In addition to the bay stallion with the white arrow on its forehead, Canon Otto had also given him a pouch for the road, much heavier than the one he had received a week earlier from Duke Konrad Kantner. Weighing the pouch in his hand and guessing that it contained at least thirty Prague groschen, Reynevan was once again convinced of the superiority of the priestly estate over the knightly one.

That pouch had changed his destiny.

In the Strzelin tavern he visited searching for Horn, he had come across the canon’s factotum, Father Felicjan, greedily eating thick slices of fried sausage from a saucepan and washing down the grease with heavy local beer. Reynevan knew at once what to do, and he didn’t even have to try too hard. The priest licked his lips at the sight of the pouch and Reynevan handed it over without a trace of regret. And without counting how much it actually contained. Naturally, he immediately obtained all the information he needed. In addition, Father Felicjan was prepared to reveal several secrets he’d heard during confession, but Reynevan politely declined since the names of the penitents didn’t ring any bells, and thus their sins and peccadillos held no interest for him.

He set off for Strzelin in the morning. Almost without a farthing to his name. But cheerful and happy.

Although by no means heading in the direction the canon had instructed him to go. Rather than taking the main road westwards, towards Świdnica and Strzegom, quite contrary to the categorical ban, Reynevan rode southwards, up the Oława, along the road to Henryków and Ziębice.

He sat up straight in the saddle, smelling the pleasant fragrances borne on the wind. Little birds tweeted and the sun was shining. Ah, how beautiful was the whole world. Reynevan felt like shouting for joy.

The comely Adèle, Father Felicjan revealed to him, had managed to escape and shake off her pursuers in spite of being surrounded by her brothers-in-law in the Cistercian monastery in Ligota. She fled to Ziębice, to seek refuge in the Poor Clares convent. Indeed, the priest said, licking clean the saucepan, when Duke Jan of Ziębice found out, he unequivocally ordered the nuns to hand over his vassal’s wife. He put her under house arrest until the matter of the alleged adultery was cleared up. “But,” and here Father Felicjan belched heartily and beerily, “although the sin demands a punishment, the woman is safe in Ziębice and is not now under threat of mob violence or harm from the Sterczas. Duke Jan,” and here Father Felicjan blew his nose, “emphatically warned Apecz Stercza, even shook a finger at him during the audience. No, the Sterczas cannot now do any evil to their sister-in-law. Not a chance.”