“Aye, there were,” said the priest unexpectedly. “Yesterday, in Wąwolnica, near the church. Just as the angelus was tolling… They looked like stern swordsmen. Four of them. The horsemen of the Apocalypse, in sooth.”

“I knew it!” screamed Gryzelda in a voice hoarse and strained from crying, shooting a look worthy of a basilisk at Reynevan. “I knew as soon as I saw you, you scoundrel! It’s because of you! Because of your trespasses and misdeeds!”

“Another Bielawa.” Walpot Der emphasised the title with a sneer. “Also a nobleman. But this one dabbles in leeches and enemas.”

“Scoundrel, ne’er-do-well!” Gryzelda’s screams grew louder and louder. “Whoever orphaned these children was on your trail! Nothing but woe do you cause! All you ever brought your brother was shame and distress! What do you want here? Sniffing around for an inheritance, you vulture? Begone! Begone from my house!”

Reynevan barely succeeded in controlling his trembling hands, but he couldn’t find his voice. He was seething inside with rage and fury, fighting a great urge to tell the Ders what he thought about their entire family, who were only able to play at being lords and ladies thanks to the money Peterlin earned from the fulling mill. But he restrained himself. Peterlin was dead. He lay, murdered, with Hungarian ducats on his eyes, in his own village hall, among smoking candles, resting on a red cloth, on a bier. Peterlin was dead. It was revolting to quarrel and bicker in the presence of his corpse. The very thought sickened him. Furthermore, Reynevan feared that he would collapse into tears if he opened his mouth.

He left without a word.

Mourning and dejection hung over the village of Balbinów. It was empty and silent, the servants having made themselves scarce, prudently staying out of the way of the grief-stricken mourners. Not even the dogs were barking. There were no dogs to be seen. Apart from…

He rubbed his tear-filled eyes. The black mastiff sitting between the stable and the washhouse was no apparition. Nor did it have any intention of vanishing.

Reynevan glanced quickly around the courtyard and entered the building via the coach house. He walked beside a trough—the building was simultaneously a cowshed and a pigsty—and reached the horses’ stalls. Kneeling in the corner of the stall usually occupied by Peterlin’s horse, on straw he had swept aside, jabbing a knife into the clay floor, was Urban Horn.

“What you’re searching for isn’t here,” said Reynevan, amazed at his own calmness. Horn, surprisingly, didn’t look at all nonplussed. He met Reynevan’s eyes, staying where he was.

“What you’re searching for was concealed somewhere else. But it doesn’t exist any longer. It was destroyed by fire.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed.” Reynevan pulled from his pocket a charred piece of paper and threw it carelessly down onto the clay floor. Horn still didn’t stand up.