She said nothing for a while and drummed her fingers on the table. She looked him straight in the eyes. For so long that he eventually lowered his.

“In prayer,” she repeated with a smile, and it was a smile worthy of Lilith. “Ha! That is also a way to drive off sinful thoughts… Oh well, then I, too, shall spend the night in prayer. And contemplation. On transience. On how transit gloria.”

She stood up and he knelt down. At once. She touched his hair and then quickly withdrew her hand. He thought he heard a sigh. But it might have been his own.

“Beautiful lady.” He lowered his head still further. “Green Lady. Your gloria will never pass. Neither your gloria, nor your beauty, neither of which have their equal. Oh… If only fate had brought us together in other—”

“Say nothing,” she murmured. “Say nothing and go now. I will also go. I must to my prayers.”

They reached Stolz the following day.

Chapter Fourteen

In which various facts come to light at Stolz Castle. Including the fact that to blame for everything are, respectively: the perversity of women and Wolfram Pannewitz.

Jan of Biberstein, Lord of Stolz Castle, was almost identical to his brother Ulrik. It was known that the Lord of Stolz was much younger than the Lord of Frydland, but it wasn’t conspicuous. It was caused by the knight’s appearance, which was truly Homeric. He had the height of a titan, the build of a hero and shoulders worthy of Ajax. In order to utterly exhaust the Homeric comparisons, the faces and Greek noses of the two Biberstein gentlemen instantly brought to mind Agamemnon the Atreides, ruler of Mycenae. Grave, proud, lordly, noble—but not in the best of humour that day.

Jan of Biberstein was waiting for them in the chamber armoury, a high-ceilinged, harshly cold chamber stinking of ironmongery.

He was decidedly not in the best of humour.

“Everybody out!” he commanded right to begin with, in a voice that shook the spears and glaives on stands by the wall. “Private and family matters are going to be discussed here! I said, everybody out! This does not apply to m’Lady Cup-Bearer, naturally. You are welcome here and your presence is desired.”

The Green Lady nodded slightly and adjusted her sleeve with a gesture indicating mild interest. Reynevan didn’t believe it. She was interested. Very interested, probably.

The Lord of Stolz crossed his arms on his chest. Perhaps it was by chance, but he was standing such that the shield with the red horn on the wall was positioned directly above his head.