“Don’t go home,” he said firmly. “Don’t go home under any circumstances. Don’t say goodbye to anyone, don’t say anything to anyone. I’ve brought you a horse, a chestnut, it’s behind the hospital laundry. In the saddlebags there’s everything you might need on the road. Into the saddle and away, at once. It doesn’t matter that night’s falling. You’ll be safer on the road than here in Ziębice.

“Don’t go to the Strzelin nuns, they’ll look for you first on that road. Ride to Frankenstein, and from there take the main highway towards Wrocław. Head for the customs post in Muchobór. There everyone you ask will show you the way to Skałka. Ask for the stud belonging to Lady Dzierżka of Wirsing. Lady Dzierżka will recognise the horse, she’ll know I sent you. Tell her everything. Understood?”

A nod.

“You’ll be safe…” The goliard looked around anxiously. “You’ll be safe with Dzierżka. Afterwards, when everything quietens down, I’ll take you to Poland. If you desire it so much, you’ll become a Poor Clare nun, but in Stary Sącz or Zawichost. Poland isn’t Silesia, but, well, it’s nice there, too. You’ll grow accustomed to it. And now farewell. May God keep you, girl.”

“And you,” she whispered in answer.

“Remember: don’t go home. Set off at once.”

“I’ll remember.”

The goliard vanished into the gloom as suddenly as he had appeared. Elencza of Stietencron slowly unfastened her apron. She looked through the window where the dark of the night was softening, had almost erased the outlines of the forested hills.

She took a cape from the cloakroom, wound a scarf around her head. And ran. But not to the moat beyond the laundry. She ran in the opposite direction.

In the tiny room over the hospital where she lived, there was nothing she wanted to take with her. Nothing she could call her own. Nothing she would have missed.

Apart from a cat.

She treated the goliard’s warning seriously. She knew what danger meant.

She understood its source, remembered the iron-grey eyes of the priest who had questioned her, recalled the fear he evoked in her. But it’s only a moment, she thought as she ran, only a moment, I’ll just take the cat, nothing more, what could happen to me, it’s only a second…

“Here kitty… Here kitty…”

The window was slightly open. He’s gone, she thought with growing terror, he’s vanished into the night in his usual feline way… How will I ever find him…?