The wagon bounced so hard on one pothole that Rabbi Hiram woke up, and Father Granciszek, who was about to begin another lecture, almost bit his tongue off. Dorota Faber clicked at the gelding and flicked the reins. The priest adjusted his position on the coachman’s seat.

“There were others,” he continued, “who sinned, like the Flagellants, with excessive piety, which is only a step away from degeneration and heresy. I’m talking about the Beghards from Świdnica and Nysa.”

Reynevan, although he had a somewhat different view of the Beghards and Beguines, nodded. Urban Horn did not.

“The Beghards,” he said calmly, “also known as the ‘willingly poor,’ could be an example for plenty of priests and monks. They also rendered considerable services to society. Suffice it to say that the Beguines curbed the plague in their hospitals in 1360 and prevented the epidemic from spreading, which saved thousands of people from death. The Beguines received a fine reward for that: accusations of heresy.”

“There were indeed many devout, pious men among them,” agreed the priest, “but there were also apostates and sinners. Many Beguinages, including those hospices you mentioned, turned out to be hotbeds of sin, blasphemy, heresy and sordid lasciviousness. Much vice also occurred among the wandering Beghards.”

“You are free to think thus.”

“Me?” Granciszek bristled. “I am but a parish priest from Oława, what do I matter? The Beghards were condemned at the Council in Vienne and by Pope Clement, almost a hundred years before my birth. I wasn’t yet born when, in 1332, the Inquisition revealed practices as dreadful as the exhumation and desecration of corpses among the Beguines and Beghards. I wasn’t yet born when, in 1372, the Inquisition was reopened in Świdnica on the strength of fresh papal edicts. The Beghards and Beguines—”

“The Beghards and Beguines,” Urban Horn continued, “were baited and dogged throughout Silesia. But you’ll probably wash your hands of that, too, O Oława priest, because it was also before your time. Know that it was also before mine, which doesn’t stop me knowing what really happened. That most of the Beghards and Beguines when captured were tortured to death. Those who survived the torture were burned at the stake. And quite a large group, as is customary, saved their skin by denouncing others, turning in their companions, friends and even family to be tortured and killed. Some of the traitors later donned Dominican habits and displayed a veritable neophyte’s enthusiasm in the fight against heresy.”

“Is that wrong?” The parish priest looked hard at him.

“To denounce?”

“To zealously fight against heresy. You judge that to be wrong?”

Horn turned around suddenly in the saddle, and his face had changed.