He came to in almost complete darkness, his throat parched and his tongue dry. His head throbbed with a pain that spread through his temples, eyes and even teeth. He took a deep breath and almost choked, there was such a stench around him. As he moved, the compacted straw he was lying on rustled.

Nearby, someone was moaning horribly, someone else was coughing and grunting. He heard water trickling beside him. Reynevan licked his lips, which were covered in a sticky fur. He lifted his head and groaned from the thudding pain. He raised himself up more slowly and cautiously. A quick glance told him he was in a large cellar. In a dungeon. At the bottom of a deep stone well. And that he wasn’t alone.

“You’ve come round,” Scharley stated. He was standing a few steps away and peeing into a bucket with a loud splashing sound.

Reynevan opened his mouth but was unable to utter a word.

“I’m glad you’ve come round,” said Scharley, fastening his trousers, “because I have to inform you that regarding the bridge on the Danube, we’re returning to my original plan.”

“Where…” Reynevan finally croaked, swallowing with difficulty. “Scharley… Where… are we?”

“In the temple of Saint Dymphna.”

“Where?”

“In a hospital for the deranged.”

“Where?”

“I’m telling you. In a madhouse. In the Narrenturm, the Tower of Fools.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

In which, for quite some time, Reynevan and Scharley have peace, medical care, spiritual solace, regular meals and the company of unconventional men, with whom they can freely converse on fascinating subjects. In a word, they have what is usually on offer in a lunatic asylum.

“Jesus Christ be praised! Blessed be the name of Saint Dymphna.”

The inmates of the Tower of Fools reacted with a rustling of straw and incoherent, indistinct growls. The canon of the Holy Sepulchre played with a club, tapping it against his open left hand.

“You two are new to our divine flock,” he said to Reynevan and Scharley, “and we give new people new names. And since today we are revering the holy martyrs Cornelius and Cyprian, then one will be Cornelius and the other Cyprian.”

Neither Cornelius nor Cyprian answered.

“I am the master of the hospital and guardian of the Tower,” continued the monk unemotionally. “My name is Brother Tranquillus. Nomen est omen. At least until somebody annoys me. And it annoys me, please know, when somebody makes a racket, rants and raves, provokes disturbances and rows, dirties himself and the surroundings, uses vulgar words, blasphemes against God and the saints, doesn’t pray and stops other people praying. And commit sins, generally speaking. We have various methods for dealing with sinners here. The oaken club. The pail of cold water. The iron cage. And the chain in the wall. Clear?”

“Clear,” answered Cornelius and Cyprian in unison.