard it as a favour.”