Reynevan didn’t know and had never seen the matron. The maiden he had seen sometime before, and only once. The little boy clutching her skirt had light-coloured eyes, plump hands, a head covered in golden curls and generally speaking was a silly little thing—in other words: a small, gorgeous, chubby, freckled cherub. Reynevan had no idea who he had inherited his looks from. And all in all, it didn’t concern him much.

Reynevan only needed a moment for the above-mentioned observations and reflections, which required several sentences to describe. For according to the more learned astronomers of that age, an hour—hora—was divided into puncta, momenta, unciae and atomi, so one could conclude that Reynevan’s reflections took no more than one ounce and thirty atoms.

Sir Jan Biberstein required more or less the same number of ounces and atoms to analyse the situation. His face darkened dangerously, his Homeric brow frowned threateningly, the nostrils of his Greek nose flared and his moustache bristled ominously. That angelic grandson had for a grandfather, it turned out, an evil old devil. And at that moment, the Lord of Stolz of resembled one so faithfully that you could have painted him on a church fresco.

“It’s not this maiden,” he stated, and when he spoke, there was a growling in his throat. “It turns out it isn’t that maiden at all. Somebody is trying to make an idiot out of me. Lady wife.” His voice rumbled in the armoury like a wagon laden with empty coffins. “Would you mind taking our daughter to the ladies’ chambers and talking some sense into her, in any manner you consider appropriate. For my part, I suggest applying a birch switch to her bare backside until you succeed in obtaining some information. When you come into possession of that information, my dear lady wife, and are able to share it with me, appear before me. And don’t try to do so any earlier, nor for any other reason.”

The matron paled slightly but only curtsied, without uttering a word. Reynevan caught sight of her expression as she tugged her daughter by a white sleeve peeping out from under a green cotehardie. It wasn’t an especially kind expression. The daughter—Katarzyna of Biberstein—also looked on. Through tears. There was reproach in her eyes. And sadness. He could only guess at what saddened her and what she reproached him for. But he didn’t feel like guessing. It no longer interested him. Katarzyna of Biberstein no longer interested him. All his senses flew towards another person. About whom, he suddenly realised, he knew nothing. Apart from her name, which he now knew.

When the women had left with the little boy, Jan of Biberstein swore. Then he swore again.

“Nec cras, nec heri, nunquam ne credas mulieri,” he growled. “Why is there so much perversity in you women? M’Lady Cup-Bearer?”