“Who attacked you? Speak, lad! Calm yourself. You survived. You’re in no danger now.”

“God preserved us…” Panic was still swimming in the stableman’s eyes. “And Our Lady of Bardo—”

“You can pay for a Mass later. But speak now and tell us who attacked you?”

“How should I know? They attacked… They were in armour… In iron… Like you…”

“Knights!” a beanpole with the face of a monk bearing two crossed silver posts on a red shield said angrily. “Knights attacking merchants on highways! Zounds, it’s high time to put an end to these Raubritter practices and take some severe measures! Perhaps when a few heads roll, the lordlings from their little castles will come to their senses!”

“Amen to that,” said Wencel of Hartha, nodding inscrutably. “Amen to that, m’Lord Runge.”

“But why were you attacked?” Oppeln reopened the enquiry. “Were you carrying any valuables?”

“Why, no… Well, unless you count the horses…”

“Horses,” Hartha repeated pensively. “A desirable thing, horses from Skałka. From Lady Dzierżka of Wirsing’s stud… Lord, have mercy on her—”

He broke off, swallowed, unable to tear his eyes from the mutilated face of a woman lying on the sand in a horrifyingly unnatural position.

“That’s not her.” The stableman blinked his vacant eyes. “That’s not Lady Dzierżka. That’s the head groom’s woman… Him what’s lying over there… She rode with us from Kłodzko…”

“They erred,” Kauffung stated coolly. “They took the head groom’s woman for Dzierżka.”

“They had to,” confirmed the stableman unemotionally. “Because…”

“Because what?”

“She looked more aristocratic.”

“Do you suggest, Sir Wilhelm,” said Oppeln, straightening up in the saddle, “that it wasn’t a robbery? That Lady Wirsing was—”

“Was the target? Yes. I’m certain of it.” Seeing the enquiring looks of the other knights, he added, “Like Mikołaj Neumarkt and Fabian Pfefferkorn… Like the others, who—contrary to prohibitions—were trading with… with foreigners.”

“The robber knights are guilty,” Runge said emphatically. “One cannot lend credence to foolish tales, rumours about plots and nocturnal demons. They’ve all been ordinary robberies.”

“The crimes may also have been committed by Jews,” said young Heinrich, called “Starling” to distinguish him from the other Heinrichs in his family. “To obtain Christian blood, you know, for matzah. Look at this one here, the poor wretch. I don’t think there’s a drop of blood left in him—”

“How could there be,” Wencel of Hartha glanced pityingly at the youngster, “when his head is gone—”