Reynevan didn’t need any explanation; he knew what it was all about. What they had overheard in the Cistercian grange meant death; death preceded by torture. No one could be allowed to find out that they knew. The pointed look the penitent directed at the Tower’s other inmates didn’t need any explanation, either. Reynevan also knew that the Inquisition customarily planted informers and agents provocateurs among its prisoners. Scharley, admittedly, had promised he would quickly unmask any spies, but recommended caution and secrecy with the other inmates, even those who appeared genuinely insane. He stressed that even they couldn’t be confided in. There was nothing to be gained by them knowing anything or having any information, he said.

“People stretched on the rack talk,” he went on. “They say a lot, reveal everything they know, mention every possible thing, for if they keep speaking they won’t be tortured.”

Reynevan grew downhearted. So visibly that Scharley finally decided to cheer him up by slapping him on the back.

“Chin up, Cyprian,” he said, consoling him. “They still haven’t come for us.”

Reynevan grew even more downhearted and Scharley gave up. He didn’t know that Reynevan wasn’t at all worried that he would reveal the intrigue he had overheard at the grange. That he was a hundredfold more terrified by the thought that he would betray Katarzyna of Biberstein.

Having rested somewhat, the two residents of the billet at the omega made further acquaintances. With mixed results. Some of the Narrenturm’s inmates didn’t want to talk, still others couldn’t, being in a state that the doctors of the Prague University termed—after the Salerno School—dementia or debilitas. Others were more forthcoming, but even they weren’t too keen on revealing their personal details, hence Reynevan gave them suitable nicknames in his mind.

Their nearest neighbour was Tomasz Alpha, for he dwelt at the foot of a pillar marked with that Greek letter and had arrived at the Tower of Fools on the day of Saint Thomas of Aquinas, the seventh of March. He didn’t reveal what he was in for or for how long, but nor did he give Reynevan the impression of being a lunatic. He called himself an inventor, but Scharley thought him a runaway monk on the basis of his speech mannerisms. Finding a hole in a monastery wall, he judged, didn’t justify the appellation of true inventiveness.

Not far from Tomasz Alpha lived the Camaldolite, beneath the letter “tau” and the inscription POENITEMINI scratched into the wall. He couldn’t conceal his clericality as his hair still hadn’t grown back over his tonsure. Nothing more was known about him, since—like a real brother from Camaldoli—he remained silent. And he bore the fasts that occurred extremely often in the Narrenturm like a true Camaldolite, without a murmur or a word of complaint.