“Permit me, young man,” said Otto Beess, canon of Saint John the Baptist’s and provost of the Wrocław Chapter. “Permit me to succinctly recapitulate what you’ve told me and what has made me stop believing my own ears. Thus, Konrad, Bishop of Wrocław, having the opportunity to tan the Sterczas’ hides, who genuinely hate him and whom he genuinely detests, does nothing. Having almost irrefutable proof that the Sterczas are embroiled in a family feud and murder, Bishop Konrad is taking no steps to deal with this matter. Is that right?”

“Precisely so,” replied Gwibert Bancz, the Bishop of Wrocław’s secretary, a young seminarian with a pretty face, faultless skin and soft velvet eyes. “It has been decided. No measures against the Stercza family. No interrogations. Not even a reprimand. The bishop decreed it in the presence of His Excellency Bishop Suffragan Tylman. And in the presence of the knight to whom the investigation was entrusted. The one who rode to Wrocław this morning.”

“The knight,” repeated the canon, staring at a painting portraying the martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, the only decoration on the chamber’s severe walls apart from some shelves holding candlesticks and a crucifix. “The knight who came to Wrocław this morning.”

Gwibert Bancz swallowed. The situation was embarrassing and always had been. And there was nothing to suggest it would ever change.

“Precisely.” Otto Beess drummed his fingers on the table, focusing all his attention on the saint being tortured by the Armenians. “Precisely. Who is that knight, my son? Name? Family? Arms?”

The seminarian cleared his throat. “Neither name nor family were mentioned… He wore no coat of arms, was entirely attired in black. But I have seen him with the bishop before.”

“So what did he look like? Must I drag it out of you?”

“Youngish. Tall, slim… Black, shoulder-length hair. Long nose, almost a beak… Tandem a gaze that is almost… bird-like… Piercing… In summa, difficult to call him handsome… But manly—”

Gwibert Bancz suddenly broke off. The canon didn’t turn his head, didn’t even stop drumming his fingers. He knew Bancz’s concealed erotic predilections, and that knowledge had allowed him to turn the young seminarian into his informer.

“Go on.”

“So, this unknown knight—who, incidentally, evinced neither humility, nor reticence of any kind in the bishop’s presence—reported on the investigation into the case of the murders of Lords Bart of Karczyn and Piotr of Bielawa. And it was such a report that His Excellency the bishop suffragan could not restrain himself at one point and began to laugh…”

Otto Beess raised his eyebrows.