“Master Scharley,” the parish priest from Hradec said at length, “who doesn’t abandon people in need. When Piotr of Bielawa died at the hands of vengeful papists, Master Scharley rescued his brother, heedless of the danger he was exposing himself to. Indeed, a rare example of honour for our times, and of friendship. The old Czech saying is apt: v nouzi poznaš přítele—a friend in need is a friend indeed. Meanwhile,” he continued, “we hear that young Lord Reinmar shows clear evidence of brotherly love by professing his faith and bravely opposing papist errors and immoral deeds. Like every pious and virtuous fellow, he sympathises with the Chalice and spurns venal Rome like the Devil. You will receive your reward. You have already, in any case, Reinmar and Master Scharley. When Brother Tybald informed me that the Devil’s spawn had cast you into a dungeon, I didn’t hesitate for a moment.”

“Our thanks—”

“It’s you who deserves our gratitude. For, thanks to you, the money with which that scoundrel and heretic the Bishop of Wrocław meant to buy our deaths will now serve our worthy cause. You will dig it up and give it to us righteous Christians, will you not?”

“The mon… The money? What money?” stammered Reinmar.

Scharley sighed quietly. Urban Horn coughed. Tybald Raabe cleared his throat. Ambrož’s face hardened.

“Do you think to make a fool of me?”

Reynevan and Scharley shook their heads, and there was such childlike innocence in their eyes that the priest restrained himself. But only a little.

“Am I thus to understand,” he drawled, “that it wasn’t you who robbed the tax collector in aid of our cause? If it wasn’t you, then somebody will have to explain himself. Master Raabe!”

“Why, I didn’t say,” mumbled the goliard, “that it was definitely they who robbed the tax collector. I said it was possible, that it was likely…”

Ambrož straightened up. His eyes blazed fiercely and his face flushed like a turkey’s crop in the places not covered by his beard. For a moment, the Hradec parish priest looked not like God the Father, but like Zeus the Thunder-Wielder. Everyone cringed, expecting a bolt of lightning. But the priest quickly calmed down.

“You told me something quite different,” he finally said. “Oh, you deluded me, Brother Tybald, you misled me so that I would send riders to storm Frankenstein, knowing I would not have done so otherwise!”

“V nouzi,” Scharley interrupted quietly, “poznaš přítele.”

Ambrož looked him up and down but said nothing. Then he addressed Reynevan and the goliard.