“As I said, generally speaking I’m indifferent to who you really are, so I neither expect nor demand either confessions or disclosures. But I’d like to know what to call you.”

“Ask not after my name, it is secret,” Reynevan quoted softly, recalling the three forest witches and their prophecies.

“Indeed,” said the smiling giant. “Nomen meum, quod est mirabile… Samson is as good a name as any other. And my surname, why, I can owe my surname to your ingenuity and imagination, Scharley. Although I must confess, the very thought of honey makes me nauseous. Whenever I recall waking up in the chapel, with a sticky pot in my hands… But I’ll accept it. Samson Honey-Eater, at your service.”

Chapter Fourteen

Which describes events happening the same evening as those in the preceding chapter, but in a different place: in a city about eight miles away in a north-easterly direction as the crow flies. A glance at a map of Silesia, which the author warmly encourages the reader to take, will reveal which city is being discussed.

Alighting in the church belfry, the Wallcreeper had frightened the rooks; the big black birds took flight, cawing loudly, and glided down onto the roofs of houses, whirling like large flakes of soot drifting from a fire. The rooks had a numerical advantage and couldn’t easily be chased away from the spires. They would never have yielded to an ordinary wallcreeper. But the rooks realised at once that this was no ordinary wallcreeper.

A strong wind was blowing over Wrocław, driving dark clouds from Ślęża. The gusts rippled the grey water of the Odra, rocked the branches of a willow tree on Malt Island and swayed the reedbeds between the old river courses. The Wallcreeper spread its wings, squawked a challenge to the rooks circling over the roofs, soared up into the air, flew around the spire and landed on a cornice. Squeezing through the tracery of the window, it plummeted into the belfry’s dark depths and flew downwards, describing a breakneck spiral around the wooden staircase. It landed on the floor of the nave and transformed into a man with black hair and clothes.

The ostiary, an old man with skin like pale parchment, clacking his sandals and muttering to himself, approached from the altar. The Wallcreeper straightened up proudly. On seeing him, the ostiary paled even more, crossed himself, lowered his head and quickly withdrew towards the vestry. However, the clacking of sandals had alarmed the person the Wallcreeper was due to meet. A tall man with a short, pointed beard, wrapped in a cloak marked with the sign of a red cross and a star, emerged soundlessly from the chapel’s arcades. The Church of Saint Maciej in Wrocław belonged to the Knights Hospitaller cum Cruce et Stella, and their hospice was right beside the church.

“Adsumus,” the Wallcreeper greeted him in hushed tones.