Nicolette saw him at almost the same moment as he saw her. But in spite of his expectations, she didn’t wave to him or cry out cheerfully and gaily. No, she reined her horse around and bolted. Reynevan didn’t pause to think. He spurred the castellan and set off in pursuit at a gallop, around the edge of the downed trees. On the uneven ground, he risked the horse breaking a leg or breaking his own neck, but as usual, Reynevan didn’t think. And neither did the horse.

As soon as he entered the forest, he knew he was mistaken about the Amazon. Firstly, the grey horse was not the fleet-hoofed thoroughbred mare he knew, but a bony, ungainly nag, galloping heavily and clumsily through the bracken. And the girl riding it could in no way be Fair Nicolette. Firstly, the bold and determined Nicolette—or Katarzyna of Biberstein, he corrected himself—wouldn’t be riding in a lady’s saddle. Secondly, she wouldn’t be glancing back in panic or squealing so horrifyingly.

When it finally dawned on him that he was chasing a completely random girl through the forests like a moron or a pervert, it was already too late. The Amazon rode squealing into a clearing with Reynevan right behind her. He reined in his horse, but the skittish knightly steed couldn’t be stopped.

A small entourage was milling about the clearing. Reynevan saw several pilgrims, a few Franciscan monks in brown habits, several crossbowmen, a fat sergeant and a wagon-and-two covered with a black, tarred canvas. An elderly gentleman on a black horse, in a beaver calpac and a cloak with a beaver collar, noticed Reynevan’s arrival and pointed him out to the sergeant and the soldiers.

An Inquisitor, thought Reynevan fearfully, but realised his mistake when he remembered he’d already seen that wagon and that individual in the beaver calpac and collar. Dzierżka of Wirsing had identified him at the farmstead where she kept her herd. He was a tax collector.

Staring at the wagon covered in black canvas, he realised he’d also seen that conveyance on another occasion. When he recalled the circumstances, he wanted to turn tail immediately but wasn’t quick enough. Before he managed to rein around the horse, which was stamping and tossing its head, the soldiers had galloped over and surrounded him, cutting off his escape into the trees. In the face of several drawn crossbows, Reynevan dropped the reins and raised his hands.

“I’m here by accident!” he called. “By mistake! I have no ill intent.”

“Anyone could say that,” said the beaver-furred tax collector. He examined Reynevan with an unusually grim expression, so intently and suspiciously that Reynevan froze, expecting the worst and the inevitable. That the tax collector would recognise him.

“I say, I say! Lay off him. I know that young blade!”