Scharley shrugged. “Huncleder operates under the guise of being a military supplier and only allows entry to trusted officers. But in any case, somebody will one day turn him in and then he’ll swing. It’s also possible that a few of the men they catch here will also swing as a warning and an example… But first of all, what’s life without risk? And second of all, in the event, Prokop and Flutek will back us up. I trust.”

If his voice betrayed a faint note of hesitancy, the penitent drowned it out at once.

“Third of all,” he said, waving a hand, “we have something to take care of here.”

Right outside the inn, the dog barked at them again, but ran away as they dismounted.

“I don’t think I need to explain to you the main principles of how the business functions,” said Scharley, tying the reins to a stake. “It’s a den of unhealthy and forbidden pleasures. You can get blind drunk here. You can admire nude girls and sample sex for money. You can indulge in serious gambling. Great caution is advised in what one says and does. As a matter of fact, just to be clear, only I shall talk. And if it comes to cards or dice, only I shall play.”

“Naturally.” Samson picked up a stick from the ground. “Naturally, Scharley.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“I’m not a child,” Reynevan said, frowning. “I know how, what and when to speak. And I also know how to play dice.”

“No, you don’t. Not with Huncleder and his cheaters. And that’s final. Do as I say.”

The hubbub quietened down as they entered. Silence fell and several pairs of nastily staring eyes stuck to them like leeches to a dead cockroach. The moment was unpleasantly worrying, but happily didn’t last long.

“Scharley? Is it you?”

“Glad to see you, Berengar Tauler. Greetings to you, too, Master Huncleder. Our host.”

At the table, in the company of three characters in leather jerkins, sat a broad-shouldered, pot-bellied man with a large nose and a chin disfigured by an ugly scar. His face was densely covered in pockmarks, but curiously only on one side, the left—quite as if the scar above his nose, the nose itself and his deformed chin described a demarcation line which the illness hadn’t dared to cross.

“Master Scharley,” he answered. “I don’t believe my eyes. What is more, in the company of men I don’t know. But since they are with you, sir… We are keen to have guests here. Not because we like them. Ha, we often don’t like them at all. But we live off them!”