Fascination, thought the grey-eyed man, suppressing a grimace. The fascination of the unremarkable girl, in love with a dream, with a painting, with a stanza from Tristan or Erec. Yet another girl who dotes on that Bielawa. One more for his collection. What do they see in him? I’ll never understand women.

“So Reinmar of Bielawa wasn’t among the assailants?” he asked again.

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Are you certain?”

“I am. I’d have recognised him.”

“Were the attackers wearing black armour and cloaks? Were they crying ‘Adsumus’ or ‘We are here’?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

They fell silent. One of the beggars suddenly began to weep. A nurse, a stout nun in the habit of the Poor Clares, calmed him.

The grey-eyed man didn’t turn his head. Or even glance in their direction.

“Miss Elencza. Does your mother… Your stepmother… Does your father’s widow know that you’re here?”

The girl shook her head and her mouth twitched visibly. The grey-eyed man knew what that was all about, for Tybald Raabe had poked around and arrived at the truth. On that ill-fated day, Sir Hartwig Stietencron was taking his daughter to relatives in Bardo, having removed her from his humble estate in order to liberate her from the envious and malicious tyranny of his second wife, her stepmother. In order to save her from the sweaty paws of the stepmother’s two sons, ne’er-do-wells and sots who, after bedding all the local and neighbouring serving wenches, had begun to send lustful glances at Elencza.

“Haven’t you thought about returning?”

“I like it here.”

She likes it here, he repeated in his mind. She didn’t stay long with the relatives she went to after escaping and wandering. She didn’t have time to settle down, accustom herself to it, never mind come to like it. For in December, Bardo was captured, pillaged and burned down by the Hussites, Ambrož’s Orphans from Hradec. Her two relatives, the husband and wife, were killed in the massacre.

Bad luck dogs the girl. Misfortune. Ill fate.

Elencza went to the poorhouse in Ziębice from the embers of Bardo. She stayed for a long time. Arriving as a patient, she plunged into a deep apathy bordering on stupor. Then, after getting better, she began to serve as a nurse to the other sick people. Recently—the intrusive and inquisitive Tybald Raabe had found that out, too—the Strzelin Poor Clares had taken an interest in her and Elencza was being seriously considered for a novitiate.

“And so,” concluded the grey-eyed man, “you will stay here.”

“Yes, I will stay.”

Stay, thought the grey-eyed man. Stay. Much depends on your staying.

Elencza Stietencron.

“Brother Andrzej Kantor?”

“I…” The deacon of the Exaltation of the Cross started on hearing an unexpected voice behind him. “It is I… Oh… My goodness! It’s you!”