The small lake hidden among the trees and surrounded by a swamp, though pretty, stirred feelings of unease and even anxiety. The surface was like pitch—black, still and undisturbed by any life. Although the tops of the spruces reflected in the water were swaying slightly in the wind, the surface sheen wasn’t disturbed by the tiniest ripple. The only movement in the lake was caused by little bubbles of gas rising up from the depths through water thick with brown algae, slowly spreading and bursting on the oily, duckweed-covered surface, from which dry, forked trees stuck out like skeletal hands.

Reynevan shuddered. He had guessed what the penitent had discovered. They’re lying in the mud, he thought, at the very bottom of that black abyss. The tax collector. Tybald Raabe. The pimply Lady Stietencron with her plucked eyebrows. And who else?

“Look,” pointed Scharley. “There.”

The marsh sagged beneath them as their feet squeezed water out of the spongy carpet of moss.

“Somebody tried to cover the tracks,” Scharley said, “but it’s still clearly visible which way they dragged the bodies. Look here, there’s blood on the leaves. And here. Blood everywhere.”

“That means…” Weyrach rubbed his chin. “That someone—”

“That someone attacked the tax collector,” Scharley calmly finished his sentence, “did away with him and his escort and sank the bodies here, in the lake, weighed down with stones from the campfire. If one were to examine the campfire carefully—”

“Very well,” Buko cut him off. “And the money? What about the money? Does it mean…”

“It means,” Scharley looked at him with faint indulgence, “exactly what you think. Assuming you think.”

“That the money was plundered?”

“Bravo.”

Buko said nothing for some time, all the while growing redder and redder.

“Fuck!” he finally roared. “God! You see, but thunder not? It’s come to this! Decency has collapsed, virtue has perished, goodness has died! They plunder, rob and steal everything! Everything! Thieves at every turn! Swine! Scoundrels! Knaves!”

“Rogues, by the cauldron of Saint Cecilia, rogues!” chimed in Kuno of Wittram. “O Christ, why don’t you put a plague on them!”

“They hold nothing sacred, the whoresons!” roared Rymbaba. “Why, the money the tax collector was carrying was for a worthy cause!”

“Indeed. The bishop was collecting it for a war against the Hussites…”

“If that is so,” mumbled Woldan of Osiny, “perhaps it’s the Devil’s work? The Devil is siding with the Hussites, so the heretics may have summoned his help. Or the Devil may have decided to spite the bishop himself… Jesus! The Devil, I tell you, was capering here—hellish forces were at play. Satan killed the tax collector and the others.”

“And what about the five hundred grzywna?” Buko frowned. “Did he take it to Hell?”

“He did,” said Woldan. “Or turned it into shit. There have been such cases.”