“Don’t try tricks like that on me, Pater,” he hissed. “What will you gain by catching me out with a trick question? Look around. We aren’t in a Dominican priory, but in the Brzeźmierz Forests. If I feel in danger, I’ll simply whack you on the head and toss you under a bush. And in Strzelin, I’ll say you died on the way from overheating of the blood and an influx of fluids and humours.”

The priest paled.

“Fortunately for us all,” Horn finished calmly, “it will not come to that, because I am not a Beghard, nor a heretic, nor a member of the Brethren of the Free Spirit. But don’t try any more Inquisitors’ tricks, Oława priest. Agreed?”

Filip Granciszek didn’t reply, but nodded several times.

When they stopped to stretch their legs, Reynevan couldn’t resist. He took Urban Horn to one side and asked what had caused his sharp reaction. Horn didn’t want to talk at first, limiting himself to a few oaths and grunts about sodding amateur Inquisitors. Seeing, however, that Reynevan wanted more, he sat down on a fallen tree and called his dog.

“I don’t give a damn about any of their heresies, Lancelot,” he began quietly. “Even though only a halfwit—and I don’t consider myself one—would fail to notice that perhaps something ought to change, or be reformed. And I can understand that it piques the Church when they hear there’s no God, that no one cares about the Ten Commandments, and that we ought to worship Lucifer. I understand why they’d start yelling ‘heresy’ on hearing that kind of dictum. But what then? What infuriates them the most? Not apostasy and godlessness, not the denial of the sacraments. It is the call for evangelical poverty that enrages them the most. For humility. For sacrifice. For service to God and the people. They go into a frenzy when anybody asks them to renounce power and money. That’s why they attack the heretics so ferociously. Dammit, I consider it a miracle that Poverello, Francis the Pauper, wasn’t burned at the stake! But I fear that every day some anonymous Poverello, unknown and unrecognised by anyone, is thrown on the pyre.”

Reynevan nodded.

“That’s why it annoys me so much,” finished Horn.

Reynevan nodded again. Urban Horn scrutinised him.

“Well, well, I’ve gone on a little,” he said, yawning, “and such talk can be dangerous. Many a man has cut his own throat with his own wagging tongue… But I trust you, Lancelot. You don’t even know why.”

“Oh, but I do.” Reynevan smiled affectedly. “If you suspected that I would denounce you, you’d whack me on the head and say in Strzelin that I died of a sudden influx of fluids and humours.”

Urban Horn smiled. Very evilly.

“Horn?”

“Yes, Lancelot.”